Was thinking back to the old Soo Line rolling through our marshlands;
how it set it on fire every autumn; and how I wanted to drag my
boyfriend off to Canada during Vietnam. I'm not afraid of those big
tumblers, Trinidad. I've ridden the rails far off from myself and
came back unscathed. Took me so long to find myself, I'm not likely
to need that long dark night's journey anymore. Have a great weekend.
Mary

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "Trinidad Cruz" <cruzprdb@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "two_owl_night" <two_owl_night@>
> wrote:
>
> "Trinidad, have you read Anti-Oedipus (BwO, desiring-machines,
> capitalism and marxism, and best of all - the flow of flows)? I'm
> reading the summaries of D&G's concepts at Wiki this weekend, in
> between radical poetry and hopping freights."
>
> Mary
>
> "Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
> Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
> Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
> Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
> And the sons of pullman porters
> And the sons of engineers
> Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
> Mothers with their babes asleep,
> Are rockin' to the gentle beat
> And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel."
>
> The fabric is the way it feels, just like the rhythum. There is no
> smooth or rough, just watch out for the big empty tumblers.
> (Castenada) They'll roll you away from yourself.
>
> Trinidad
>

Invitation to Research Participation



I am a PhD student at Saybrook Graduate School. My research is concerned
with how individuals grow psychologically and reach mature stages of meaning
making. Currently I am looking for research participants who would consider
sharing with me how they view their own developments and their paths to
meaning making. You will be asked to complete a short written assignment
(about 20 minutes) and probably to participate in an interview (about 30
minutes) or write a narrative.

I would appreciate it very much if you would contribute to my research
efforts.

The IRB of Saybrook Graduate School has approved this research project.

If you are interested or have questions, please contact me at
angela.pf@...

Thank you,

Angela Pfaffenberger

here's Joan Baez on what continues to drive her:

"I would just say that in my life, what gave my life meaning and where I
was always the most complete ... [it did not] come through money or fame,
it was always when I was ... standing with those whose voice was not heard
and I was able to do something about that."
<http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/052606EA.shtml>

aija

Aija:

Interesting. Yesterday, having finished the third Critique, and taking
some time to reflect upon Kant's moral philosophy, I got to thinking
about what it is, in part, that seems so dissatisfying with his
characterization of man's purpose as a pursuit of the highest good.
Kant, of course, sees the highest good as a conjunction of virtue and
happiness. And, since we cannot empirically attain either, although, to
be sure, there is something apodictic in the call to duty of which Kant
speaks, nevertheless, the highest good could not possibly be attained
without both a divine assistance and an infinite life span.

This is an extreme simplification of the problem, as Kant sees it, and,
reading now into his theological works, it is clear to me that Kant is
deeply instructed by Luther on all of this, therefore, one has to go
back to Luther and Calvin to gain complete insight into the complexity
of Kant's theory of morals and action.

But, notwithstanding this, it has seemed to me that when it comes to a
definition of man's purpose, if such a thing were even possible, Kant's
formulation is somewhat prosaic, and it really comes across to me as a
field of battle, in man's soul, between hedonism and moralism. Is a
characterization of man's purpose, strictly in terms of a pursuit of
the highest good, a pursuit of happiness, in other words, pleasure
tempered by ethics, even remotely adequate to the question of man's
purpose? The thought came to me that the purpose of life really comes
down to these three things (perhaps even more than this):

1. Be happy,
2. Be yourself, and,
3. Make a difference.

The second idea addresses the existentialist's concern with the idea of
authenticity. We are here to self-assert, but, of course, in an ethical
as well as autonomous manner.

The third idea dovetails nicely with what you say about Joan Baez. We
want to make a difference. Indeed, that is part of our purpose for
being here. Sometimes we make that difference by bringing children into
the world, or we become teachers, or we become a rock to which a friend
in need can cling, or we help the needy by donating our money or our
time. It goes without saying, of course, that making a difference by
obtaining notoreity as a serial killer is not in accordance with man's
true purpose because it violates the notion of a highest good. We
commonly sense, and know, what is a good difference and what is an evil
difference.

Hence, the moral dimension is still there in all three of these aspects
of our purpose.

Kant's treatment, although it is more nuanced than he is given credit
for, still pretty much operates within the bifurcation of hedonism
versus moralism. That is Kant's Lutheran, Pietist upbringing coming
into the foreground there. The issue of good and evil, whether original
sin is a hereditary sin or a fundamental evilness in human nature, are
lively issues for Kant, given his religious upbringing.

Humanistic and existentialist perspectives on the question of man's
purpose seem to be helping me with lifting Kant's puritanism out of its
bifurcated stricture, and I do call into question the simplistic
assessment of man's purpose as nothing more than a pursuit of
happiness, in accordance, of course, with right conduct. The
amplification of this question, to include the existential and
individualistic dimensions of, so to speak, finding oneself in the
world, and making a difference in that world, are a breath of fresh air
that can add life to a moral philosophy.

I daresay that the negative reaction to Kant's moralism is, in large
part, a reaction against Kant's own unconscious and dogmatic acceptance
of a bifurcated view of human existence as a battle field where we
struggle against good and evil, pleasure and duty, happiness and
virtue. Clearly, life just ain't that simple.

Hb3g

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, Aija Veldre Beldavs <beldavsa@...>
wrote:
>
>
> here's Joan Baez on what continues to drive her:
>
> "I would just say that in my life, what gave my life meaning and
where I
> was always the most complete ... [it did not] come through money or
fame,
> it was always when I was ... standing with those whose voice was not
heard
> and I was able to do something about that."
> <http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/052606EA.shtml>
>
> aija
>

~ The system which obtains among modern scientists, of dividing the
history of the earth into geological epochs and the pre-history of
man into cultural periods, was anticipated by the preistly theorists
of ancient civilizations, who established the doctrine of the
Mythical Ages of the World. .........
Hesiod, in his *Works and Days*, begins the Greek system with the
perfect Golden Age, which is followed by the Silver and Bronze Ages,
and the two Ages of Heroes and Iron, which may have been local
subdivisions of the fourth Age, represented in India by Kali Yuga.
Both in India and Greece, man, it will be noted, was believed to
have relapsed from a primitive state of perfection. The system found
in Ireland, which was probably imported from Gaul with the doctrine
of the transmigration of souls and the custom of widow-burning or
slaying, follows, on the other hand, an evolutionary process.  The
first Irish Age, that of Partholon and his race, is an Age of
folly.  It is followed by Nemed's Age, which was distinguished for
cruelty, and the Age of the Fir Bolgs, in which the power of evil
was supreme.  Then comes the Danann Age of benevolent deities and
heroes, who are the reputed "ancestors of the men of learning in
Erin".  The last Age is the Milesian, and during it St. Patrick
reached Ireland and preached Christianity.
..........
One of the versions of the Indian legend of Mythical Ages is related
by the deathless sage Markandeya, who lived through all the Yugas,
and was protected during the Deluge by the child-god Narayana.  The
Irish account was put into the mouth of Tuan MacCarell.  He had been
a contemporary of Partholon, and afterwards existed for periods as a
stag, a boar, a vulture or eagle, and a salmon.  In the end his
salmon form was devoured by the wife of King Carell, with the result
that he was reborn as her son. ..........
The author of the Tuan MacCarell legend would in our day begin his
narrative with the dawn of the Pleistocene Age, which endured for at
least 620,000 years, and was yet much shorter than any of the four
Tertiary Ages - the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, or Pliocene.
In the post-Pliocene period, Tuan, let it be supposed, awakens from
magic sleep in Europe.  He gazes with wonder on forests of strange
and mighty trees.  Monstrous wild animals come and go.  Several
resemble elephants, and the greatest of these is the long-tusked
mastodon of colossal bulk.  Hippopotami snort in the rivers, on the
banks of which crouch, basking in sunshine, ponderous Dinotheriums,
resembling sea-cows, with downward-curving tusks and short trunks.
Across verdurous plains gallop herds of little horses with divided
hoofs.  The dreaded sabre-toothed tiger crouches in the jungle ready
to pounce upon its prey.
Tuan, who alternately sleeps for long centuries and wanders about
the earth like the legendary Jew, continues his narrative.  "When
next I awoke", he tells, "I found that Europe had been completely
transformed.  No great forests flourished on its central plains;
bare stretches of frozen ground extended far and near.  From
northern Germany to the Pole, valleys and rivers were shrouded by
ice and seas were frozen over.  Great mountain-peaks towered grimly
above curving glaciers like rocky islands in a foam-white ocean.
Icebergs drifted down the Atlantic past the coast of Spain.  This
was the First Glacial Period.
"When next I awoke the ice was vanishing, the rivers surged from the
melting glaciers, many valleys were flooded, and vegetation
flourished.  In the years that followed I saw the forests extending
northward from the Mediterranean coast, and the ocean ebbing
gradually farther and farther away, owing to the widespread
elevation of land, until great islands became uplands in vast
plains, and continents linked with continents around the world. ~

------------------------

Myths of Crete & Pre-Hellenic Europe, by Donald A. Mackenzie.
Gresham Publishing Co., London.  Extracts, Chapter One [pp1-10]:
Primitive Europeans of Glacial and Interglacial Periods.

to be continued ...

