What is the Enlightenment, that philosophy that changed the face of humanity beyond recognition, and who are its opponents? And if the age of light brought us out of darkness into great light - why does it seem that we are actually going back? An interview with Prof. Zeev Sternhal
Four out of ten Americans do not believe in evolution. They are sure that the story of the biblical Genesis, according to which God created man on the sixth day, is literally true. Surveys also show that half of the British, the people of the great modern scientist, Charles Darwin, do not believe in the development of man and animals in an evolutionary way, influenced by the environment and the process of natural selection.
What is the explanation for this attitude in such large parts of the population who were born and live in modern western culture? How is it possible for people to improve their quality of life and health?
They are indebted to the achievements of science, which is a direct product of rational scientific and skeptical thinking, consciously prefer to choose an unproven religious myth over a scientific theory that repeats itself and receives confirmation in every experiment and test?
At the end of the 19th century, Nietzsche declared the death of God. The 20th century opened with Albert Einstein in an incredible triumph of scientific thought. The communist revolution declared that religion ("opium for the masses") was thrown into the dustbin of history, and together with other secular ideologies presented an alternative to the "supernatural" thought. The triumph of the rational over the mystical and spiritual seems only a matter of time.
In his famous essay, Immanuel Kant defined the Enlightenment as the pursuit of human autonomy. Man's autonomy is based on the recognition of the power of his mind and his liberation from external forces that determine his destiny. The forerunners of the Enlightenment believed that the light of reason would push back the darkness of faith.
And here, 230 years after Kant and 130 years after Nietzsche, God returns, and most people continue to believe in an invisible God, to accept external authority without question, to obey the instructions of saints and informants, and to treat rational scientific theory as another interesting option, but certainly not binding.
Prof. Zeev Sternhal, recipient of the Israel Prize, was recently appointed as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Sternhall, one of the greatest researchers in the fields of political science and political philosophy, has been researching for many years the origins and values of the Enlightenment movement - the same political philosophy that has led Western culture for the past 300 years, a philosophical movement that is responsible for a large part of humanity's achievements, and probably also for many of its current failures. His last book in the English language, "The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition" (Yale University Press),
Published last year.
What is Enlightenment?
The Enlightenment movement emerged at the end of the 17th century and was established in the 18th century. In France it was called "Siècle des Lumières" - the century of enlightenment, in the Anglo-Saxon world it is known as "The Age of Enlightenment", in the German-speaking world "Aufklärung" - clarification, clarification. All over Europe, the Enlightenment marked the departure from the darkness of the Middle Ages into the light of modern culture - a culture of science and education.
Was the Enlightenment really some kind of alternative to religion? To the mystical thought? Or maybe it is a political philosophy that suited its time and is less relevant to our time? Can you characterize the core of enlightenment?
Enlightenment is a socio-political philosophy that sees the autonomy of the individual as the main principle. The Enlightenment assumes that a person can and should build himself with the power of his mind, that he can, through reason, shape his environment and determine his destiny. The Enlightenment assumes that the individual, the autonomous person, can by the power of his reason free himself from historical, religious and cultural determinism and is able to build the social and political order on his own and for his own good.
There were anti-Enlightenment thinkers in the twentieth century, such as Oswald Spengler in Germany and George Sorel in France, who thought that the Enlightenment symbolized the triumph of rationalism and that it was not necessarily a modern phenomenon. They believed that Enlightenment had appeared and could appear anywhere. Some see an example of the Enlightenment in Athens, especially in the time of Pericles, so also recognize the characteristics of the Enlightenment in the China of Confucius, and finally in Europe of the 18th century.
Some basic elements create the concept of enlightenment - liberalism, democracy, rationalism, universality and secularism. Despite all the political and social struggles, it seems that the biggest enemies of the Enlightenment were the big religions. Is enlightenment necessarily secular? Is it possible for some kind of coexistence between enlightenment and religion?
We must not forget that the Enlightenment was not homogeneous and had different currents. In general, it can be said that coexistence between the establishment religion, which has political ambitions and total demands from humans, and the Enlightenment is not possible. The Enlightenment did not fight the metaphysical belief in the existence of God. A person can believe in higher powers and an overseer, and still accept the basic principles of the Enlightenment.
During the Enlightenment, there were disagreements between distinctly anti-religious philosophers, complete atheists who fought religion and saw it as a collection of myths and superstitions, and others, who thought that belief in a higher power was indeed unnecessary, but could not harm, because it had an important social function.
Basically, the Enlightenment does not accept religion as a social or political force, but only as a private faith. The Enlightenment never denied that man has beliefs, feelings, angers and instincts, but it claims that with the help of reason man can control these forces.
The philosophical anthropology of the people of the Enlightenment began in the 17th century, with Hobbes, and continued with Locke and Rousseau. They assumed, as part of their struggle for the existing order of their time, that man comes before society, and he is the one who creates the social order to meet his needs.
