Not long ago, Joan of Arghh! chided that the result of all of our philosophizing was that it seemed that Love "...has to be caught up into an intellectual subset, or pre-set, or something.... The Meaning of Life. It can't be all about building consciousness; it can't be all that mechanical-- flowing in a straight line, spiral, or any other geometric description. ...'Oh please!' says my heart, "Please let there be mystery!" else God is less than I am. .... If it can be contained in words, in thoughts, in a glance or an appeal to the senses, it is less than I.”
Cosanostradamus, a comment friend from One Cosmos, having recently had a family friend struck down by an act of pure senseless evil, stated "But when it gets close, there is a visceral red gut reaction that comes from the deep. We don't live life just in our heads; we have far more investment here than that.... Our spiritual core must be hands-on or our philosophy is worthless."
I agree, what use the words and intellectual subsets. What use indeed. Cosanostradamus's situation brings that question into stark demanding relief.
What use maps? What use words? What use knowing anything ABOUT anything?
Philosophy helps you to grasp the terrain of your ideas, of your mind. The purpose of modeling it is to enable you to hold such things in contemplation before you, at arms length, so you can see, reflect and foresee reality as it is taking shape in the future, and what future you will consciously seek to approach.
But it is a lifeless map; the life within it must come from you. Recall that when we discuss principles, Right and Wrong, Morality, it is as if discussing the interstates, turnpikes and highways we are driving on... which route to take, which route to drive upon? That discussion can be an abstracted discussion, but if you should forget that you are indeed traveling at 75 mph (I can't drive 55), or forget that the curve on the map means that you'd better take care, slow down and look for cross traffic before you as you are driving, you run the risk of likely suffering a frightening, perhaps even mortal, collision. The map corresponds to life, but it is not life - but if you don't both consider the map and apply it while driving, you may lose your life, or lose your way.
We use many illustrations, they help us to understand and appreciate in our slightly out of sync minds, the life we are living, in order to better understand the actions we must take in our lives that we are living, right now.
When I speak of the One Cosmos as one united and massively integrated whole, it is an illustration, but I try never to lose sight that the illustration I spin is of the reality I see, feel and live within right here and now. In my AHA! posts, I put out the idea that our minds Integrate ideas and values with time and action - and that when we make that conceptual connection that enables us to bring 2 and 2 together and realize that it makes 4, at that moment of integration, we get the AHA!, the spark as it were, of separate electrical cables - coming together and sparking on their integration, welding themselves into the whole of the mind. Your conduits expand, more juice flows through your conception of the whole expands.
We are Truth seekers - but not just seekers, we are Truth assemblers. We crave it - that sense of integrating one thing, one value, one understanding with another - deepening and expanding your grasp of the whole.
Watch a toddler, nearly everything is new and unknown, and each moment is surging with such integrations - a Childs life is one nearly continuous stream of AHA!'s "Oh, I let go of the fork and it falls!' "OH! It always falls DOWN!" "This yellow stuff... it tastes GOOD! I bet it has a name, it does! And I KNOW IT NOW!"
As we grow older, and the new discoveries either dwindle, or we've become so sotted on them, that they become like a sip of wine which no longer brings a noticeable buzz, we forget the sensation, but occasionally we are able to reexperience that integrating Aha!... perhaps as we chance to discover something new, or someone tells a joke. What is a laugh, but something that jolts us from the sudden integration of several seemingly unrelated items in an unexpected context unlooked for truths unexpectedly united - from that we get the kick of an AHA! a Laugh. The bigger the disparity between the items, or the more unlooked for the integration, the larger the voltage which we display as a belly laugh.
Philosophy, Religion, help us keep on the right track... and it is important, because we can get turned around, reversed. There is a 'charge', a 'jolt' a spark that can be seen and felt when you yank a connection apart as well, and that can be experienced from disintegrating truths. If you aren't careful, if you aren't fact checking your map with reality, you can pursue the quest of disintegrating, disassembling the whole, pulling apart, pulling down.
Here is the darkness lit by the flashing sparks of torn cables and exploding transformers. Those without philosophical and religous schematics can mistake these flashes for light in the darkness, but it is a light that doesn't grow and doesn't glow, it only requires more and more distruction to provide a flickering half-light to see by.
Describing that, as if a schematic, helps me to understand the wiring so to speak, but just as an electrician doesn't live to become an experienced electrician if he doesn't also keep in mind that the actual wires he's handling while following his plan, are something far more energetic than his schematic. I, we, must do our best to not lose sight of the fact that we are speaking about real life - the life we are living now.
It is of the utmost importance that we continually and honestly check to see that we are in fact integrating, not disintegrating, for sad to say you often experience a larger jolt from blowing a circuit than from making a connection. Look carefully - don't seek to shade your eyes against the clarity of seeing reality as it is, with shades of what we wish it were - live this life here and now - guided by our maps and overviews, yes, but never mistaking them for the reality of the life we ARE living. Are you putting together or tearing down, or just coasting along and doing neither?