~ I must describe Europe as it appeared to me before I next fell
asleep.  The Mediterranean Sea was divided into two great lakes when
Italy became attached to a triangular plain which jutted out from the
north African coast.  The Strait of Gibraltar was closed, and a broad
valley united Spain with Morocco.  Corsica and Sardinia formed a
promontory when the Gulf of Genoa vanished, and the Balearic Isles
were mountains on a finger of land attached to western Spain.  The
Baltic Sea became a shrunken inland lake, the English Channel and the
North Sea had disappeared.  The British Isles were then joined to the
Continent, and the plains which enclosed them extended far westward
beyond Land's End, the western coast-line of Ireland and that of the
Scottish Hebrides, and stretched north-eastward beyond the Shetland
Isles to the coast of Norway.  A "land-bridge", which shrank to a
narrow neck 100 miles north-west of Cape Wrath, united Scotland and
Iceland, and narrowed again ere it met the extended coast of Greenland.
The Rivers Elbe and Rhine drained the broad valley which had been the
North Sea, and were united about 150 miles eastward from the
Aberdeenshire coast after the Rhine had received the waters of the
Forth and Tay.  The Conon poured through the valley which had been the
Moray Firth, and, sweeping eastward past the Orkney and Shetland
Islands, entered the sea 20 miles westward from the mouth of the
Elbe.  The Seine cut through the valley of the English Channel, and
the Severn united, 100 miles westward from Land's End, with a river
flowing from a long narrow loch which divided Ireland from Scotland,
and extended southward to Carnsore Point in Wexford.
"Over the Eur-African land-bridges came many of the great animals
which I saw during the first period of the Pleistocene Age.  Attracted
by the genial temperature, even the rhinoceros came north, and with
the sabre-toothed tiger prowled on the upland plains of England, where
I saw also the giant sloth, the hippopotamos, the mastodon, the triple-
toed horse, great tortoises, the giant fallow deer, the well-armoured
glyptodon[1], as big as an ox, and numerous great snakes and nimble
apes.
"For a long period I searched in vain for traces of mankind, but at
length I discovered a tribe of most primitive savages at Mauer, on the
banks of the River Neckar, then very broad and deep, near where
Heidelberg now stands.  They hunted down the horse and the elk, and
dreaded greatly the rhinoceros and the cave-lion.  Their homes were
among the branches of high trees.  In aspect they were extremely
repulsive: they had low, sharply-retreating foreheads, squat noses,
big bulging mouths, and chinless jaws[2].  I never saw these savages
except in this First Interglacial Period. ~

[1] Resembling the armadillo.
[2] The jaw-bone of the earliest European was found in a Mauer sand-
pit, 78 feet from the surface.  Solias holds that this primitive
German belonged to none of the existing races of mankind.  The jaw-
bone has simian characteristics.

--------------------

... see previous post for source.

~ "When next I awoke from the slumber of centuries I found that
Europe had once more been transformed.  The Mediterranean Sea had
snapped the Italian land-bridge and flowed through the Dardanelles
to the Black Sea; a blue strait separated Gibraltar from Morocco.
The British Islands were entirely isolated.  Roaring tides swept up
and down the English Channel, and the broad North Sea, oversept by
foam-churning tempest, was dotted over by innumerable icebergs.
Each succeeding winter the ocean encroached farther and farther
inland, burying in deep sand-banks the great trunks of forest trees,
creeping up river-valleys and forming stony beaches where wild
flowers had bloomed and birds had carolled and built their nests.
At length the advancing billows shaped out a rough shore-line round
the island coasts over 40 feet above their present level.  In time
the land was re-elevated and the sea shrank back again.
" The snow-line of Scottish mountains crept down gradually lower and
lower, and glaciers appeared once more.  Ultimately vast fields of
ice jutted across the North Sea, and the Baltic remained frozen
during the months of summer.  Icebergs were stranded on Dogger Bank
and drifted down the English Channel in early summer through veils
of white fog into the Bay of Biscay and round Cape Finisterre.
Ere I went to sleep again the ice-fields had obliterated Holland and
Belgium and crept up the Elbe valley almost to the plain of Bohemia,
where the climate was sub-arctic and tundra conditoins prevailed, as
in northern Siberia at the present time.  Scotland, Ireland, and
Wales were ice-locked, and England was covered over as far south as
Essex on the east and Gloucester on the west, except where the
battling glaciers left bare patches in the middle districts and in
the East Riding of Yorkshire.  This was the Second Glaical Period.
When it had reached its maximum, I wandered southward through
France, then a dreary waste, and saw herds of musk-oxen and
reindeer, lumbering woolly rhinoceroses, and fat mammoths with great
recurving tusks and shaggy red manes. ~

------------------------

... continued from previous posting.

I'm an individualist, and working on how all this fits together, a
project tenuously proceeding inch by inch ... until [says nervous
voice] I may be 'kicked' at last, for persistently untopical
messages.  Who decides??  What is responsibility??  Are my dreams
also pessimistic??  Whose are they??  Socrates was not an
existentialist, any more than Plato.  It is to Nietzsche I return,
always, for inspiration, for methodology, for cheerfulness.

Louise

> Aija:
> Interesting. Yesterday, having finished the third Critique, and taking
> some time to reflect upon Kant's moral philosophy, I got to thinking
> about what it is, in part, that seems so dissatisfying with his
> characterization of man's purpose as a pursuit of the highest good.
> Kant, of course, sees the highest good as a conjunction of virtue and
> happiness. And, since we cannot empirically attain either, although, to
> be sure, there is something apodictic in the call to duty of which Kant
> speaks, nevertheless, the highest good could not possibly be attained
> without both a divine assistance and an infinite life span.

> This is an extreme simplification of the problem, as Kant sees it, and,
> reading now into his theological works, it is clear to me that Kant is
> deeply instructed by Luther on all of this, therefore, one has to go
> back to Luther and Calvin to gain complete insight into the complexity
> of Kant's theory of morals and action.

> But, notwithstanding this, it has seemed to me that when it comes to a
> definition of man's purpose, if such a thing were even possible, Kant's
> formulation is somewhat prosaic, and it really comes across to me as a
> field of battle, in man's soul, between hedonism and moralism. Is a
> characterization of man's purpose, strictly in terms of a pursuit of
> the highest good, a pursuit of happiness, in other words, pleasure
> tempered by ethics, even remotely adequate to the question of man's
> purpose? The thought came to me that the purpose of life really comes
> down to these three things (perhaps even more than this):

> 1. Be happy,
> 2. Be yourself, and,
> 3. Make a difference.

> The second idea addresses the existentialist's concern with the idea of
> authenticity. We are here to self-assert, but, of course, in an ethical
> as well as autonomous manner.

> The third idea dovetails nicely with what you say about Joan Baez. We
> want to make a difference. Indeed, that is part of our purpose for
> being here. Sometimes we make that difference by bringing children into
> the world, or we become teachers, or we become a rock to which a friend
> in need can cling, or we help the needy by donating our money or our
> time. It goes without saying, of course, that making a difference by
> obtaining notoreity as a serial killer is not in accordance with man's
> true purpose because it violates the notion of a highest good. We
> commonly sense, and know, what is a good difference and what is an evil
> difference.

> Hence, the moral dimension is still there in all three of these aspects
> of our purpose.

> Kant's treatment, although it is more nuanced than he is given credit
> for, still pretty much operates within the bifurcation of hedonism
> versus moralism. That is Kant's Lutheran, Pietist upbringing coming
> into the foreground there. The issue of good and evil, whether original
> sin is a hereditary sin or a fundamental evilness in human nature, are
> lively issues for Kant, given his religious upbringing.

> Humanistic and existentialist perspectives on the question of man's
> purpose seem to be helping me with lifting Kant's puritanism out of its
> bifurcated stricture, and I do call into question the simplistic
> assessment of man's purpose as nothing more than a pursuit of
> happiness, in accordance, of course, with right conduct. The
> amplification of this question, to include the existential and
> individualistic dimensions of, so to speak, finding oneself in the
> world, and making a difference in that world, are a breath of fresh air
> that can add life to a moral philosophy.

> I daresay that the negative reaction to Kant's moralism is, in large
> part, a reaction against Kant's own unconscious and dogmatic acceptance
> of a bifurcated view of human existence as a battle field where we
> struggle against good and evil, pleasure and duty, happiness and
> virtue. Clearly, life just ain't that simple.

Hb3g,

looking at Kant in terms of struggle and reconciliation with his
background, upbringing, and cultural surroundings resonates with me.  in
fact, it seems similar to my approach when i discovered a number of the
social philosophers with whom i found resonance happened to be secular
Jews, i stuck a few test toes into Jewish belief system waters to see if i
could sense the commonalities and differences without a fuller-scale
immersion (kinda demanding).:)  similarly have stuck my toes into tibetan
shinto and a number of indigenous peoples waters (esp. of course native
american), hoping to find time to know much more.

the Baltic is more Protestant than Catholic, except for Lithuania and
Latgalian Latvia.  it is interesting when common Baltic idenity is
stronger than religious & other differences.

but, then, the Baltic was also the last "pagan" (=local indigenous belief
system variants as dominant) refuge of Europe, which might be considered
relevant in the happiness/ pleasure vs. duty equation as well as to
differences of Protestantism in different regions.

i'd guess, for instance, the concept of honor as deeper (more long-term
than short-term) satisfaction is an indigenous concept there, played out
in different variants.  that's not really suppressing gratification so
much as being able to channel it for "the greater pleasure" = "greater
good."  this is an amplification of one's more short-term immediate
gratification (with a probability of a very unpleasant aftertaste) to
something more lasting and growing in satisfaction.  sharing extends
oneself, especially if one isn't really sure of happy rewarded afterlives
(as the pagans of the north were not sure).

there's a cool offbeat Lithuanian movie, "Elze's Life" (not readily
available), which is not about the Catholic but Protestant Lithuania
Minor, specifically Courish spit.  it shows a darkly tragi-comic conflict
of indigenous Balt fisherpeople with roots in a pagan past in conflict
with the unyielding, extremely Prussian strict-to-the-rules unyielding
German dominant class long after the Germans colonized the land and
eliminated native identity.

aija

Bill, paint me a picture.  think my mind's being blinded by science.
could be fault of your mate Trinidad.  Mary, stop encouraging him,
would you?  Louise .. pedestrian goddess

Aija:

Kant himself was known to have adhered, very much, to a protocol,
while entertaining guests for dinner, that would begin with
narrative, the telling of a story, then conversation and gossip, and
finally joking and ribaldry, none of which was to be taken too
seriously. What was said at the dinner table was not to be brought up
later and held against the speaker. This all has a very pagan flavor
to it, and I myself have experienced these kinds of ritualistic pagan
feasting events. Kant, as it happens, was also fascinated with
Swedenborg, although, to be sure, he dismissed Swedenborg's mystical
claims as not being reasonable. So, you see, there is a mixture of
that straight-laced Lutheran attitude and the general cultural
context that also had its roots in paganism. Kant's early work,
Observations of the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, shows a
different side that is not so stuffy and intellectual. We really
hardly know the man, and I rather suspect that in real life he was
probably more human than we give him credit for based upon the
strictness of his moral philosophy and the complexity of his system
of reason.