For Hobbes, man is an atom, a solitary creature that moves through space and comes to the conclusion that life in nature is impossible or unbearably difficult, and therefore, in his own interest, he decides to establish a social order in order to preserve his life. Therefore he consciously surrenders his rights to the sovereign, except for the right to life.
This is the main point: Man, in Hobbes, creates an authoritarian regime. He does this solely in order to ensure his absolute right to life. What is important in Hobbes's approach is not exactly the political conclusions, but the philosophical assumptions according to which man precedes society and builds it for himself.
This assumption is what allowed John Locke, 40 years later, to expand Hobbes' concept and declare that a person has additional rights, and not just the right to life (a right that the state or society may not take away from him, since they did not create this right). Locke adds the right to liberty and property, and thus we have the system of natural rights, which evolves and develops in the 18th century and constitutes the ideological infrastructure of the American Revolution and the French Revolution.
Natural rights were given the modern meaning of "human rights" in the French Revolution, hence the political conclusions according to which man built society for his needs, and not the other way around. The individual is the creator of the social order. This utilitarian approach was a tremendous contribution to the development of liberalism and democracy: it created the concept of popular sovereignty and individual rights.
And against this concept of man at the center, an ideological alternative was presented, in which there are alternatives to the centrality of man, movements that you call "anti-enlightenment"?
In front of the reason of the individual, the fools of the Enlightenment place their deterministic point of departure, according to which history is the one that created society. History and culture, forces that are created above and beyond the desires of individuals, are what shape society and the behavior and mental structure of all of us.
We are the products of processes that have deep roots, the individual is a social cell, and it is society that determines our behavior and destiny. Struggle with history, culture and tradition will lead to the destruction of civilization. The anti-enlightenment sees man as a leaf or a branch of a tree, the tree of society or the tree of the nation, and the tree always takes precedence over its individual leaves and branches.
When talking about the concept of the nation, it is worth remembering that Diderot and d'Alembert's encyclopedia defines the nation as a set of people, living on a given territory with given borders and obeying the same government. There is not a word there about history, culture and language, not even about religion and ethnicity.
In contrast, the anti-enlightenment movement sees the nation as something much greater: a one-of-a-kind embodiment of the collective wisdom of the generations, an entity with a unique identity, and usually also with a special mission. The anti-Enlightenment sees the nation as an organic body with a character that cannot be changed, just as it is impossible to change skin color.
From the concept of the "nation" developed the concept of "nationalism", which places the nationality before the individual. Nationalism regressed the autonomy of man in his struggle to free himself from the limitations of history and culture. Are, in this sense, the national movements not enlightened movements?
On the one hand, the national movements constitute a retreat in relation to the idea of the concept of the autonomy of the individual: the Enlightenment placed the individual as a value prior to the nation, and on the other hand, there is no nationalism that does not see the whole as prior to the individual. On the other hand, we must not ignore the fact that nationalism contributed to the liberation of populations and nations from foreign conquerors.
Due to the fact that its main concern is the collective and not the individual, nationalism too easily gave rise to tyrannical regimes. Nationalism was interested in group elections, not individual elections.
In the twentieth century, the great ideologies crashed, and we see a return to religion and, alternatively, to mystical thinking. Is it related to the philosophical struggle you described between the Enlightenment and the Anti-Enlightenment, or is it a different phenomenon?
In the Enlightenment there was a kind of promise, that reason is able to provide a solution to any disease. The failure, or in gentler words, the inability of reason to create a perfect world, is one of the causes of disappointment with enlightenment. Disappointment pushed back to alternative paths, and of course to religion.
But it is impossible to explain the tendency to religion or authority only in the weakness of the Enlightenment. It is also necessary to consider the strength of the anti-enlightenment and the stubborn struggle against the enlightenment. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Enlightenment seemed to be drowning in a tremendous flood of opposition. Europe - the place where Kant and Rousseau grew up - has become the most terrible place on earth. The value struggle continues and will continue in the future. It just keeps getting more complicated.
It seems that the weakness of the Enlightenment in recent years can be attributed less to the strength of anti-enlightenment or mystical thought and more to postmodern thinking, in which there are no longer absolute values.
This is the key problem of the last 30 years. Let's not forget that if the values of the Enlightenment had not been eroded, it is doubtful if postmodernism would have had the same success it had until not long ago. Absolute values are the foundation of enlightenment, and these are independent of time and place.
Relativism, which originated in the revolt against the Enlightenment, tells us that every culture should be preserved and examined from the inside, not from the outside. That is, not according to absolute values, but according to her own values. Because your values are not mine, and everyone has their own values.
Truth or falsehood does not depend on the angle of vision, and the role of a researcher is to strive for the truth. A historian who renounces the pursuit of the truth and the disclosure of the facts as they occurred and their assessment; A historian who accepts the approach according to which everyone has their own truth, and this truth is as legitimate as any other truth, and everyone has their own "narrative" - sinks into dangerous relativism
No one like him.
I think if this approach is applied universally, it leads to disaster. After all, if there are no absolute values that exist beyond a given time and place, by what do we determine the norms of our behavior? Where will we find the proper compass according to which we will organize our social and political life? How do we determine our relationship to others?
