rationalskepticism.org

jamest wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:How do we know you're not just answering from your culture?

Because 'my' culture is white/English/British, and nothing I see therein can be responsible for me parroting the OP.

I think you've misunderstood. How do we know you're not just answering from your culture? Your personal awareness of what cultural influences are operating on your views is too thin a counter when the risk is just that such influences can be subtle enough to escape a person's notice.

jamest wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:This project of unshackling the individual from precedent or exterior constraints by means of questioning and philosophy goes back at least as far as Descartes. And it continues on into individualist liberalism and libertarianism and, insofar as these philosophies have filtered down through our cultural machineries and left their residues on our popular and inherited cultures, they seem likewise to have left their residues here.

The only time I ever studied philosophy was to acquire my OU degree wherein for the most part I had to study materialistic/physicalist explanations for everything. I have no affiliation/connection/interest to/in philosophical circles. I.e., there is no philosophical culture pulling my strings.

In other words, I'm pulling my own strings.

If you confine philosophical influence to formal study, you'll have difficulty explaining how anyone here lacking such study could encounter such influence. We have no reason to think philosophy's influence is discrete in this way; it's clearly influenced film, literature, politics, and so on. And because of such influence, the residue of the type I described is possible. But more to the point, you've just deflected from the harder problem I put to you by losing track of the terms of your own OP. Recall: "Cultural brainwashing of all types/kinds gets in the way. We're all slaves from the onset to the incessant chatter specific to our own time/place." Your own stated view at the start of the thread is that cultural influence is a much more pervasive threat than you characterise it in your reply to me.

Despite your complaint here that no one has addressed your original post with sincerity, it seems you've just failed to take my question seriously.