Ted Rall by Ted Rall
- July 04, 2009
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Dwane Powell by Dwane Powell
Michael Ramirez by Michael Ramirez
About Ted Rall
Deploying the razor-sharp wit and incisive take-no-prisoners satire characteristic of his generation, Gen Xer Ted Rall has become one of the most widely read editorial cartoonists in America. Twice the winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rall's work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers, as well as such magazines as Time, Newsweek, Fortune and MAD. He is also the author of 15 books, including several graphic novels and political polemics about Central and South Asia.
© 2009 Universal Press Syndicate - All Rights Reserved.
Comments (21) Jump to Comments Form
Ira Nayman said, 4 months ago
Absolutely, hilariously brilliant!
Anyol'tomcat
said,
4 months ago
When Jean-Paul re-met Simone. No doubt they are exploring how well Being can satisfy Nothingness.
babka
said,
4 months ago
the deafening sound of brains blinking out, one computer at a time - bingo, Ted. sad & true.
DrCanuck said, 4 months ago
Perfectly encapsulated. Rall is obviously monitoring the posts on this board.
parkersinthehouse said, 4 months ago
After a certain age every man is responsible for his face. Is Rall’s redemption at hand?
edmondd said, 4 months ago
TexasMan: Pearls can be found amid the mire. Why did he give up?
Ted: Futility nonetheless. All is futile.
TexasMan: That makes cynicism futile too.
Ted: At least it pays the bills.
Bill_Clay said, 4 months ago
Nice 4th of July theme, not! ROTFLMFAO!!!1
joeday07 said, 4 months ago
AHHAAHAHHA!! Theres no conflict between phenomenology and free will!!!! aAHAHA
DrCanuck said, 4 months ago
Oh, very good, Joe; I had missed that!
joeday07 said, 4 months ago
Correct me if I’m wrong, but phenomenology is simply the study of consciousness and being from a first person perspective. How can studying the formal structures around us ever show that we don’t have free will? The reason most people hold to free will is because of the phenomenological experience of being able to choose! In any case, I am a determinist that believes in free will (omg!), so why should you trust me?
DrCanuck said, 4 months ago
So how do you solve the inherent conflict between determinism and free will? (This, I gotta hear.)
joeday07 said, 4 months ago
Determinism is the view that every event has a necessary cause.
Indeterminism is the view that some event is uncaused.
QUESTION: How does indeterminism give humans free will?
(If your choose to pick up a glass of water and that choice is uncaused, are you really free or just a random dice?)
Don’t have an answer? Well no one does.
Determinism is only a problem when people mistake “freedom to choose” with “freedom to know my future”. There is such thing as “the future”, just like there is such thing as “the past”. Somehow we think that that past is more “concrete” or real because we know what happened. But remember everything in the past (every mistake, choice, and spark of eureka!) was once future to those people living it. The world is like a giant book which we are writing one choice at a time. We choose our fate.
Don’t get caught up in the “woulda”, “shoulda”, “coulda”.
I chose, now here I stand responsible.
voice_of_reason said, 4 months ago
Wait a minute… I can’t help but wonder how Freud’s theory of behavior being effected (caused) by the irrational subconscious impulses factors into the determinism argument. If we are predisposed to certain choices by factors of which we are not aware and which may not apply to the current options we are choosing from; can they be considered choices? E.g., I like bleu cheese dressing on my salad because my father always complimented my mom about looking sexy when she wore that blue dress and the word “blue” was operantly conditioned to the feeling of well-being I experienced when my parents were happy and then associated with eating because I was too young to understand sex. I might say I like the taste of the dressing, but why did I associate that taste with the idea of “good?” Of course, the coincidence of salad dressing and my mom’s dress is not un-coincidental; but not a rationally derived association either. What my father might have thought of fressing as a practice starts to make me wonder why it was that I choose this as an example in the first place.
Sartre finished off God …did Freud & B.F.Skinner finish off philosophy?
I don’t even know why that question occurred to me… let alone why i posted it.
joeday07 said, 4 months ago
Ah yes, I used to be an existentialist, till I took calculus. I think that Freud factors in perfectly because libertarians have no real way of explaining why psychology works so well.
On the contrary, though…
God and philosophy have just begun.
DrCanuck said, 4 months ago
joeday: you have failed in your efforts. Free will and determinism are categorical opposites.
joeday07 said, 4 months ago
Why is that?
M Kitt
said,
4 months ago
Philosophy sycophants, I deride you, begone! Belittle context not, to analyze is to impose first person perspective making objective self-analysis improbable, at best, wait, no, stop the madness……… :-)
Thanks Ted, a lot less “dark” than others of late.
DrCanuck said, 4 months ago
M Kitt: Pshaw! Improbable, but not impossible. Deride and be dammed. Vive le Logical Positivism!
(Joey, do you have any idea what you’re talking about? If so, please demonstrate such and I shall respond. And not until. Sophist!)
joeday07 said, 4 months ago
A Treatise of Human Nature
Book 2, Part 3, Section 2, Paragraph 1
How dare you call Hume a sophist!
fritzoid said, 4 months ago
I’ve had this argument with a friend of mine many times. He’s fond of quoting Nietzsche with something like “Can one will the sun to rise one second sooner than it would? Then how misplaced is this emphasis on what we call Free Will!” (If this is a misquote, it may be his or it may be mine.)
My point has always been that, even if Free Will DOESN’T exist, it makes no difference. Even if 75%, or 95%, or 99.999% of what happens is beyond our control, we still have that 25% or 5% or 0.001% which IS responsive to our wills, so we should focus on THAT.
It may turn out that every “choice” we make is the unavoidable outcome of individual neurons firing over which we have no control; in this mechanistic model, there perhaps IS no such thing as Free Will, since it IS all simply Cause and Effect. But so what if is this is true? What if it ISN’T true, but one believes it anyway?
If an individual ceases to believe in Free Will, how does that person behave? When he wakes up in the morning, that person MIGHT simply lie in bed all day waiting for his neurons to COMPEL him to rise, and perhaps he is mechanistically “fated” to do so. More often, I think he would simply go about his routine of getting dressed and going to work, and again he is mechanistically “fated” to do so. But perhaps he decides that, whether it’s an illusion or not, he’s going to ACT as if he has influence on his own situation, and set about an endeavor to improve his lot and/or his environment. Once again, it’s his “fate” to behave that way, but in which of these scenarios is he most likely to find happiness and contentment?
It’s a paradox, but we really have NO CHOICE but to act as if we have Free Will…
Propagandist said, 4 months ago
Did Sartre get royalties from Free Willy?