The moral relativism of the anti-enlightenment tradition underlies the greatest disasters of the twentieth century. Therefore, we must adhere to the Enlightenment concept, according to which there are indeed universal values, and what is true for me is true for you and for her.
If freedom is a good thing - then it is good everywhere, for all people and at all times. If human beings are equal, they are equal in every situation and under every condition. This is a fundamental principle of the Enlightenment. Why are humans seen as equal since Hobbes was defeated? Thanks to the assumption that they are rational beings. Liberal democratic thought is based on this assumption.
If you take from social psychology the assumptions according to which man is a beast of prey driven by uncontrollable instincts, fears and hatreds, then what logic is there in self-government and democracy?
The Enlightenment says: Man is a rational being, and as such he has the right and ability to control himself, and he is equipped with the baggage that belongs to him by his very nature - human rights. Freedom or equality are absolute values, and cannot be taken away from the individual. This, despite the fact that the people of the Enlightenment were not innocent and knew that our rights and freedoms are a kind of intellectual fiction.
Is democracy and human rights a fiction? In what way?
Indeed, the concept of natural, pre-social rights, and the concept that society is an artificial creation made by man, were nothing more than a fiction or a convention. But this convention is laid at the foundation of the revolution that placed the free and sovereign man at the center of the world.
In other words: our rights and freedoms as autonomous beings are indeed anchored in the fiction that says that at any time and in any place, man, by his very essence, is an intelligent being, and therefore also a free and equal being to all other human beings.
No wonder then that in the difficult times of the twentieth century it was much easier to deny this fiction than to defend it. In the eyes of the fools of the Enlightenment, this fiction was a rebellion against God and man, which came to destroy every known human, social and political order.
Edmund Barak - one of the pioneers of the anti-Enlightenment - immediately contrasted human rights with historical rights: in his eyes, universal rights were nothing but an abstract and pointless invention of the philosophers of the Enlightenment. The only real rights that exist are the rights of a concrete person, given in a historical and cultural context.
According to this approach, the theory of natural law and natural rights, which developed, among other things, following the scientific revolution of the 17th century, the one that Hobbs gave it its philosophical garb, and 100 years later found its fullest expression in Rousseau's philosophical anthropology, is nothing more than the fruit of a distorted mind of the philosophers of the Enlightenment.
The positions of the two camps, despite all the variations within them, were clear: the people of the Enlightenment claimed that everything that separates people is less important and less significant than what they have in common. The anti-enlightenment people thought exactly the opposite: what makes life worthwhile, what drives history, is the difference between people.
To summarize in one sentence: the Enlightenment emphasizes commonality, while the Anti-Enlightenment emphasizes differences. Each path eventually leads to different conclusions, and of course to different social and political methods.
50 תגובות
fresh:
Since you didn't bring any data or argument - I have nothing to argue with you about.
I think my neighbors cat thinks like you too but I never bothered to check.
I did not understand half of Prof. Sternhal's words and I do not agree with the other half. The article contains condescending words on topics that are of interest only to the writer and his ilk. Mr. Rothschild, sorry, but you didn't convince me. Point's words seem more to me.
"At the end of the 19th century, Nietzsche declared the death of God".
I will never understand that. Why exactly Nietzsche?? Why is everyone enthusiastic about his words?
There were enough men and women who claimed that long before him. Why do you quote him?
This tendency to choose one is actually very delusional. (The whole article of course goes this way..not only about him)
For women, God was dead when he was invented.
Yea
A person like Sternhal who wants to voice his opinions beyond the limited intellectual circle he is in, must use sentences that will shock a large public.
This is how Leibovitch behaved at the time (Judeo-Nazis, Diko-Kotel, etc.), and indeed by doing so he was able to convey the message he chose, to masses who had never heard one of his lectures.
point:
I see you can't stop the incitement.
You don't care about politics - you just want to exhaust those who don't think in a way that furthers your political goals so they stop interfering with your political agenda with the real facts
I see that the debate here has been dragged into a political debate.
I see things simply. Politics does not interest me, and I detest any kind of politics or politicians.
This is a scientific site. And as with any scientific claim, one must approach the merits of the matter. And in essence, a person who calls for murder, and a person who discriminates between Jews and non-Jews is not an enlightened person. According to the definition of the Enlightenment.
It is true that Prof. Sternhal does not claim to be enlightened, but the deception is that innocent readers tend to think that every person who mentions and talks about the Enlightenment is enlightened. And so all in all I proved that Professor Sternhall is not enlightened.
And those who defend him personally, reminds me of the way Chassidim defend their rabbis, and he is not a rabbi at all. I didn't expect that on a scientific website.
The contract in the stars:
Why did you expect that these articles that do not bring anything more from Sternhal's words but only illustrate the extent of the incitement against him from channel 7 known for its objectivity and rabbis known for theirs will contribute to peace somewhere?
In any case, Sternhal did not say the things in the Odyssey, and there is no arguing with the things he did say in the article.
http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/180204
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-742328,00.html
Articles for your judgment for the peace of the home on the knowledge site
point (25)
you are awesome!
