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tomxhart's profile
Tom X Hart
Tom X Hart
Tom X Hart
@tomxhart

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Tom X Hart

@tomxhart

medium.com/@TXHart
Joined March 2018

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    1. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Sep 27

      Tom X Hart Retweeted 0 HP Lovecraft, Eldritch and Void-Soaked

      1. I’m amazed & disturbed how many people, after reading one article of mine that they agree with, write to me as if I know all the answers to life—if they saw the shambolic details of my life they would not do this. It’s easy to see how the unscrupulous could take advantage.https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1045307656804560896 …

      Tom X Hart added,

      0 HP Lovecraft, Eldritch and Void-Soaked @0x49fa98
      It's amazing how readily some people will submit to an altar call in the form of a command. I think in their hearts, everyone longs for an altar, and a powerful god. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1017034563283894278 …
      Show this thread
      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Sep 27

      2. Christopher Hitchens once wrote that his father told him. “The only time I knew what I was doing was during the Second World War.” A lot of people seem to be like that, just desperate for someone to tell them what to do or for someone to assert authority—of any kind.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Ian Jennings‏ @IDJennings Oct 5
      Replying to @tomxhart

      That's a legitimate reading of CH's father's comment, but I'm more inclined to think it means the war gave *purpose* to his life. Submitting to authority can grant purpose, true, but purpose is a deeper, independent need.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    4. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 5
      Replying to @IDJennings

      1. The exact quote: “The only time when I really felt I knew what I was doing”. To me, people know what they are doing when they are being told or when their back is to the wall: wars and extreme survival situations. A small elite can set their own course, but most cannot.

      2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
    5. Ian Jennings‏ @IDJennings Oct 5
      Replying to @tomxhart

      Yes. You were emphasising the "being told" and I wished to add the "backs to the wall". They're frequently, but not always, the same thing.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    6. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 5
      Replying to @IDJennings

      It’s existential in both cases. I think that’s where the purpose comes from. In war, you are told: “Do this, or we will be destroyed.” Rounding Cape Horn, you are told: “Do this, or you will die.” The state in one case and nature in the other— ultimately both are nature.

      2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    7. Ian Jennings‏ @IDJennings Oct 5
      Replying to @tomxhart

      Soldiers are frequently hostile to their commanders, though, and those who have been in combat report that their sense of mission is tied to their sense of comradeship. I'm not sure this can be subsumed under a workable conception of "authority".

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 6
      Replying to @IDJennings

      1. They are hostile to remote “desk jockeys” & bureaucrats (soldiers beyond a certain rank are the same as any stupid bureaucrat, because they must play politics to rise). They may also be hostile to an incompetent local commander who is a “paper tiger”, not a natural leader.

      2:02 AM - 6 Oct 2018
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 6
          Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings

          2. They are, as you observe, fiercely loyal to and motivated by their comrades, rather than abstract ideology. This is because the small team is the most natural state for a man in evolutionary terms. A natural leader will emerge in any such group.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 6
          Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings

          3. This leader may not be the “politically approved” leader, since the paper qualifications to be an officer or commander often do not accord with reality in war. See, cases where the officer is killed and a more natural and effective leader rises from the ranks.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 6
          Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings

          4. Why does this create meaning and purpose? It is the same as an expedition: a small group of comrades fighting to exist. Heidegger and Sartre agree meaning springs from confronting death. This is terrifying for an atomised individual, but in a small group it is canalised.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        5. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 6
          Replying to @tomxhart @IDJennings

          5. The authority they submit to is nature: the need to survive & to do what is necessary. In the contemporary technocratic/technological world, this authority is veiled from us. The world of adventure, sailing, and war is a meaningful world for men. Dr. Johnson knew!pic.twitter.com/GEBEmmYltS

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        6. Ian Jennings‏ @IDJennings Oct 6
          Replying to @tomxhart

          We disagree merely over what seems to me your overstretching of the word "authority". Being compelled by reality to do something or other seems to me something importantly different to submitting to human authority. But perhaps just as satisfying.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        7. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 6
          Replying to @IDJennings

          Humans and nature are one. There are eternal laws of survival—deviation from these laws, the laws of reality, means death. Legitimate human authority is that authority which is closest to the eternal laws of survival and so reality.

          2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
        8. Ian Jennings‏ @IDJennings Oct 6
          Replying to @tomxhart

          How would you characterise the word "authoritarian", particularly the negative connotations it has? The word does not seem to me to have much to do with submission to nature.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        9. Tom X Hart‏ @tomxhart Oct 6
          Replying to @IDJennings

          1. I see, per Aristotle, the “authoritarian” as someone who takes a virtue too far and turns it into a vice by becoming arbitrary and capricious. I actually view our current regime as authoritarian, though it defines itself against “authoritarianism”.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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