One does not want to dismiss any philosopher as being merely the
product of his times. It is, however, enlightening to know Kant in
his relation to his culture and his upbringing.

Hb3g

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, Aija Veldre Beldavs <beldavsa@...>
wrote:
>
>
> > Aija:
> > Interesting. Yesterday, having finished the third Critique, and
taking
> > some time to reflect upon Kant's moral philosophy, I got to
thinking
> > about what it is, in part, that seems so dissatisfying with his
> > characterization of man's purpose as a pursuit of the highest
good.
> > Kant, of course, sees the highest good as a conjunction of virtue
and
> > happiness. And, since we cannot empirically attain either,
although, to
> > be sure, there is something apodictic in the call to duty of
which Kant
> > speaks, nevertheless, the highest good could not possibly be
attained
> > without both a divine assistance and an infinite life span.
>
> > This is an extreme simplification of the problem, as Kant sees
it, and,
> > reading now into his theological works, it is clear to me that
Kant is
> > deeply instructed by Luther on all of this, therefore, one has to
go
> > back to Luther and Calvin to gain complete insight into the
complexity
> > of Kant's theory of morals and action.
>
> > But, notwithstanding this, it has seemed to me that when it comes
to a
> > definition of man's purpose, if such a thing were even possible,
Kant's
> > formulation is somewhat prosaic, and it really comes across to me
as a
> > field of battle, in man's soul, between hedonism and moralism. Is
a
> > characterization of man's purpose, strictly in terms of a pursuit
of
> > the highest good, a pursuit of happiness, in other words, pleasure
> > tempered by ethics, even remotely adequate to the question of
man's
> > purpose? The thought came to me that the purpose of life really
comes
> > down to these three things (perhaps even more than this):
>
> > 1. Be happy,
> > 2. Be yourself, and,
> > 3. Make a difference.
>
> > The second idea addresses the existentialist's concern with the
idea of
> > authenticity. We are here to self-assert, but, of course, in an
ethical
> > as well as autonomous manner.
>
> > The third idea dovetails nicely with what you say about Joan
Baez. We
> > want to make a difference. Indeed, that is part of our purpose for
> > being here. Sometimes we make that difference by bringing
children into
> > the world, or we become teachers, or we become a rock to which a
friend
> > in need can cling, or we help the needy by donating our money or
our
> > time. It goes without saying, of course, that making a difference
by
> > obtaining notoreity as a serial killer is not in accordance with
man's
> > true purpose because it violates the notion of a highest good. We
> > commonly sense, and know, what is a good difference and what is
an evil
> > difference.
>
> > Hence, the moral dimension is still there in all three of these
aspects
> > of our purpose.
>
> > Kant's treatment, although it is more nuanced than he is given
credit
> > for, still pretty much operates within the bifurcation of hedonism
> > versus moralism. That is Kant's Lutheran, Pietist upbringing
coming
> > into the foreground there. The issue of good and evil, whether
original
> > sin is a hereditary sin or a fundamental evilness in human
nature, are
> > lively issues for Kant, given his religious upbringing.
>
> > Humanistic and existentialist perspectives on the question of
man's
> > purpose seem to be helping me with lifting Kant's puritanism out
of its
> > bifurcated stricture, and I do call into question the simplistic
> > assessment of man's purpose as nothing more than a pursuit of
> > happiness, in accordance, of course, with right conduct. The
> > amplification of this question, to include the existential and
> > individualistic dimensions of, so to speak, finding oneself in the
> > world, and making a difference in that world, are a breath of
fresh air
> > that can add life to a moral philosophy.
>
> > I daresay that the negative reaction to Kant's moralism is, in
large
> > part, a reaction against Kant's own unconscious and dogmatic
acceptance
> > of a bifurcated view of human existence as a battle field where we
> > struggle against good and evil, pleasure and duty, happiness and
> > virtue. Clearly, life just ain't that simple.
>
> Hb3g,
>
> looking at Kant in terms of struggle and reconciliation with his
> background, upbringing, and cultural surroundings resonates with
me.  in
> fact, it seems similar to my approach when i discovered a number of
the
> social philosophers with whom i found resonance happened to be
secular
> Jews, i stuck a few test toes into Jewish belief system waters to
see if i
> could sense the commonalities and differences without a fuller-
scale
> immersion (kinda demanding).:)  similarly have stuck my toes into
tibetan
> shinto and a number of indigenous peoples waters (esp. of course
native
> american), hoping to find time to know much more.
>
> the Baltic is more Protestant than Catholic, except for Lithuania
and
> Latgalian Latvia.  it is interesting when common Baltic idenity is
> stronger than religious & other differences.
>
> but, then, the Baltic was also the last "pagan" (=local indigenous
belief
> system variants as dominant) refuge of Europe, which might be
considered
> relevant in the happiness/ pleasure vs. duty equation as well as to
> differences of Protestantism in different regions.
>
> i'd guess, for instance, the concept of honor as deeper (more long-
term
> than short-term) satisfaction is an indigenous concept there,
played out
> in different variants.  that's not really suppressing gratification
so
> much as being able to channel it for "the greater pleasure"
= "greater
> good."  this is an amplification of one's more short-term immediate
> gratification (with a probability of a very unpleasant aftertaste)
to
> something more lasting and growing in satisfaction.  sharing
extends
> oneself, especially if one isn't really sure of happy rewarded
afterlives
> (as the pagans of the north were not sure).
>
> there's a cool offbeat Lithuanian movie, "Elze's Life" (not readily
> available), which is not about the Catholic but Protestant
Lithuania
> Minor, specifically Courish spit.  it shows a darkly tragi-comic
conflict
> of indigenous Balt fisherpeople with roots in a pagan past in
conflict
> with the unyielding, extremely Prussian strict-to-the-rules
unyielding
> German dominant class long after the Germans colonized the land and
> eliminated native identity.
>
> aija
>

The generations coming of age now in the beginning of this twenty
first century are inevitably facing an Orwellian dichotomy; a question
of cause and effect involving the fundamental fabric of human life; an
unavoidable choosing that will demand of both philosophy and science
an unprecedented concentration of exposition and argument. If we are
inattentive to this challenge our species may well slip to its doom.
We must not let the fortunate sun of these few remaining days of
deliberation go by. Diversity in ideology is essentially spent. The
political earth is polarizing into two remaining views: a well fed,
technology driven, technology inflated, technology controlled,
democratizing "communitarianism"; and a hungry disjointed libertarian
anarchy exhibiting all of the diversity of previous ideologies.

My uncle said to me, "I don't care if the government listens to my
phone calls. I never break the law." I replied, "Laws change, and
there are a lot of laws." The average citizen assumes a possession
that does not exist. Telecommunications technology belongs to the
purveyor. Your phone will not work without a phone company. What you
say in a telephone conversation does indeed belong to you, but in
certain cases the phone company is considered to have a stake in that
ownership, and their stake is expanding toward complete co-ownership
in the current legal environment. It has been my opinion for some
thirty years now that telecommnunications technology was going to
erode away a large part of the liberty of the average American
citizen. I have always argued that tape-recordings, video and audio,
are actually not scientific, and should be considered as hearsay in
the American courtroom and always disallowed. We seem to have
forgotten that the person on trial is not an enemy of the state until
he is convicted. If we are going to allow our government unlimited
surveillance of any of our activities that utilize telecommunications
in order to protect us from actual enemies of our state (essentially a
military matter), then we must absolutely not allow the use of such
"evidence" in the trial of any American citizen. There is nothing
wrong with surveilling telecommunications technology to determine who
an enemy of the state might be, but there is a lot of legal precedent
that is terribly wrong in making such surveillances admissable
evidence of wrongdoing in a courtroom.

We could examine all the individual ideological motivations of those
engaged with the idea of "communitarianism"; but we would only
discover that like all modern dialectical propositions it does not
really move toward a single idea of resolution; only toward control.
In the end it is a collection of interests interconnected at secondary
points that have no bearing on a primary outcome. "You scratch me
here, I'll scratch you there." This fluidity of interest and undefined
outcome is its power. (A development in political science that owes a
great deal to analytical philosophy) To pose the dichotomy in literary
terms we must resist the temptation to undress the specific paradigm
of "communitarianism" as its detachment from the primary is its
dynamic strength. We must locate a previous term. I suggest:
civilization.

Has civilization in general proved to be a good survival technique for
the human species?

Is the trade of liberty for civilization a good one?

Is technology a product of civilization?

If so, is the trade of liberty for technology a good one?

Can a human being be completely civilized?

If so, is it the best thing for the future of the species?

If technology can eventually detach the human being of its natural
wildness is it a human being that remains? Something more? Something less?

Is interest trading a positive political phenomenon?

Is interest trading actually just civilization?

One should keep in mind a leveling bit of the same analytical view
that "communitarianism" is derivative of: "things in general are only
familiar". Everything is in constant motion sustained into familiarity
by resonances. If technology could circumvent the natural wildness of
human beings would the species still fit the natural world? Is
literature finite? Can the whole be accessed?

Trinidad Cruz

"Mark how her turning shoulders wind the hours,
And hasten while her penniless rich palms
Pass superscription of bent foam and wave,--
Hasten, while they are true,--sleep, death, desire,
Close round one instant in one floating flower.