After you misinterpret Sternhal's words and attribute to them meanings that are not there, you write: "He is a lying and conceited person, who tries to hide his clear opinions under hidden formulations. (so that normal people will buy them.)"
It is really great, almost genius, because this statement can equally be applied to any utterance of any person. The algorithm you propose here is: you have a certain opinion, now in order to slander someone else quote sentences that that person said, put on them your opinion that you decided on in advance regardless of what that person said and meant and if a normal person points out that there is no connection between the things then you say That normal people buy what he says because: "He is a lying and conceited person, who tries to hide his clear opinions under cryptic formulations."
It's a Paul Prof mechanism! I bought!
withering
Jonathan is not just a coward, he is both a fool and a liar - a "deadly" combination.
Creatures like him can only survive in an environment where there are many creatures like him so that as one part they can -what we as humans call it- "poison" all the other groups.
Jonathan (37)
Can you provide a list of regular visitors to the site who share your opinion as you expressed it in your response so that I can get an impression if there is indeed a basis for what you say or are you just a quack and a coward?
To a point:
On behalf of most of the regular visitors to the site, I thank you for the elegant way in which you revealed the pubicity of the trolocator, Haim Topol.
I came to the conclusion that this is a person who makes a good living writing talkbacks on the science website and probably gets paid for each line.
What a shameful sentence:
"The communist revolution declared that religion ("opium for the masses") was thrown into the dustbin of history, and together with other secular ideologies presented an alternative to the "supernatural" thought. The victory of the rational over the mystical and spiritual seems only a matter of time." I don't think the communist alternative to religion was more moral or enlightened.
Avner:
I guess it won't surprise you to hear that I actually accept both of my claims.
Michael - I do not agree with both of your claims. First, although I do not have an argument (and probably neither do you) with Prof. Sternhal's claim that the illegitimacy of the settlements is not conditioned by the level of intelligence, the moral level and any other parameter of the population that revolts against us. However, when a man of spirit and words of Prof. Sternhal's stature chooses to present his position in a provocative package, it is clear that he chooses the manner of presentation in order to attract fire and make the discussion personal, and to create a media rating for himself that, among other things, has a side of personal benefit, and those who fall into this trap He is either innocent or rather jumps at the opportunity to ride the symbiotic wave of the brotherhood of provocateurs. Regarding your second claim about "deeds" born from talk, it seems to me that you are ignoring and underestimating the power of the influence of Israeli and Jewish intellectuals on global public opinion and their influence on decision-making processes, this is a sophisticated and hidden variation of violence and political coercion that occurs in human life, and what to do - annoying. In my opinion, the uncounted is not the proper way and it evokes associations about "deeds" from the days before the state and its first days. In my opinion, the struggle for enlightenment should today focus completely on raising the intellectual and scientific level of the population, this is the one and only parameter that will help us.
By the way, it should be remembered that the same incitement from which the wild attacks against Ze'ev Sternhal stem (and which are a continuation of it and a part of it) has already given rise to actions.
No attack has yet occurred following Sternhal's words and never will.
An attack that resulted from this incitement - also happened.
The discussion of Sternhal's views took place here only on one side, and that - only as a response to the attack that people made here on Adam's body - an attack that was not justified in the first place but which, beyond that, in my opinion, resulted from the fact that the attackers were drugged by brainwashing and in fact did not discuss Sternhal's views at all but In the opinion of a scarecrow they invented to attack.
I think you are all missing the point. The article quotes: "We must not ignore the fact that nationalism contributed to the liberation of populations and nations from foreign conquerors." Prof. Sternhal finds that a so-called total enlightenment leads to disappointment and that in certain situations an anti-enlightenment is necessary (nationalism is a branch of anti-enlightenment), but the bottom line is that he (or anyone else) has no scientific rules for when to cross the lines of enlightenment and move to the other side, and how Returning one after the other to the enlightened side. That's why it seems to me that the quotes cited in his name in the previous responses should not be read as professional research conclusions, but as a political opinion of a completely human public figure, an opinion that consists of a mixture of logical conclusions, emotional disposition, moral opinion/belief, and perhaps also utilitarian considerations. After all, on an empirical level, in all the thousands of years of human culture and thousands of peoples and languages, we do not have even one example of a government that was successful enough to be documented and heard about and that existed on completely enlightened foundations, or on any single ideological foundation, success always comes from a combination of a balance between logic, morality , the physical strength, the intelligence, and the data of nature, with the personality of the leaders. From this point of view, Prof. Sternhal's positions as presented here sound deconstructive and actually strengthen the position of the relativists against whom he comes out. My conclusion is that it is necessary to distinguish between Prof. Sternhal's research findings which make us wiser and advance us, and his political views that there was no place at all to scribble here among the responses and in his shruv there was no place at all to discuss whether they are logical or not.
We need to put an end to this point. A piece of provocateur.
