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The Apollonian fire transforms the world in accord with the exigencies of the time.
On this website, I put forward a model for a new Apollonian (to borrow a term from Nietzsche) counter-revolution, whose principles are announced in an Apollonian Manifesto on this page.
Many have lamented the chaotic state of today's world, the frighteningly clear decline of our common culture. In my analysis, our modern troubles are due to the persisting influence of the old Postmodern doctrine of values relativity, the more and more radical Dionysian (again, from Nietzsche) tenor of our Post-postmodern time. This mindset causes great harm in many ways, but the most destructive legacies of Postmodernism are the widespread and false belief that there is no objective Truth and the notion that rational thinking should be replaced by emotion, that reasoned debate is somehow a bad thing.
But debate is indispensable; it is the way that a society, as an entity, thinks— debate, at its best, is a search for Truth; but the Post-postmodernist reviles debate, because first, it involves linear thinking and, second, to them, it makes no sense to search for that which does not exist. The result of the disappearance of debate from much of our public sphere, this shutting down of the collective mind, is that mistaken beliefs are not corrected, bad choices are legion, there is general chaos and great institutions are in severe decline.
It is to be expected, then, and desirable, that there be dialectical pushback, an Apollonian reaction, an Apollonian counter-revolution—not a violent revolution, but a word-war, what I will call a logopolemos: we must bring back public debate.
But we must not just bring back debate, we must invent a better sort of debate, a more powerful weapon, than that which currently exists The main purpose of this site, then, is to advance the goals of this Apollonian revolution by fostering a new kind of debate, which we call Truth Engine debate, and toward this end, we have designed a Truth Engine whose several parts, like those of a compact and efficient machine, will work together to accelerate the Truth-revealing power of debate. Faster than ever before, it will tell us what is factually True, what is True of the Good, and what is true of the Beautiful.
The parts of the Truth Engine are these: (1) The League of Dialecticians is the organization that oversees the operation of the Truth Engine. (2) The Logos is dedicated to the debates themselves, which we have cast as tournament games of our Game of a Trillion Worlds (GoaTW); it is the Mind of the system, and is divided into both three divisions—Truth, Goodness and Beauty—and three levels of generality—the Practical, the Critical and the Philosophical. (3) The Ikon is the Heart of the system; it is meant to reinforce our commitment to the values of Truth, Goodness and Beauty by means of aesthetic expression—no system of productive debate can function without the participants having made such a commitment. (4) The Logikon connects the system's Mind and Heart; it is dedicated to the production of works that combine rational thought and aesthetic expression. (5) The Tri-Divisional School, it is envisioned, will teach the playing of the game. (6) There will be, in general, two Truth Engine (TE) Societies for each topic category, one for the affirmative and one for the negative. Our inaugural TE Societies will be TEUFOS , the Truth Engine UFO Society, and TESkepS-UFO , the Truth Engine Skeptic Society-UFOs. We see TEUFOS as a complement to data-collecting & analysis organizations like MUFON and UAP Discovery. In time, we hope to found manyTE Societies under the categories of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.
In the UFO GoaTW tournament, members of TEUFOS will debate members of TESkepS-UFO.
Our Game of a Trillion Worlds has a backstory called the Panoply. It reads like a fantasy, but the wise reader will come to see it as a fundamentally true description of the context in which the game exists.
So, as we begin our work, we describe our deepest motivarion; this statement is our Manifesto:
Although we are energetic proponents of synthesis, of the Middle Way, in these times of great Dionysian excess, we are Apollonian by contrast; therefore, our revolution will be an Apollonian revolution, a revolution that seeks to restore what is good in Apollonianism while being careful to preserve what is good in Dionysianism.
In the realm of thought, where ideas flourish and ideologies clash, we, the Apollonians, as proponents of this synthesis, stand as guardians of intellectual autonomy. We are the seekers of truth, the champions of reason, and the custodians of individuality.
In this world, where conformity often masquerades as wisdom, and totalitarian impulses constitute a grave threat, we defy the allure of collective consciousness of the Dionysian sort, the collectivism of the Borg. Our minds are not bound by the shackles of popular opinion or the chains of dogma. Instead, we roam freely through the landscapes of knowledge, forging our own paths and shaping our own destinies. We are interested in nonconformist ideas, in unorthodox theories, so long as they do not clearly run counter to Truth.
The Apollonian fights for his intellectual autonomy. We reject the notion that our beliefs should be dictated by external forces. We refuse to surrender our critical faculties to the tyranny of authority or the seduction of groupthink. Our minds are sovereign territories, inviolable and sacrosanct.
