[forgetfreeman]

And how would you know what, exactly? Have you actually taken the time to read any of the man's writing? Because I've been picking my way through his manifesto off and on this evening and so far what I'm encountering is calm, lucid, internally consistent, and a fairly accurate critique. Something about this exchange is reminding me of all of the decades of inarticulate hyperventilating about "communism" by individuals who hadn't bothered to so much as read the manifesto, much less examine Marx's writings.

[lanstin]

Fascinating how good writing and surface intelligence can make absolutely insane ideas seem sensible. Deductive reasoning is, unfortunately, not absolutely reliable for people who have pattern loving brains and good enough memory to make long chains of deductions; evaluating the entire chain as a gestalt and with an eye towards the great amount of data we lack, about the present and past and true material causes, is a necessary step. Like the German electorate that voted for a madman without seeing thru him, or TK in the woods, we are all equipped with he neural machinery to go down this path.

[armitron]

Can you point at something in his manifesto that you'd classify as an "absolutely insane idea" ? I have the vague impression that people either don't engage at all with TK philosophy -but are happy to pass verdict nonetheless- or if they do, simply can't handle the cognitive dissonance that arises and immediately reach for quick relief ("madman", "insane ideas", "MKUltra" etc)

Few if any called Ellul a madman or characterized his ides as absolutely insane, but as far as I know he didn't kill anyone.

[lanstin]

“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” First sentence. Does he object to the diminution of child hood death or violent death, or in his mind does being alienated from nature (fixable in principal by personal choices) outweigh the death of ones children? Totally insane.

On a more personal note, I am always getting panicked by emails from virus vendors about some grand new threat till I walk around for fifteen minutes. I bought toed shoes believing it would transform my experience of walking and hiking. I worried about Congress canceling NPR back in the 90s. When I try to remove some plastic toxic stuff from my diet,mit is extremely hard to avoid a big slide into “purity eating” where a choice to make a slight alteration to the effects on my world i to a matter of moral virtue. From “less antibiotics for the chickens slowing the spread of anti-biopics” to “why do you ask me to consume this swill of the devil?!” Is a small delta in my mind.

For a year or so I listened to all kinds of crypto podcasts or YouTubes / twitter spaces, and it was never long till people brought up anti-vax or global finance conspiracy ideas. I have watched flat earth / scientist debates, and the words of the flat earthers don’t parse as insane.

[emodendroket]

> Few if any called Ellul a madman or characterized his ides as absolutely insane, but as far as I know he didn't kill anyone.

Yeah, probably some sort of causal relationship there.