Yes, he will agree that not everyone is stupid. After all, here and there you can see rational and intelligent Palestinians who kill entire families. Although not as intelligent as he expected, because they kill both children and women and babies, but certainly not really stupid. If they just focus on murdering male settlers then they will achieve the perfection of the human race. There is still hope, as Professor Sternhall would say.
point:
I didn't say a word to him.
You are the one who did it.
You are the one who comes back and claims that he says that all Palestinians are stupid even though I am sure that if we ask him if that is his opinion he will say no.
Do you think otherwise?
Come on! After all, in your opinion he loves Palestinians and hates Israelis!
Maybe you'll grow up?!
Regarding the other quote you brought - this is his opinion.
Regarding part of it - I really have no doubt that he is right - there are many who think so - very many. I don't know if it's a majority or there was a majority at the time, but he didn't say he knew it was a majority either.
The proposal to stop arguing with the settlers about the evacuation and simply to return them together with the territories, I personally heard from many people.
I don't want to enter into a discussion here about the magnitude of the mistake in my opinion in the settlement operation, but it should be understood that people see with more understanding the harming of someone who they think is acting from messianic and egoistic motives to the point of criminality than the harming of someone who they believe is acting honestly.
He is expressing his opinion on the situation and in my opinion - not only is he not saying that he is encouraging the Palestinians to carry out any attack - but also - what he does say - is true.
All the conclusions you draw from his words are, in my opinion, wrong.
He is not a liar and a liar.
He does not see the murder of settlers as legitimate (or at least - he did not say so)
The settlement - as I mentioned - is characterized by more than an area of land - it is characterized - among other things - as I mentioned - by ideology - and if you call the child by his name - this is the ideology that the countries of the world see as imperialism.
He neither says nor thinks (and even you don't think he thinks and in my opinion you are simply lying on this point) that the Palestinians don't have even the slightest bit of common sense.
He doesn't like and appreciate people without reason and I think he doesn't like and appreciate the Palestinians either (who, as mentioned - he doesn't - he doesn't - he doesn't! he sees them as people without reason)
He's not trying to make people murder
He does not discriminate between males over a certain age and others any more than any reasonable person (see the laws that determine who will serve in the IDF - where and how much)
In short - almost all of your words seem like a deliberate distortion and if I were in his place and I saw what you wrote I would consider suing you for defamation.
Michael, this time I have nothing but to tell you, contrary to usual, that you are wrong. Absolutely right point. You get down to subtleties here and miss a very simple message that Sternhal is aiming at - you have to kill to achieve a goal. Leave you for a moment from politics and right and left and concentrate on the message as it is.
A rare and rather strange ceremony took place today in Gilgal in the Jordan Valley - an American Christian belonging to the "Sons of Noah" community built an altar and raised four doves for sacrifice, exactly according to the instructions and laws of the Torah. Roy Sharon was a witness
Against the background of the wild landscape of the Jordan Valley and the hot desert air, today a number of people showed up for an ancient Jewish ceremony, centered on the sacrifice of pigeons. The last time such an event occurred was several thousand years ago, in the days of the Bible.
Join News 10 on Facebook »
Roger Grattan came all the way from the South of the United States to offer a burnt offering in Beit Hugla in the Jordan Valley. According to Jewish law, Jews are not allowed to offer sacrifices since the destruction of the Temple, but Roger grew up as a Christian and belongs to the "Sons of Noah", a community that has several thousand members in the United States and believes that God gave the Torah to the Jewish people.
In recent weeks he came to Israel to receive personal guidance from a group of rabbis who encourage the community. He began to learn the laws of slaughter and then built an altar from 70 stones. Four pigeons Roger slaughtered in the hope that God would hear his prayer for the world.
http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=806925&pid=54&sid=126
2) "The danger is that because of the occupation of 1967 Zionism will retroactively become a colonial movement"
This proves that he, Professor Zeev Sternhal, does see danger in everything that happens. And it is not about his objective research opinions, but personal political opinions. (Which is objectively bad, there are many possibilities)
You are wrong. You are putting words into him that he has never said before. And you distort what the person said. Here are other quotes from him that show he didn't say what you intended him to say at all. Taken from Wikipedia down there.
1) Many in Israel, perhaps even the majority of voters, have no doubt about the legitimacy of the armed resistance in the territories themselves. If the Palestinians had a little sense, they would concentrate their struggle against the settlements, not harm women and children, and avoid shooting at Gila, Nahal Oz and Sderot. They would also avoid placing loads on the western side of the green line."
From this quote we learn several things about him:
1) He is a lying and conceited person, who tries to hide his clear opinions under cryptic formulations. (So that normal people will buy them.)
2) He sees the murder of settlers as legitimate. and claims that many Israelis think like him.
3) For the act of murder, "armed resistance" happens (a method of deception, to hide the truth by softening the concept).
4) The realistic background for the legitimacy of the murder is a place of residence ("areas") (primitive thinking justifies total murder on the background of an area of land)
5) The Palestinians do not have even a little sense.
6) He loves and appreciates people without reason.
7) He underestimates the intelligence of humans. And he tries to make them murder. (Again by sophisticated cheating methods of "if you had wisdom you would do so and so).