We recognize that true enlightenment is not found in submission, but in inquiry; not in acquiescence, but in dissent. We embrace the dialectic of debate, engaging with ideas not to confirm our biases, but to challenge them. We seek out opposing viewpoints not to vilify, but to understand. For it is through confrontation with the unfamiliar that we expand the boundaries of our intellect and deepen the reservoirs of our wisdom.
The Apollonian manifesto is a testament to the power of the individual mind. It is a declaration of independence from the intellectual tyranny that seeks to imprison us in the dungeons of conformity. We stand together, not as a Dionysian collective, but as an Apollonian collective (for there will and must be a collective), a fellowship of free thinkers, united in our commitment to the pursuit of truth and the defense of intellectual autonomy. The Dionysians embrace difference and wish to see every individual's mind the product of the minds of the many, whereas the Apollonian embraces sameness, unity, and wishes to see every mind remain autonomous. Thus, the unity of mind that we, as Apollonians seek is not a unity achieved by intimidation, sophistry and indoctrination, means that produce simply the same thoughts in all, but one achieved by freely-thinking people debating together, slowly bringing forth in the myriad individual minds the possession of the same thoughts, same by virtue of their possession of Truth—a Truth vouched for by no authority other than the dialectical process itself.
The Dionysian claims that there is "my truth" and "your truth," that there is no universal standard of goodness, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is the legacy of Postmodernism and is the primary source of today's chaos and decline.
But we Apollonians know that there is but one standard of Truth, one standard of Goodness and one standard of Beauty. We extol absolute Truth, Goodness and Beauty.
The Dionysians see Truth as relative; they deny the existence of objective Truth. They reject, even suppress, public debate—the search for objective Truth which constitutes society's thinking—because they see such debate as a search for that which does not exist. They hate debate, also, because, recoiling from sameness, they favor unstructured feelings over conscious, linear reasoning (a single line of discourse).
So, we seek the productive unity that can be achieved by freely thinking people debating together and discovering Truth. To save our failing civilization, we must bring back public debate! Organizing public debates will be the primary work of the League of Dialecticians.
But let our debates not be ordinary. Ordinary public debate, which was last improved upon in the Middle Ages, is unclear, unconcise and rarely current; it is repetitive, incomplete and barely improvable—a good debate point is often heard just once, by only a few people, and never heard again. Instead, let our debates be Truth Engine debates—Truth Engine debates will be clear, concise, always current, complete and fully improvable. This is how we can help to save our collapsing civilization.
We Apollonians, then, of the League of Dialections have taken on the task of working to shape the human collective this way, We seek to encourage the playing of the Game of a Trillion Worlds, which is our Truth Engine cast as a game.So let us enthusiastically join the battle for Truth, Goodness and Beauty, fearless and resolute. Let us be guided by the light of reason and emboldened by the strength of our convictions. And let us never waver in our dedication to the noble cause for which we fight: the liberation of the mind from the chains of ignorance and the triumph of intellect over ideology.
For we are the Apollonians, and our quest for intellectual autonomy and for the creation of the brilliant and good collective person shall know no bounds.
Dr. Crist, Director of the League of Dialecticians. [with edited and approved contributions from ChatGPT,]—New York, April 8, 2024.
I think of how we awaken to a beautiful day in midsummer, when we sense that all is right with the world. On a day such as this, we feel that all things are possible and that nature, in the tangible form of clement weather, will cooperate as we carry out our human plans. We have somewhere to go this day—an art show, a charity event, a big game, or a wonderful party—where we will be together with others, deepening our relationships and forming new ones. We know that it will be the kind of day when, at its end, we will say, "We had fun today—and we accomplished so much. We did something wonderful today."
I think that work can be like this for the Truth Engine participant every day, because what we do is done in harmony with the ccsmos. We experience each new day as a day full of opportunity to have great fun with others, to tackle and subdue intellectual chalenges of the highest order and greatest importance, to see who among us—each a champion of Truth, Goodness and Beauty—can rise the highest, and to do wondrous, positive, creative things together.
This is my vision of dialectical happiness.
We have to begin this project by making sure that the Truth Engine that we are buildingobtains a firm foundation. It will not be easy to sort things out at first, so I invite any and all advice, comments, criticisms and questions. Help is welcome.
Contact Dr. Crist at: contact@truthenginedebate.com
Follow the links below to navigate to the different parts of the Truth Engine:
The League of Dialecticians—Truth Engine officers and members. Join the League.
The Logos. The Game of a Trillion Worlds
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