Bind us in time, O Seasons clear, and awe.
O minstrel galleons of Carib fire,
Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
Is answered in the vortex of our grave
The seal's wide spindrift gaze toward paradise." (Hart Crane)

One of the main points of dispute in my time at the list has
concerned the nature of the personal.  It is embarrassing, or
undignified, at times, to make statements perceived to relate to
matters normally private, or to complain about treatment received.
My own ethics require me, on certain occasions, to succumb to these
sensations for the reason that I perceive them as a lesser evil.  I
keep repeating myself, because that is the nature of reality, i.e.,
it involves absolutes, relative to the human individual.  So if it
has not been clear in the past, here it is again - I wish to be
treated like any other member of this group.  If I am to be 'kicked'
on any occasion, this would not bother me in the least.  I will
explain why.  Always at existlist I have been treated by the
moderators with fairness, and when unhappy I have explained myself
to them either at the messageboard or by private e-mail.  Theirs is
the prerogative, to make decision, as I have maintained throughout.
The wider question of responsibility, for one's very dreams, and
whether that might affect decision-making, is potentially
philosophical, though seems to me that national differences may once
agian be relevant.  In USA, for instance, it is hardly socially
stigmatising, to go see an analyst, or psychiatrist.  I assume it's
quite a middle-class thing, though.  My own religious faith is
perfectly compatible with forms of anger that may be socially
unacceptable, or even on the border of legality.  So I am accustomed
to being in dispute ... with humanists, with Christians, with boors,
I'm no respecter of persons.  Misunderstanding is rife in society,
no more so than when solitary types come up against the
unimaginative or dogmatic tribes of gregarious.  Flocks, yep.  They
are everywhere.  Onwards I wander, looking for my one lost lamb,
muttering in impatience at those who are so very eager to help.

Louise
... never intentionally an actress

Trinidad asks questions that  are not easy to answer. I guess  one
can say something called civilisation exists but no two people could
agree as to what is included in the set. Louise would  probably
include religion I would not. I am not blinded by science but  I am
often confused by the set of ideas we call science. Applied science
in the form of technology is even more precarious as in that it
often just flat does not work.
Trinidad seems quite frustrated and I must join in his acessment of
the state of service we garnish from our machines. The world of
underfed savages has and will continue to beat at the gates of
civilisation but stupid starving people can and will be erradicated
should they cause lethal threat to  the first world. I am actually
more concerned by  the attempts by people like Bono and Clinton who
promote a one world philosophy that will breed us right off the
planet if they  win out. I no longer buy U2 albums and would not
walk across the street to hear a Clinton speach. They seem to want
this civilisation to eat itself by the tail and that ends in total
barbarity and destruction. I point to AIDS and avian flu as examples
of our susceptability to pathogens derived from association with
primative humans. The initiating viral agent in AIDS  has been
tracked down as a mutant of  an ape virus. The avian flu may jump to
man and it will most likely happen  in the primative populations of
people barely out of the stone age. Evolution moves us away from
repetative primative systems and as we try to keep base level
peoples we risk our own survival. The moral high ground proposed by
missionary christians and Bono devotees is a myth of idealism that
is driven by faith. Few   modern people  have realised faith as a
dangerous concept. I fear faith much more than I do science. If
science is to destroy us we will at least have taken a great journey
away from the ape that gave us AIDS. Faith drags us back
intellectually and tactically as we confront the challenges of
century twenty one. I would rather  confront   terror  than feed
hoards of primatives. I think we will see more walls go up and more
restrictive security impinge on our lives. The more we support the
primative world the  greater the pressure will grow on our modern
construction. We should kill the primative terrorists in their
areas of initiation. That includes the Taliban and islamic bombers
of all persuasions. The primatives hacking each other to death in
the third world should be contained and attacks on technology should
be prosecuted  with greater  vigor than attempts to feed or pacify
them. Our only chance is to grow civilisation outward from a
relatively secure nidus. As we learn to better control population
growth we can proceed to educate and feed a population of humans who
can survive in a modern environment. We may always have a  wild,
barbaric primative part of the world but if the first world pours
itself out in a  vain idealism of faith there will be little but the
barbarism of primative man. I think  technology put us on  a course
that is  not easily retraced. We must continue to innovate knowing
that   innovation will push some  off the  stern of the boat.  On
the personal level it becomes the individual to keep current. As you
fall behind you become  more a part of the problem as you head to
the back of the boat. At least the existentialist accepts
responsibility for his own life and is not the vassle of a god,
bishop or cult leader. I think people with such alligence are as
dangerous as the monkey fuckers or the people who live with their
pigs and foul. They are the past that is hopefully receeding in
numbers and vehemance. At present I agree with Trinidad that we seem
to be losing the battle. I doubt he can agree with  my perspective
on the problem or my selection  of approaches to a solution. But I
read you Trinidad and you make me think. Thanks, Bill

Bill, Do we really know the pathway, causative, that brought HIV virus
to humans in California and beyond??  What about the hypothesis that
laboratory testing was implicated?  I don't trust this
word, 'primitive', used in the way you use it.  The people of Iraq are
not more primitive than those of USA or Britain.  Such a war as our
leaders unleashed on them, with de facto toleration by the respective
electorates, has only brought out latent conflict, which would break
out in our civilisations also, exposed to similar pressure.  I hate
much religion.  My faith is subversive.  Like I say, my role model is
Jesus Christ.  Look what happened to him.  It's not a way to win
friends.  Your support for Trinidad kind of irritates me, because he
has been so hostile to philosophical thought for which he has no
taste.  Not an irritation that enters the realm of feeling, however.
More a bemusement, ever increasing, the incomprehensibility of human
difference.  I have a feeling that my levels of contempt are going to
increase.  In impersonal fashion.  I don't see much evidence that
people in public life care about ideas at all, in spite of the horrors
we have witnessed this last decade.  It all gets chewed up and served
as interesting hash for the TV and video machine.  Louise

Civility on the list is a good thing. There is open discourse and
there is discourse that dissimulates. It is difficult to engage in
discourse with an interlocutor who uses a private language. It is
difficult to engage in discourse based upon the assumption of
unconditional entitlement to opinion. Lastly, discourse remains
difficult when it is habitually taken down to the level of what
constitutes one's favorite kind of people.

I try not to take what goes on here too personally. I am only human,
of course, and I have feelings like everybody else, but I strive not
to look for validation here. The reasonability of the idea being
communicated, in accordance with an objective standard of discourse,
ought to be validation enough. Approval or disapproval is secondary
to the intrinsic standard of reasonability in discourse. This cannot
be a matter of anything goes. It cannot be a matter of just personal
opinion. It cannot be a matter of how one happens to feel about the
idea in question. Rather, it needs to be about what one actually
thinks about the idea. It cannot be an autocratic ruling.

Feelings are real. But they get in the way of rational discourse. I
pose this question. Which seems more appropriate? To ascertain,
first, how one feels about an idea, then modify one's thinking to
accommodate that feeling? Or, to decide, with reason, what one thinks
about an idea, then, to adjust one's feelings toward it
appropriately? Needless to say, I am one who would put reason, not
feeling, in the driver's seat, and for good reason. To let feeling
lead reason around by the nose is simple prejudice. It is lazy
reason. It is a shortcut, and a copout. It is the opposite of
enlightenment. We can do better than that. We should strive to be
better than that. The question, "How do you feel about that?" is, to
me, trivial, compared to the question, "What do you think about
that?" We often cannot control our feelings. Our thinking, however,
is something that we can direct and put to efficacious use. The
touchstone of thinking is its autonomy. It amazes me how debased our
appreciation and respect of thinking, compared to feeling, actually
is in our common every day discourse. See Rand's Atlas Shrugged for
some valuable insights into this disparity between using a feeling
for the justification of an idea as opposed to using a thought.

Annihilate this meta-discussion at will, if it is your will to do so.
In other words, I invite reasoned, cogent, refutation. Impassioned
blitherings are justly disregarded.

Hb3g

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "louise" <hecubatoher@...> wrote:
>
> One of the main points of dispute in my time at the list has
> concerned the nature of the personal.  It is embarrassing, or
> undignified, at times, to make statements perceived to relate to
> matters normally private, or to complain about treatment received.
> My own ethics require me, on certain occasions, to succumb to these
> sensations for the reason that I perceive them as a lesser evil.  I
> keep repeating myself, because that is the nature of reality, i.e.,
> it involves absolutes, relative to the human individual.  So if it
> has not been clear in the past, here it is again - I wish to be
> treated like any other member of this group.  If I am to
be 'kicked'
> on any occasion, this would not bother me in the least.  I will
> explain why.  Always at existlist I have been treated by the
> moderators with fairness, and when unhappy I have explained myself
> to them either at the messageboard or by private e-mail.  Theirs is
> the prerogative, to make decision, as I have maintained
throughout.
> The wider question of responsibility, for one's very dreams, and
> whether that might affect decision-making, is potentially
> philosophical, though seems to me that national differences may
once
> agian be relevant.  In USA, for instance, it is hardly socially
> stigmatising, to go see an analyst, or psychiatrist.  I assume it's
> quite a middle-class thing, though.  My own religious faith is
> perfectly compatible with forms of anger that may be socially
> unacceptable, or even on the border of legality.  So I am
accustomed
> to being in dispute ... with humanists, with Christians, with
boors,
> I'm no respecter of persons.  Misunderstanding is rife in society,
> no more so than when solitary types come up against the
> unimaginative or dogmatic tribes of gregarious.  Flocks, yep.  They
> are everywhere.  Onwards I wander, looking for my one lost lamb,
> muttering in impatience at those who are so very eager to help.
>
> Louise
> ... never intentionally an actress
>

I prefer using rational thinking to analyze feelings, as feelings are too
influential to pass off. They can give clarity with the proper thought.
Ignoring your feelings is like forgetting one of the most unique things we
have as human beings. Using both allows us to better understand everything
that we come up against. Just my two cents.