8) His background for justifying the murder is geographical location (he specifies in which places murder is permitted and in which places murder is prohibited)
9) It discriminates between males over a certain age and other human beings.
Michael, and these are definitely his rational opinions, since he explains it later that this is the right action "if he acted in a rational and controlled manner". And again he only hides and deceives when he says that this is his objective military opinion. And whoever believes this poor excuse of a fraudulent person is simply naive.
point:
That's not what he says.
It's really funny that you have to explain what he says after he explained it himself and I followed him back.
He says that a Palestinian who works to achieve the goals that the terrorists are working to achieve (goals that he himself does not justify and does not recommend the Palestinians to adhere to - he simply sees that they are trying to achieve them) would have benefited from achieving his goals if he had only acted against the settlers (which, by the way, is not just the background of a place residence but also background of ideology).
He does not say things to the average Palestinian because he is not a racist and everything he recommends to people in general - he recommends to the Palestinians.
Michael, the man comes and tells you to your face that a Palestinian has reason to murder settlers. Just as I understood him.
And if you agree with this reading, then in my opinion you are also a dark person like him.
The supremacy of rationality is meaningless, man is motivated by emotions, said all the great psychologists. A person who preaches murder based on a place of residence is not an enlightened person but a dark person.
This is a man full of hatred, and I think that every enlightened person should immediately recognize who is dark and who is not. An innocent enlightened person may fall into the trap that all the dark ones who cover themselves under the guise of enlightened people lay for him. Scammers, imbued with hatred for humanity and society. They should be careful.
I have not seen any statement from him that shows concern for the average Palestinian, how he should live his life in a truly intelligent way. The only thing he has to say to the intelligent Palestinian is to go and kill settlers.
point:
He is the one who said: you specialize in reading comprehension.
He said nothing of what you attribute to him. He only said what you quoted from him which is fundamentally different from the different (and it should be said - different) interpretations of his words.
If Professor Zeev Sternhal was an enlightened person, he would say that all those who identify themselves with the Palestinians must come and live together with those who identify themselves as Jews.
The very fact that he creates such a murderous separation between people (Palestinians who are supposed to murder settlers) shows how dark a person he is, because according to the Enlightenment, people are individuals and not groups (therefore there is no such thing as Palestinians or settlers).
In short, my whole goal was to discover the contradictions imbued with hostility and primitive hatred in his words that come with the acetella of a historical researcher. And so I also asked you what you think Professor Zeev Sternhal says about Hitler's intelligence. Did Hitler act with controlled reason when he murdered Jews or did he have to resort to other murderous methods to fulfill his interests. Of course, this is an objective research question in which he will not express his opinions and desires at all. Obviously. After all, he is an objective and enlightened person.
point:
You are really hard!
Are you going to try to catch me on every word too?
I should now start arguing with you if the leadership of the Palestinians is terrorist and who is the leadership anyway?
Did you really not get my point? I really can't believe it!
The leadership I was referring to is the same leadership that is responsible for the actions themselves and also the same leadership that thinks they should be protected. Both operate - in Sternhal's opinion - in a way that does not improve their chances of achieving the goals they set for themselves.
Regarding your claim that the expression "racism" is only used as a figure of speech, I can say many things. Here are some of them:
1. You say this to frost the enlightenment of Zeev Sternhal. This is demagoguery because the opposition to racism within the framework of the Enlightenment is not a matter of language, but an essential matter, and you are trying to contrast an essential matter with a matter of language (that is, something that, in fact, according to you, you did not mean as such).
2. Then you say "because the Palestinians are a certain group who consider themselves related to each other. And I see this as a humiliating racist statement, to say that they don't have even a little bit of intelligence." Or in other words - that you didn't say it as a figure of speech at all, but on the contrary - that the statement that someone among the Palestinians does not act wisely is truly racist. I suggest you decide!
In relation to the detail that you list what you conclude that Sternhal would have seen as an action that is in line with the goals of the terrorist leadership - whether the detail is correct or not - I can only say "so what?"
And regarding your claims about lack of reading comprehension:
1) It is not possible that Prof. Ze'ev Sternhal meant that the Palestinian leadership has no intelligence, since the Palestinian leadership is not terrorist but peace-loving.
2) The phrase "racism" that I mean is also just a figure of speech. Because the Palestinians are a certain group who consider themselves related to each other. And I see it as a humiliating racist statement, to say that they don't have even a little bit of intelligence.
3) When he talks about intelligence, he talks about murder tactics. who to kill And who not to murder. Professor Zeev Sternhal says that:
Every Palestinian, if he wants to be rational, intelligent, and a balanced and controlled person, must murder other human beings who meet the following criteria:
a) Jewish
B) Male
c) Over the age of 18 (or if by "no children" he also includes boys, he should be asked what common sense says about boys)
d) Living in a certain geographic area (presumably he means that geographic area bounded by what is known as the "green line").
point:
This is obvious!
When someone says "If only the Palestinians had a little sense" he is not referring to the race but to the leadership.
It's an expression that I think everyone uses from time to time in relation to other groups - whether it's the Europeans - whether it's the Americans - whether it's the Israelis or the Palestinians.
This is not an expression of racism at all - it is just a form of language and anyone with eyes in his head understands that this is what Sternhal meant as well.
When he talks about "wisdom" - he is not talking about a scale of values but about the way to act to achieve a goal when the goal is defined.
This does not mean that he identifies with the goal - it just means that the path taken does not match the goal.
He estimates (and he is undoubtedly right in his assessment) that if the Palestinians had directed their armed resistance only towards the settlers they would have received more sympathy and less criticism. Do you disagree with his assessment?
Nothing contradicts itself if to show the "contradiction" you have to use the phrase "there is a reason to assume".
When the contradiction is accepted only based on that assumption that in your opinion "there is a reason to assume" - it is a contradiction to that assumption and not to the original claim.
Michael, you wrote that I have a problem with reading comprehension.
Can I please clarify? What did I not understand correctly?
Amit:
Hebrew also has appropriate words.
To have faith in is ultimately "to trust in" or "to put my trust in" or "to throw my sword on".
In other words, this is not about drawing conclusions or understanding, but an operative decision that will guide our actions in the future.
On the cars of many idiots you can read the phrase "we have no one to trust but our father in heaven" and even though the driver's father is not a pilot.
The problem with "trusting God" in the way the religious take is that they put the cart before the horse: they trust God without having clarified the question of his existence for themselves. They neutralized the probability calculation mechanism I was talking about and thus acted irrationally.
Every person believes. Also secular. me too.
I have said this many times.
I (and any reasonable person) believe, for example, in the correctness of the laws of logic.
Those who say they don't believe are simply confused.
The question is how do you come to the conclusion that claim X is to be believed and another claim is not.
If you believe in the correctness of the laws of logic and if you believe in the claim that the input of the senses represents something about the real world - then every religious belief produces many contradictions.
A person who is honest with himself cannot accept contradictions as normal.
Therefore - a person who is honest with himself draws conclusions rationally and cannot "decide to believe".
In my opinion, the phrase "to believe in humanist moral rules" is based on a category mistake.
You can believe in claims about reality - not in rules of behavior.
The closest thing to faith that can be said about humanist moral rules is that someone "believes that having such rules will increase the quality of life of the human race" or someone "believes that everyone - if they dig deep into their soul - will understand that these are the rules that must be followed" or anything similar - But "believing in these or other moral rules" is like "believing in the door" - it just doesn't belong.
Not all secularists believe that it is good (in the sense of the kind I described above) to act according to humanistic or other moral rules.
This is the belief of the secular humanists and not of other secularists.
The religious does not act according to moral laws but according to religious laws.
Sometimes there is compatibility between religious laws and morality and sometimes there is a contradiction.
One of the situations in which the contradiction is revealed is when the religious says that the religious laws are moral laws. It is a lie and a lie is immoral.
Anonymous and Nahum:
Keep belittling all of you who are smart and honest.
This is the only way you can delude yourself that you are fine even though you claim to be which is moral
.
point:
It seems to me that you specialize in reading comprehension.
Yes, here I found a quote from him on Wikipedia from 2001:
"When I wrote that "if the Palestinians had a little sense they would concentrate their struggle against the settlements, not harm women and children and avoid shooting at Gila, on Nahal Oz and on Sderot", I did not establish a value position here, I did not say what was desirable from my point of view, but I tried to present, As in a war game in the army, how would the other side act in terms of its own interest if it acted in a rational and controlled manner"
That is, according to Professor Zeev Sternhal, and I ask the surfers to decide whether this is enlightenment:
1) The Palestinians do not have even a little sense (isn't this racist arrogance?)
2) If they had even a little sense they should have murdered settlers (?)
3) He is a bit lying and contradicting himself, because there is reason to assume that it was desirable for him that the Palestinians behave with controlled rationality. So why does he claim that "I didn't say what was desirable for me".
Isn't Prof. Zeev Sternhal the one who, as I recall, came to the conclusion that "rationally" the Palestinians should kill "settlers"?
Nahum
You wrote at the end: "Please amuse me..." (Response 11)
Did you mean "Shuponi Ya Nas"?
From time to time I enter this site to meet all the wise men of their kind,
without getting into idle debates about faith or heresy.
This site looks like a contest of who is more "enlightened" = an apostate, it amuses me to read comments like Rothschild and his friends, and heretical articles such as Da.
Amusing please..
And regarding the phrase enlightenment, this is an oxymoron that really has no importance in any dialogue.
It is generally used in the context of exposure to moral priority over others because of position/orientation
And because the debate about one morality versus another is endless, people like Sternhal tend to get bogged down in one or another concepts within the same debate. He is enlightened and those who oppose him or criticize him are not. And if you looked for some of this person's quotes, you can suddenly understand him and what drives him very well.
In short, excommunicate him and anyone similar to him around the aforementioned principle
It is easy to see that he is right in this statement: "faith means the opposite of knowledge and proof" when we refer to "faith that...".