>From: "hermanbtriplegood" <hb3g@...>
>Reply-To: existlist@yahoogroups.com
>To: existlist@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [existlist] Re: clarities
>Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 05:53:33 -0000
>
>Civility on the list is a good thing. There is open discourse and
>there is discourse that dissimulates. It is difficult to engage in
>discourse with an interlocutor who uses a private language. It is
>difficult to engage in discourse based upon the assumption of
>unconditional entitlement to opinion. Lastly, discourse remains
>difficult when it is habitually taken down to the level of what
>constitutes one's favorite kind of people.
>
>I try not to take what goes on here too personally. I am only human,
>of course, and I have feelings like everybody else, but I strive not
>to look for validation here. The reasonability of the idea being
>communicated, in accordance with an objective standard of discourse,
>ought to be validation enough. Approval or disapproval is secondary
>to the intrinsic standard of reasonability in discourse. This cannot
>be a matter of anything goes. It cannot be a matter of just personal
>opinion. It cannot be a matter of how one happens to feel about the
>idea in question. Rather, it needs to be about what one actually
>thinks about the idea. It cannot be an autocratic ruling.
>
>Feelings are real. But they get in the way of rational discourse. I
>pose this question. Which seems more appropriate? To ascertain,
>first, how one feels about an idea, then modify one's thinking to
>accommodate that feeling? Or, to decide, with reason, what one thinks
>about an idea, then, to adjust one's feelings toward it
>appropriately? Needless to say, I am one who would put reason, not
>feeling, in the driver's seat, and for good reason. To let feeling
>lead reason around by the nose is simple prejudice. It is lazy
>reason. It is a shortcut, and a copout. It is the opposite of
>enlightenment. We can do better than that. We should strive to be
>better than that. The question, "How do you feel about that?" is, to
>me, trivial, compared to the question, "What do you think about
>that?" We often cannot control our feelings. Our thinking, however,
>is something that we can direct and put to efficacious use. The
>touchstone of thinking is its autonomy. It amazes me how debased our
>appreciation and respect of thinking, compared to feeling, actually
>is in our common every day discourse. See Rand's Atlas Shrugged for
>some valuable insights into this disparity between using a feeling
>for the justification of an idea as opposed to using a thought.
>
>Annihilate this meta-discussion at will, if it is your will to do so.
>In other words, I invite reasoned, cogent, refutation. Impassioned
>blitherings are justly disregarded.
>
>Hb3g
>
>--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "louise" <hecubatoher@...> wrote:
> >
> > One of the main points of dispute in my time at the list has
> > concerned the nature of the personal.  It is embarrassing, or
> > undignified, at times, to make statements perceived to relate to
> > matters normally private, or to complain about treatment received.
> > My own ethics require me, on certain occasions, to succumb to these
> > sensations for the reason that I perceive them as a lesser evil.  I
> > keep repeating myself, because that is the nature of reality, i.e.,
> > it involves absolutes, relative to the human individual.  So if it
> > has not been clear in the past, here it is again - I wish to be
> > treated like any other member of this group.  If I am to
>be 'kicked'
> > on any occasion, this would not bother me in the least.  I will
> > explain why.  Always at existlist I have been treated by the
> > moderators with fairness, and when unhappy I have explained myself
> > to them either at the messageboard or by private e-mail.  Theirs is
> > the prerogative, to make decision, as I have maintained
>throughout.
> > The wider question of responsibility, for one's very dreams, and
> > whether that might affect decision-making, is potentially
> > philosophical, though seems to me that national differences may
>once
> > agian be relevant.  In USA, for instance, it is hardly socially
> > stigmatising, to go see an analyst, or psychiatrist.  I assume it's
> > quite a middle-class thing, though.  My own religious faith is
> > perfectly compatible with forms of anger that may be socially
> > unacceptable, or even on the border of legality.  So I am
>accustomed
> > to being in dispute ... with humanists, with Christians, with
>boors,
> > I'm no respecter of persons.  Misunderstanding is rife in society,
> > no more so than when solitary types come up against the
> > unimaginative or dogmatic tribes of gregarious.  Flocks, yep.  They
> > are everywhere.  Onwards I wander, looking for my one lost lamb,
> > muttering in impatience at those who are so very eager to help.
> >
> > Louise
> > ... never intentionally an actress
> >
>
>
>
>

_________________________________________________________________
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I do not advocate ignoring feelings. I said they are real enough.
Feelings, however, are private experiences. Yes, we can talk about
them pubicly, and, so to speak, share them. But one's feelings cannot
be communicated and shared in the same way that thoughts can. What I
am saying is that the act of judging a thing is a thought, not a
feeling, and we ought not to confuse how we feel about a thing with
what we think about it. One has to ask, why is it that down through
the centuries great philosophers have exhorted man to strive to
control feeling with reason? Feelings can be a powerful motive force
to action. But action purely from feeling is blind and, more often
than not, it leads to bad consequence. Hence, when the impetuous
person has caused harm to others by his or her action, we here the
protestation, "I couldn't help myelf, I wasn't thinking!" To let
feeling, rather than reason, rule over one's ideas is to be like a
leaf in the breeze, blown every which way.

Hb3g

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "mike macdonald" <mikemacd39@...>
wrote:
>
> I prefer using rational thinking to analyze feelings, as feelings
are too
> influential to pass off. They can give clarity with the proper
thought.
> Ignoring your feelings is like forgetting one of the most unique
things we
> have as human beings. Using both allows us to better understand
everything
> that we come up against. Just my two cents.
>
>
> >From: "hermanbtriplegood" <hb3g@...>
> >Reply-To: existlist@yahoogroups.com
> >To: existlist@yahoogroups.com
> >Subject: [existlist] Re: clarities
> >Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 05:53:33 -0000
> >
> >Civility on the list is a good thing. There is open discourse and
> >there is discourse that dissimulates. It is difficult to engage in
> >discourse with an interlocutor who uses a private language. It is
> >difficult to engage in discourse based upon the assumption of
> >unconditional entitlement to opinion. Lastly, discourse remains
> >difficult when it is habitually taken down to the level of what
> >constitutes one's favorite kind of people.
> >
> >I try not to take what goes on here too personally. I am only
human,
> >of course, and I have feelings like everybody else, but I strive
not
> >to look for validation here. The reasonability of the idea being
> >communicated, in accordance with an objective standard of
discourse,
> >ought to be validation enough. Approval or disapproval is secondary
> >to the intrinsic standard of reasonability in discourse. This
cannot
> >be a matter of anything goes. It cannot be a matter of just
personal
> >opinion. It cannot be a matter of how one happens to feel about the
> >idea in question. Rather, it needs to be about what one actually
> >thinks about the idea. It cannot be an autocratic ruling.
> >
> >Feelings are real. But they get in the way of rational discourse. I
> >pose this question. Which seems more appropriate? To ascertain,
> >first, how one feels about an idea, then modify one's thinking to
> >accommodate that feeling? Or, to decide, with reason, what one
thinks
> >about an idea, then, to adjust one's feelings toward it
> >appropriately? Needless to say, I am one who would put reason, not
> >feeling, in the driver's seat, and for good reason. To let feeling
> >lead reason around by the nose is simple prejudice. It is lazy
> >reason. It is a shortcut, and a copout. It is the opposite of
> >enlightenment. We can do better than that. We should strive to be
> >better than that. The question, "How do you feel about that?" is,
to
> >me, trivial, compared to the question, "What do you think about
> >that?" We often cannot control our feelings. Our thinking, however,
> >is something that we can direct and put to efficacious use. The
> >touchstone of thinking is its autonomy. It amazes me how debased
our
> >appreciation and respect of thinking, compared to feeling, actually
> >is in our common every day discourse. See Rand's Atlas Shrugged for
> >some valuable insights into this disparity between using a feeling
> >for the justification of an idea as opposed to using a thought.
> >
> >Annihilate this meta-discussion at will, if it is your will to do
so.
> >In other words, I invite reasoned, cogent, refutation. Impassioned
> >blitherings are justly disregarded.
> >
> >Hb3g
> >
> >--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "louise" <hecubatoher@> wrote:
> > >
> > > One of the main points of dispute in my time at the list has
> > > concerned the nature of the personal.  It is embarrassing, or
> > > undignified, at times, to make statements perceived to relate to
> > > matters normally private, or to complain about treatment
received.
> > > My own ethics require me, on certain occasions, to succumb to
these
> > > sensations for the reason that I perceive them as a lesser
evil.  I
> > > keep repeating myself, because that is the nature of reality,
i.e.,
> > > it involves absolutes, relative to the human individual.  So if
it
> > > has not been clear in the past, here it is again - I wish to be
> > > treated like any other member of this group.  If I am to
> >be 'kicked'
> > > on any occasion, this would not bother me in the least.  I will
> > > explain why.  Always at existlist I have been treated by the
> > > moderators with fairness, and when unhappy I have explained
myself
> > > to them either at the messageboard or by private e-mail.
Theirs is
> > > the prerogative, to make decision, as I have maintained
> >throughout.
> > > The wider question of responsibility, for one's very dreams, and
> > > whether that might affect decision-making, is potentially
> > > philosophical, though seems to me that national differences may
> >once
> > > agian be relevant.  In USA, for instance, it is hardly socially
> > > stigmatising, to go see an analyst, or psychiatrist.  I assume
it's
> > > quite a middle-class thing, though.  My own religious faith is
> > > perfectly compatible with forms of anger that may be socially
> > > unacceptable, or even on the border of legality.  So I am
> >accustomed
> > > to being in dispute ... with humanists, with Christians, with
> >boors,
> > > I'm no respecter of persons.  Misunderstanding is rife in
society,
> > > no more so than when solitary types come up against the
> > > unimaginative or dogmatic tribes of gregarious.  Flocks, yep.
They
> > > are everywhere.  Onwards I wander, looking for my one lost lamb,
> > > muttering in impatience at those who are so very eager to help.
> > >
> > > Louise
> > > ... never intentionally an actress
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Designer Mail isn't just fun to send, it's fun to receive. Use
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> stationery, fonts and colors.
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ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=http://hotmail.com/enca&HL=Mar
ket_MSNIS_Taglines
>   Start enjoying all the benefits of MSN® Premium right now and get
the
> first two months FREE*.
>