Yonathan: The fact that it has been empirically proven that the muttering of prayers has no value, validity or longevity does not, of course, bother a believer like you, since faith is the opposite of knowledge, it is the negation of the known, and knowledge is, in fact, ignorance and ignorance in their ugly embodiment, one who dares - in his arrogance - to claim superiority over knowledge and to create What a delusional claim as if "believing comes after or beyond or above knowledge". This is only true if you apply the following equation: faith=imagination=in discussion=invention=hallucination=illusion=superstition. And in short faith (any faith) = superstitious faith. There is no need to add the word "teflah" just as you don't say the hot sun every time. The heat of the sun is encapsulated in the name. Because there is no "cold sun". This is exactly how there is no faith that is not pure. The word faith contains in it the blandness, anyway. Indolence is part of the belief that, contrary to imagination, illusion or hallucination, believers have the audacity, as mentioned, to attribute truths or qualities unrelated to the belief, not even by accident.
Regarding faith: the following explanation can be offered:
In English the business is simpler, we have FAITH and we have BELIEVE.
In Hebrew, the distinction, without any choice, is made by adding prepositions that change the meaning of I believe.
There are two basic forms - believes that... - and believes in...
believe that - is some statement about something in the world. A claim about reality.
Believe in is a statement of acceptance of a value or principle.
I believe that the Or party has a chance to enter the Knesset.
I believe in the fundamental principles of the Or party.
The religious Jew believes that the Torah was given at Sinai, believes that it was created in six days, believes that God exists.
The secular disbelieves in this kind of belief, but believes in a system of moral rules that we call humanism.
Amazingly, both the religious and the secular, the one who is not ready to be told that he believes, both alike obey moral values, because they accept certain claims about reality.
The religious person chooses to observe mitzvot because he accepts as truth claims about reality such as the existence of God and the giving of the Torah. For him it is not even a matter of faith, but a rational conclusion from what he sees as an observation of reality.
The secularist who opposes the nickname believer apparently also accepts the dependence of humane moral values on claims about reality, but claims that only rationality is the basis of his way of life.
The scientific rational worldview does not allow basing claims about reality on religious arguments, but only on logical empirical evidence. Claims that are not such, are unfounded (the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai), or cannot be substantiated (the existence of God).
For the secular humanist, the values of humanism are self-evident and do not require any justification. But most secularists, when pushed into a corner, will not want to say that they simply believe, for example, in the equality of human beings regardless of race or gender, but will prefer to explain that these values are really good and will try to base the acceptance of humanistic values on rational, so-called scientific claims, on the reality
Jonathan
I wonder if you will mutter this verse even when Shaid jumps on you.
Even more interesting: what verse will you choose to mutter before that breath decides to separate your head from your body.
Jonathan:
When I read your words I remember how good this world is where your imaginary (and demonic) friend does not exist and cannot answer your prayers/curses.
To Mr. Sternhal: When I look at your face, a blessing from prayer 18 immediately comes to mind:
"And do not have hope for the informers, and all the species will presently perish, and all the enemies of your people will soon be cut off, and the Zadim will soon be uprooted and broken and eradicated and consumed and humiliated and quickly subdued in our days. Blessed are you who breaks enemies and subdues enemies."
And I notice that what is easy for you to notice is not true.
In general, "easy to distinguish" is often a sign of a mistake. For example - it is easy to notice that the sun revolves around the earth and more difficult to notice that this is a mistake.
But the truth is that it is not so difficult to notice that since the belief of the monotheistic religions that push people to determine the lifestyles of others are not compatible with theenlightenment.
בenlightenment - Belief is simply the degree of probability attributed to this or that claim and this degree of probability is affected by the factual findings and not by the "willingness to believe".
To me, in general, the "willingness to believe" is an expression that contains an internal contradiction because I cannot at all choose what to believe and what not. My beliefs are imposed on me by the facts I encounter in reality.
In general - there is no need to reinvent existing words and the word enlightenment is meant to express something contrary to what you want to believe it is meant to express. This - again - is an expression of the difference between theenlightenment and the absence.
In the darkness of the Middle Ages, a free person was forbidden to believe and express what he wanted.
The freedom given today to everyone to believe what they want is the epitome of contemporary enlightenment
Whether the belief is true or not is a secondary debate, and some tend to mix it up, just as they tend to mix science and politics
Faith means the opposite of knowledge and proof, that a person who says I believe in X means that he has no proof of X.
You should not be angry at people who believe in nonsense, you can only be angry at people whose educational horizons are narrow (primarily, I tend not to buy the fact that the "wise" care so much about "narrow horizons" and on the contrary, it is more likely that this is a type of catharsis for the human need called "hate ” – you don't have to be a professor to understand that [or not]...)
The eternal proof of our enlightenment today can perhaps be in light of the fact that even a person who declared that "the armed resistance in the territories is legitimate" [referring to the massive murder of innocent Jews in 2001], without being disqualified for receiving the Israel Prize