Reason and feeling are functions of the brain. And if you are able to
so neatly tease them apart from one another, you are far more gifted
than most. Do feelings influence and shape thought or is it vice-versa?
Like I've said before, reason is an evolved survival skill. Even if
this skill was implemented species wide, there will always be some who
rationally disagrees with another's reasonability. From an existential
point of view, this idea is relevant and relatively subjective. If one
is so inclined they can only know how to achieve a balance for
themselves. So unless you're able to tinker and adjust the genetic
differences in  thers, your moralizing is absolutely ridiculous. Mary

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "hermanbtriplegood" <hb3g@...> wrote:

"I do not advocate ignoring feelings. I said they are real enough.
Feelings, however, are private experiences. Yes, we can talk about
them pubicly, and, so to speak, share them. But one's feelings cannot
be communicated and shared in the same way that thoughts can. What I
am saying is that the act of judging a thing is a thought, not a
feeling, and we ought not to confuse how we feel about a thing with
what we think about it. One has to ask, why is it that down through
the centuries great philosophers have exhorted man to strive to
control feeling with reason? Feelings can be a powerful motive force
to action. But action purely from feeling is blind and, more often
than not, it leads to bad consequence. Hence, when the impetuous
person has caused harm to others by his or her action, we here the
protestation, "I couldn't help myelf, I wasn't thinking!" To let
feeling, rather than reason, rule over one's ideas is to be like a
leaf in the breeze, blown every which way."

Hb3g

I can see that you wrote this off the cuff with feeling, as it does
not display your usual epistemological flair. Are you sure that
feelings are a private experience? I'm thinking that individual human
"feelings" are like everything else, a phenomenon of the individual
and the whole (whatever it is). The act of judging a thing is a
thought? Devoid of feeling? Is a human being ever devoid of feeling? I
don't think so. Thinking and feeling are not ever seperated. Open
minded thought, occurs with the feeling of being open minded? No?
There is no TOE Herman because we cannot ever see the whole of
ourselves let alone anything else. You are caught up in an
epistemology, for which you have a feeling, because it holds out a
promise of bringing an understanding of a solid world to you, know it
or not.It is the very esoterical promise that it argues it avoids.


"...one consequence of antirepresentationalism is the recognition that
no description of how things are from a God's-eye point of view, no
skyhook provided by some contemporary or yet-to-be-developed science,
is going to free us from the contingency of having been acculturated
as we were. Our acculturation is what makes certain options live, or
momentous, or forced, while leaving others dead, or trivial, or
optional." Richard Rorty

You can find the basis for this in modern pragmatism, and the
analytical school: they are just little windows, thought organizes our
impressions into assessments (not without the unavoidable attachment
of feeling), we live within those assessments, but the limitation is
inescapable.Bigger windows we would fall out of and disappear.In order
to find an idea of metaphysics that moves away from an esoterical
promise we should propose that it adapt to limitation, a limitation
that makes it essentially an epistemology of an inescapably limited
view. Such a fluidity would give old thought new life, otherwise it
remains quaintly invalid for the limits of the modern view.

Trinidad

I have not kept up with the debate of feeling vs. reason, so I may be off base,
but the notion of the separation of thought and reason is contrary to the very
basis of Western philosophy.  Consider, Aristotle said all great ideas are a
result of problem solving because we don' bother to think unless we have to,
since it is so hard.  Problems are a result of feelings in conflict with
conditions.  Hence, all great thought started as a feeling.   Only feelings can
tell us where we want to go.  Only thought can tell us how to get there. If our
ancestors had not feared the saber toothed tiger, would they have developed ways
to avoid him and had they not would we even be here?  Had not Einstein not been
frustrated by his efforts to resolve his math problems would he ever have "felt"
or intuited his solutions?  Carl Jung might have said feelings are just thoughts
from the collective unconscious.  I believe Sartre him self said we cannot find
meaning through thought but only through feeling. ---Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: two_owl_night <two_owl_night@...>
To: existlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 29 May 2006 15:28:53 -0000
Subject: [existlist] to clear up the confusion


Reason and feeling are functions of the brain. And if you are able to
so neatly tease them apart from one another, you are far more gifted
than most. Do feelings influence and shape thought or is it vice-versa?
Like I've said before, reason is an evolved survival skill. Even if
this skill was implemented species wide, there will always be some who
rationally disagrees with another's reasonability. From an existential
point of view, this idea is relevant and relatively subjective. If one
is so inclined they can only know how to achieve a balance for
themselves. So unless you're able to tinker and adjust the genetic
differences in  thers, your moralizing is absolutely ridiculous. Mary






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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hp3g---Consider, honestly now, if you did not feel strongly about this issue
would you have bothered formulation a reasoned argument on it?  Feelings are a
part of the thinking process, not he directional part, but the driving force.
Aristotle said, all thought is problem solving and all problems are conflicted
feelings. --Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: hermanbtriplegood <hb3g@...>
To: existlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 29 May 2006 05:53:33 -0000
Subject: [existlist] Re: clarities


Civility on the list is a good thing. There is open discourse and
there is discourse that dissimulates. It is difficult to engage in
discourse with an interlocutor who uses a private language. It is
difficult to engage in discourse based upon the assumption of
unconditional entitlement to opinion. Lastly, discourse remains
difficult when it is habitually taken down to the level of what
constitutes one's favorite kind of people.

I try not to take what goes on here too personally. I am only human,
of course, and I have feelings like everybody else, but I strive not
to look for validation here. The reasonability of the idea being
communicated, in accordance with an objective standard of discourse,
ought to be validation enough. Approval or disapproval is secondary
to the intrinsic standard of reasonability in discourse. This cannot
be a matter of anything goes. It cannot be a matter of just personal
opinion. It cannot be a matter of how one happens to feel about the
idea in question. Rather, it needs to be about what one actually
thinks about the idea. It cannot be an autocratic ruling.

Feelings are real. But they get in the way of rational discourse. I
pose this question. Which seems more appropriate? To ascertain,
first, how one feels about an idea, then modify one's thinking to
accommodate that feeling? Or, to decide, with reason, what one thinks
about an idea, then, to adjust one's feelings toward it
appropriately? Needless to say, I am one who would put reason, not
feeling, in the driver's seat, and for good reason. To let feeling
lead reason around by the nose is simple prejudice. It is lazy
reason. It is a shortcut, and a copout. It is the opposite of
enlightenment. We can do better than that. We should strive to be
better than that. The question, "How do you feel about that?" is, to
me, trivial, compared to the question, "What do you think about
that?" We often cannot control our feelings. Our thinking, however,
is something that we can direct and put to efficacious use. The
touchstone of thinking is its autonomy. It amazes me how debased our
appreciation and respect of thinking, compared to feeling, actually
is in our common every day discourse. See Rand's Atlas Shrugged for
some valuable insights into this disparity between using a feeling
for the justification of an idea as opposed to using a thought.

Annihilate this meta-discussion at will, if it is your will to do so.
In other words, I invite reasoned, cogent, refutation. Impassioned
blitherings are justly disregarded.

Hb3g

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "louise" <hecubatoher@...> wrote:
>
> One of the main points of dispute in my time at the list has
> concerned the nature of the personal.  It is embarrassing, or
> undignified, at times, to make statements perceived to relate to
> matters normally private, or to complain about treatment received.
> My own ethics require me, on certain occasions, to succumb to these
> sensations for the reason that I perceive them as a lesser evil.  I
> keep repeating myself, because that is the nature of reality, i.e.,
> it involves absolutes, relative to the human individual.  So if it
> has not been clear in the past, here it is again - I wish to be
> treated like any other member of this group.  If I am to
be 'kicked'
> on any occasion, this would not bother me in the least.  I will
> explain why.  Always at existlist I have been treated by the
> moderators with fairness, and when unhappy I have explained myself
> to them either at the messageboard or by private e-mail.  Theirs is
> the prerogative, to make decision, as I have maintained
throughout.
> The wider question of responsibility, for one's very dreams, and
> whether that might affect decision-making, is potentially
> philosophical, though seems to me that national differences may
once
> agian be relevant.  In USA, for instance, it is hardly socially
> stigmatising, to go see an analyst, or psychiatrist.  I assume it's
> quite a middle-class thing, though.  My own religious faith is
> perfectly compatible with forms of anger that may be socially
> unacceptable, or even on the border of legality.  So I am
accustomed
> to being in dispute ... with humanists, with Christians, with
boors,
> I'm no respecter of persons.  Misunderstanding is rife in society,
> no more so than when solitary types come up against the
> unimaginative or dogmatic tribes of gregarious.  Flocks, yep.  They
> are everywhere.  Onwards I wander, looking for my one lost lamb,
> muttering in impatience at those who are so very eager to help.
>
> Louise
> ... never intentionally an actress
>







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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

When torturing a spider with a match there are two distinct methods.
Flaming the extremeties causes an extinuation of pleasure. If you have
been bitten by spiders you have a rational for your vengance. Then
again perhaps your  pure sadism approves the act. Either way  the
prolongation of execution could be considered defered pleasure
seeking. Both Schopenhaur and Husseryl considered defered pleasure
taking to be at the root of philophical endeavour.
  Then again there is the auditory and visual  perks that come from the
explosion of the  soft abdomen. These exquisite moments are  a whole
mind experience that Kant be the rewards of pure reason. Why be an
existentialist? Because it can be fun. Bill

You cruel, cruel bastard, torturing spiders for
pleasure? You must be off your medication.
Taking pleasure in destruction is a frightening
thought. Please tell more of why?

Chris
--- bhvwd <v.valleywestdental@...> wrote:

> When torturing a spider with a match there are two
> distinct methods.
> Flaming the extremeties causes an extinuation of
> pleasure. If you have
> been bitten by spiders you have a rational for your
> vengance. Then
> again perhaps your  pure sadism approves the act.
> Either way  the
> prolongation of execution could be considered
> defered pleasure
> seeking. Both Schopenhaur and Husseryl considered
> defered pleasure
> taking to be at the root of philophical endeavour.
>  Then again there is the auditory and visual  perks
> that come from the
> explosion of the  soft abdomen. These exquisite
> moments are  a whole
> mind experience that Kant be the rewards of pure
> reason. Why be an
> existentialist? Because it can be fun. Bill
>
>
>
>
>


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1) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to decide for oneself in all respects.
This means that every unit in society moves according to its own
discretion, develops itself, gathers experiences in accordance with
its own preferences, corresponding to its talents, reasoning and
personal resolutions. In short, the individual is responsible only to
himself (or to those to whom he has obliged himself) for all his
actions. This freedom finds its limits where the equal freedom of
others begins and the danger arises that others are harmed.

2) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to chose and practise one's profession
and to utter one's opinion orally and in writing, publicly and
privately.

3) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to join any association that has
definite and predetermined purposes or any other association of any
kind.

4) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to decide for oneself either for or
against any expression of solidarity, for and against any contractual
obligation of whatever kind and in whatever sphere of human activity
and without regard to its aims and its duration. Likewise, the right
to freely decide upon withdrawal from a contractual situation, within
the framework of clearly predetermined contractual conditions. One
precondition is that, in case a contract offer is declined or a
contract is dissolved, the dissenters are not penalized or maligned.
But when a contract is dissolved then neither disadvantages nor any
harm must arise for the partner that would be contrary to the form
and contents of the contract.

5) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for producers and consumers and other
partners to negotiate, whether alone or in groups. Full and
unrestricted right, regardless of the sphere of activities and their
purpose, to select the persons and societies of one's confidence and
to authorize them, especially teachers, instructors, physicians,
lawyers and arbitrators.

6) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to determine and change the value or
price of any goods, the own products or consumer goods, of whatever
kind, according to one's own discretion. Likewise untouchable is the
right to negotiate in this respect, to use an arbitrator or to do
without any determination of values.

7) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for every individual and every
association or group to use any money that applies as a means of
exchange to themselves, for their goods and service exchanges, to
issue it themselves or to accept that issued by others, provided that
this is always done by agreement and not under any monopolistic
coercion. The same applies to the so-called labour bons and goods
warrants and similar certificates, to bills, letters of credit etc.,
whether they are negotiable or not. Consequently, there is a definite
right to utilize any voluntarily recognized means of payment for all
economic transactions, as long as it is not subjected to any legal
tender. With this is meant the unrestricted right to utilize any
other kind of means of exchange, provided that an acceptor is found
who decides for it without any coercion.

8) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for individuals and groups, competing
for any job or contract, provided that the applicants are not
prevented from fully informing and improving themselves. Likewise
untouchable are the rights to act creatively in accordance with one's
desires, to move and settle freely and to advertise one's own cause
or services.
9) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to exhibit and realize in any sphere
of culture and economics one's opinions or services. There is no
other limitation upon this than the condition that nothing may be
forced upon others. They may freely decline whatever does not appeal
to them. Under this condition the unrestricted right to freedom of
expression applies and the right to propagate and teach a theory and
to undertake experiments and gather experiences, even when this
applies to economic, philosophic, scientific, religious, educational,
artistic or any other spheres of activity.

10) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to live from the returns of one's own
services or production, even alone, outside of any group or community
or society itself, at one's own risk. Likewise unrestricted is the
right to seek to live together with a partner, in a family, in a
patriarchal or matriarchal society, in free associations and
communes, in close ideological association of whatever kind.

11) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to decide for oneself to join any
association or league whose libertarian aims embrace any kind of
human activity or search for knowledge. This applies to associations
for any economic, intellectual, ethical, emotional recreational or
other purpose and, especially for all spheres of production,
consumption, trade, communication, insurance against all possible
risks, educational methods and systems, to the utilization of
scientific discoveries and of naturally or artificially produced
energies.

12) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to secede from any kind of
association, but in accordance with the principles and clauses agreed
upon when it was established.

13) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for any association, league,
cooperative etc. to organize itself in a way that suits its members
best. This includes the right to order internal affairs at one's own
discretion, in accordance with an internal constitution that applies
only to the voluntary members.

14) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to settle upon and utilize for
oneself any non-inhabited and not claimed locality or real estate,
provided that thereby the equal right of others is not infringed and
no one else is exploited thereby. Under this condition the individual
has an incontestable right to possess his means of production
(tradesman's tools, instruments, machines, land, minerals etc.). This
requires also the freedom to dispose oneself over the returns from or
product of one's own labour - to the extent that no domination over
or exploitation of others is involved. Moreover, the individual shall
be guaranteed the unrestricted right to exchange or dispose of his
products upon the market or in any other way, regardless whether he
does so for payment or under any other condition. Any association or
community has the equal right to apply within the own organization
the principles here explained or similar ones.

15) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for each individual and, likewise,
for any member of an organized society, to dispose freely over his
personal property, i.e. over the utilization rights and the returns
that he receives in exchange for his personal labour services and
which assure him his support, his accommodation (and, especially for
the individual, the means of production).

16) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to express affection for others and
preference for anything, according to one's own discretion, provided
that neither any deception or any fraud is associated with this and,
most importantly, no one is harmed, restricted or in any way reduced
thereby.

17) DEMANDS THAT APPLY ESPECIALLY TO WOMEN AND MOTHERS:
FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for every woman, whether alone or in
partnership, to determine for herself her readiness to become a
mother. A child shall remain only as long under supervision or
custody until it has reached an age in which it can self-responsibly
engage in contracts and associations. This applies also to the
guardianship for a child. The mother possesses priority in this -
which she may completely or partly transfer to another person or
institution.

18) DEMANDS APPLYING ESPECIALLY TO CHILDREN: FULL AND UNRESTRICTED
RIGHT for the child, boy or girl, to demand an alteration or complete
change in its wardship condition. The child may ask for an early
declaration that it is of full legal age or for the clarification of
any other problem. In this case the child has the right to
arbitration and the right to chose the arbitrator or at least one of
the arbitrators.

> 1) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT

sounds a lot like "do what thou wilt" until you run into others who will
"do what thou wilt," which is pretty much right away.  "civilization" is
generally seen as something other than street brawling.

on feelings as vs. logic, isn't absolute separation considered a brain
dysfunction, like autism?

on technology and culture, am writing a conference paper on knowledge
networks, which has to be finished within days, so am too deeply into
woods right now to try commenting.

aija

What's wrong with the proposal?

Its partiality.  That is, such a document evinces an understanding
of contracts, yet is applied to a sphere - human subjectivity - in
which contracts may not in real life be binding.  The premise of
such a proposal appears to be that civilization may be shaped
according to concepts of law and commerce.  Sadly, in the various
worlds of the  twenty-first century, a 'Renaissance man' is no
longer feasible.  The aggregated knowledge base is too vast.
Ambition is not per se unethical, and may indeed be allied with high
virtue.  If, however, an ambitious project is applied to those whose
own valuations - whether religious or secular - do not match with
the valuations of the project's architects, human nature will assert
itself.  That means violence.

I reiterate.  We need philosophy.  We need to keep questioning that
which underlies what we value in life.

Louise

--- In existlist@yahoogroups.com, "two_owl_night"
<two_owl_night@...> wrote:
>
> 1) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to decide for oneself in all
respects.
> This means that every unit in society moves according to its own
> discretion, develops itself, gathers experiences in accordance
with
> its own preferences, corresponding to its talents, reasoning and
> personal resolutions. In short, the individual is responsible only
to
> himself (or to those to whom he has obliged himself) for all his
> actions. This freedom finds its limits where the equal freedom of
> others begins and the danger arises that others are harmed.
>
> 2) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to chose and practise one's
profession
> and to utter one's opinion orally and in writing, publicly and
> privately.
>
> 3) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to join any association that has
> definite and predetermined purposes or any other association of
any
> kind.
>
> 4) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to decide for oneself either for or
> against any expression of solidarity, for and against any
contractual
> obligation of whatever kind and in whatever sphere of human
activity
> and without regard to its aims and its duration. Likewise, the
right
> to freely decide upon withdrawal from a contractual situation,
within
> the framework of clearly predetermined contractual conditions. One
> precondition is that, in case a contract offer is declined or a
> contract is dissolved, the dissenters are not penalized or
maligned.
> But when a contract is dissolved then neither disadvantages nor
any
> harm must arise for the partner that would be contrary to the form
> and contents of the contract.
>
> 5) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for producers and consumers and
other
> partners to negotiate, whether alone or in groups. Full and
> unrestricted right, regardless of the sphere of activities and
their
> purpose, to select the persons and societies of one's confidence
and
> to authorize them, especially teachers, instructors, physicians,
> lawyers and arbitrators.
>
> 6) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to determine and change the value
or
> price of any goods, the own products or consumer goods, of
whatever
> kind, according to one's own discretion. Likewise untouchable is
the
> right to negotiate in this respect, to use an arbitrator or to do
> without any determination of values.
>
> 7) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for every individual and every
> association or group to use any money that applies as a means of
> exchange to themselves, for their goods and service exchanges, to
> issue it themselves or to accept that issued by others, provided
that
> this is always done by agreement and not under any monopolistic
> coercion. The same applies to the so-called labour bons and goods
> warrants and similar certificates, to bills, letters of credit
etc.,
> whether they are negotiable or not. Consequently, there is a
definite
> right to utilize any voluntarily recognized means of payment for
all
> economic transactions, as long as it is not subjected to any legal
> tender. With this is meant the unrestricted right to utilize any
> other kind of means of exchange, provided that an acceptor is
found
> who decides for it without any coercion.
>
> 8) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for individuals and groups,
competing
> for any job or contract, provided that the applicants are not
> prevented from fully informing and improving themselves. Likewise
> untouchable are the rights to act creatively in accordance with
one's
> desires, to move and settle freely and to advertise one's own
cause
> or services.
> 9) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to exhibit and realize in any
sphere
> of culture and economics one's opinions or services. There is no
> other limitation upon this than the condition that nothing may be
> forced upon others. They may freely decline whatever does not
appeal
> to them. Under this condition the unrestricted right to freedom of
> expression applies and the right to propagate and teach a theory
and
> to undertake experiments and gather experiences, even when this
> applies to economic, philosophic, scientific, religious,
educational,
> artistic or any other spheres of activity.
>
> 10) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to live from the returns of one's
own
> services or production, even alone, outside of any group or
community
> or society itself, at one's own risk. Likewise unrestricted is the
> right to seek to live together with a partner, in a family, in a
> patriarchal or matriarchal society, in free associations and
> communes, in close ideological association of whatever kind.
>
> 11) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to decide for oneself to join any
> association or league whose libertarian aims embrace any kind of
> human activity or search for knowledge. This applies to
associations
> for any economic, intellectual, ethical, emotional recreational or
> other purpose and, especially for all spheres of production,
> consumption, trade, communication, insurance against all possible
> risks, educational methods and systems, to the utilization of
> scientific discoveries and of naturally or artificially produced
> energies.
>
> 12) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to secede from any kind of
> association, but in accordance with the principles and clauses
agreed
> upon when it was established.
>
> 13) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for any association, league,
> cooperative etc. to organize itself in a way that suits its
members
> best. This includes the right to order internal affairs at one's
own
> discretion, in accordance with an internal constitution that
applies
> only to the voluntary members.
>
> 14) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to settle upon and utilize for
> oneself any non-inhabited and not claimed locality or real estate,
> provided that thereby the equal right of others is not infringed
and
> no one else is exploited thereby. Under this condition the
individual
> has an incontestable right to possess his means of production
> (tradesman's tools, instruments, machines, land, minerals etc.).
This
> requires also the freedom to dispose oneself over the returns from
or
> product of one's own labour - to the extent that no domination
over
> or exploitation of others is involved. Moreover, the individual
shall
> be guaranteed the unrestricted right to exchange or dispose of his
> products upon the market or in any other way, regardless whether
he
> does so for payment or under any other condition. Any association
or
> community has the equal right to apply within the own organization
> the principles here explained or similar ones.
>
> 15) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for each individual and, likewise,
> for any member of an organized society, to dispose freely over his
> personal property, i.e. over the utilization rights and the
returns
> that he receives in exchange for his personal labour services and
> which assure him his support, his accommodation (and, especially
for
> the individual, the means of production).
>
> 16) FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT to express affection for others
and
> preference for anything, according to one's own discretion,
provided
> that neither any deception or any fraud is associated with this
and,
> most importantly, no one is harmed, restricted or in any way
reduced
> thereby.
>
> 17) DEMANDS THAT APPLY ESPECIALLY TO WOMEN AND MOTHERS:
> FULL AND UNRESTRICTED RIGHT for every woman, whether alone or in
> partnership, to determine for herself her readiness to become a
> mother. A child shall remain only as long under supervision or
> custody until it has reached an age in which it can self-
responsibly
> engage in contracts and associations. This applies also to the
> guardianship for a child. The mother possesses priority in this -
> which she may completely or partly transfer to another person or
> institution.
>
> 18) DEMANDS APPLYING ESPECIALLY TO CHILDREN: FULL AND UNRESTRICTED
> RIGHT for the child, boy or girl, to demand an alteration or
complete
> change in its wardship condition. The child may ask for an early
> declaration that it is of full legal age or for the clarification
of
> any other problem. In this case the child has the right to
> arbitration and the right to chose the arbitrator or at least one
of
> the arbitrators.
>

Philosophy is the study of that which greatly interestes you. Bill

To decide for oneself is a philosophy: anarchism. OUR DEMANDS AS
INDIVIDUALIST ANARCHISTS (1945) by Emile Armand is a reasonable hope
for future generations. Being cynical is my prerogative; and I can live
with that, but the world is much more than me. Bill's koan is on the
mark. Maturity is knowing that few share our unique interests, and the
better ideas give us permission to move on. Contracts of all kinds can
be broken, especially since the need for them is situational. Mary

*The individualist anarchists in the meaning of the UNIQUE (of
Stirner's The Ego and His Own) do advocate a "society without
coercion". This implies the following demands, which are unqualified
and without reservations. It is self-evident that these demands are to
be realized, completely or partly, as far as is possible.
Individualists of our kind recognize every society as a "Society
without Coercion" in which the State and any other aggressive power is
eliminated, in which there is no longer any domination of man over man
or over a sphere of society (and vice versa) and in which an
exploitation of man by man or of man through social institutions (and
vice versa ) is impossible.*

Mary

I'm not sure to take you as an anarchist now or not. I know you hang
out with some who claim to be. (I personally think Bush is an
anarchist). I have seen your writing on other sites. I wonder what an
anarchist is? I admit to having a rather guilty attachment to
stimulating controversy here (largely because the host is a
rhetorician); and it has been interesting to watch the occasional
theory melt down; but anarchy fails for the same substantive reasons
as most social iniatives: an incorrect perspective on reality, and
taking its own rhetoric as representational, essentially believing
that you can get there from here.

I was working part-time as a gas station attendant back in the 60's
when a rather cute young lady pulled up and ask me for directions to
the freeway. I pondered for a minute and then replied quite seriously,
" I don't think you can get there from here." I saw the alarm
momentarily cross her face, and she shuffled through a map and asked,
"Well where do I have to go to get there?" I started to pretend to
show her on the map, and she looked up at me and burst into laughter.
Even though it is not valid, people in general relate to ideas and
concepts as representational of reality. The reality of anarchy is
actually in its own arguments against control. All any social
organization can do; personal relationship, family, community,
government; is make you less free. Other is conflict. One cannot
protect freedom, only make enriching enhancing choices for someone else.

Anarchy is not a system of liberation; but rather, the natural state
of human beings who take concepts and ideas as possibly
representational of their natural state (something that can only be
larger than they can possibly grasp in an idea). The view human beings
are afforded of themselves by their natural consequences of being
human can always only be less than they actually are. Even Einstein
hints at this a bit with: "imagination is more important than
knowledge, knowledge is limited." Quantum physics and people like
Cartwright (as I have often referred) have enriched this debate
immensely, and it continues always between Rorty and Dennett in their
own personal exhanges. Modern science has always been tied to a
pragmatism that requires a representational epistemology, but now we
must incorporate a real acceptance of experiential limitations in view
for data to remain valid, and results utilitarian. We cannot mistake
utilitarian effects within a completely representational view as
always utilitarian if science is to progress anywhere beyond
lego-land. For that matter we cannot define pragmatism in general
without incorporating our natural empirical limitations (we cannot
ever wholly view ourselves and exist able to view at all). On this
issue, you may be surprised to discover, I agree with Rorty, and do
not see his present views on epistemology as a threat to either
pragmatism or science, but rather as a challenge toward their future.

Trinidad

Anarchy as theory takes libertarian freedoms to the point they fail.
People need order within a society; some people are born leaders or
even dictators and we need some rules to limit their pursuits of power
and authority. A lot more people want to be led than want to lead -- so
I worry that they will follow anyone promising easy answers.

As a libertarian, I know I am far from the socialism of the people
around me. I am neither a socialist nor a corporatist, which confuses
people. I think the fact companies can and do manipulate government
laws and regulations means the companies cease to be "capitalistic." If
you seek laws to protect yourself from competition and free market, or
seek special tax breaks, you are not really practicing capitalism.
(Even Adam Smith suggested government must ensure a fair and open
market, with honesty sustained by the courts and contracts.)

Anarchy fails because many people are not honest. They will do anything
for power and money. They will lie about what their product does, lie
about how much effort they put into work, et cetera. Socialism fails
for the same reasons -- people manipulate any system.

It is sad, but we need just enough laws to protect us from each other,
while avoiding having so many laws that freedom is lost. The balance is
not easy. I suggest you let people buy and sell whatever they want, as
long as they know the risks. I also think people should be free to try
and fail at most anything at all. However, people should admit they
might fail -- and government should not pick up the pieces every time.

Because I am tired, I'm probably not explaining my distrust of anarchy
very well. I am somewhere between philosophies, like most people. I
want to be free to do what I want, but I also do not trust the rest of
humanity to behave in the way I might consider ethical.

Too many people think "capitalism" is devoid of ethics, when in fact
Adam Smith and others did explain that ethical behavior was the only
way for capitalism to work. This is true of any political system --
which is why all system are weak and can fail. Even in a theocracy,
people will manipulate and lie.

So, I am a libertarian instead of an anarchist, and a capitalist
instead of a corporatist. Unfortunately, too many Americans (and
Europeans) think being a libertarian is the same as being a neo-liberal
or neo-conservative. We don't educate our youth well enough to
understand what it means to "believe" in any set of philosophies.

As a result, young "anarchists" protest against "capitalism" without a
clue as to what the terms mean.

-- CSW


I have been away for the last week, and off-list for a bit longer. I
was presenting at a conference in Texas and many things that could go
wrong did with both the presentation and the trip. Nothing like a
tornado and severe storm warning to remind me why I like California.
Quakes are a lot less destructive and you don't have to watch them
approach on the local TV channels.