Our Values, Ideas, likes and dislikes, preferences - when we find something which brings them together in experience, we enjoy that, we seek that out. Such activities we become known for enjoying, for practicing. People that enjoy the same enable us to experience those joys and pursuits in an even higher form, drawing them up from the horizontal plane of life, and into the Vertical, conceptual, moral experience of life - these are integrations that sustain, that open the conduits to deeper flows of spiritual energy. The more a person unites our interests through them, who enables us to connect to larger numbers of these values integrations, or perhaps only one or two, but INTENSELY so, these persons rise up our hierarchical ladder of vertical experience into the level of friends, Friends and Dear Friends.
Those pleasures which we find united through our friends - the more perceptual, horizontal, they are, the more limited the friendship will be if based upon them alone. Some people you can have a blast watching football with, but when the game is over... time becomes very noticeable..."Right... well then, see you next week!".
With other's you find that your experience with them flows more directly through their minds and hearts, higher up than the perceptual. At this level you find you integrate and approach more, many, even infinite shades and applications of conceptual, vertical thoughts, shining, glistening and glittering; it is upon the horizontal we see them, yes, but it is a horizontal lit from their minds fire, and that fire leaping between theirs and yours - these are our close and dear friends.
Love occurs when a person seems to embody a significant amount of your highest values, pleasures, admirable qualities - like caps upon a pyramid, they reach down and outwards, from a single focal point at the top of the hierarchy, they cover much ground. They seem to embody many of these pyramidal caps, not only in their words and ideas, but in their actions - even in their person itself, their fleshly form, their eyes and touch. They move, walk smile, and deep in your mind and heart, all of these values you hold dear are touched, stirred and connected, strummed and integrated anew - a constant almost unbearable rolling thunder of AHA!'s - and the jolt of it causes your soul to absolutely surge with it - this we call love.
This leads to the integration of our bodies in touch, in sex, and eventually perhaps in a child - the physical, moral, spiritual integration of your two lives and loves into a new life to be loved.
I can speak of this in words and illustrations, but you and I should never forget, never lose sight of the fact that these words and illustrations are of the life you and I are living, RIGHT NOW, here, in your breath indrawn through your nostrils. Mark it! Feel the breath pass into you, flow into and through your skull, down your throat, into your lungs - it is crisp, there is a tingling charge in it, can you feel that? Can you reach beyond the routine, pushed to the background of sotted familiarity, of the known and expected, and FEEL it? Now? You can, if you apply your attention. You can touch you life as it is being lived. You must. We must.
Make a practice of applying that attention in your daily 'routine', of Seeing those around you, those you like and love. Routine doesn't mean assured, routines can be disrupted in a blink of an eye, an accident, a disaster, a thoughtless or evil act can remove those routines from your life - or you from theirs - don't let that be what wakes you up to the fact that though much of the living of life will almost inevitably become routine, it is, and they were and are unique, irreplaceable - the values that spark your life.
Use Philosophy to grasp them deeper, make them more conceptually clear, perhaps foresee how to better understand and touch them, but always remember those symbols of word and thought are of realities felt and lived. They represent your life, but you are your life and it is your Life that they are about, not the other way around.
As Joan said, "It's something Bigger, pulling us through the fog of forever. I take that personally."
Yes indeed, very personally. Don't forget. It is easy to. My kids are upstairs watching a movie... they'll be in bed soon, I could do this after - why now? Sometimes it seems that words, even those honestly pursued, pursued in search of truth, can subtly shift and become ends themselves, shades drawn down between you and your life that you should be living. This isn’t what I intended this post to be about, but there it is. I'm tapped out, more on the rest tomorrow... later. I'm going upstairs.
You can touch your life as it is being lived. You must. We must.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Take That!
This is a call for support, take a look at USS Ben's latest post - a man who did serve his country tells what he did and didn't have in mind when doing it. Leave him an encouraging comment, the flies are already landing.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The I Doctor
Smith sat in the Optaumitrist's chair facing the odd chart on the wall. It had a series of verses upon it, printed in progressively smaller font size. "But they're words, not letters...?" he answered.
"Yes they are, very good. Now would you read them please?" Dr. Locke answered absently, still finishing a few scribbled notes upon his tablet.
Smith's head made a surprised movement, a sort of rotational click, the forehead turning slightly down, the back of the head moving upwards, chin into the throat, he shrugged and recited the first set of verse:
"I just told you"
"You misunderstand me. You read the words, now tell me what it says please." John Smith's head ducked forward this time, eyebrows arching as his head twisted in a silent question. After a moment of eternal silence Dr. Locke continued, "Mr. Smith, I'm not an eye doctor I'm an "I" doctor. I'm not interested merely in what the letters spell, if I'm going to check your Vision, I need to hear what they mean to you. Now please... tell me what you see it as meaning." he added into the unbroken silent pause "... summarize it for me."
The eyebrows and neck uncocked, Smith's gaze turned slightly inwards then haltingly answered "The night has a bunch of lights, but the most light comes from one sun and losing it would hurt most, uhm...pretty much the same thing for the mind over the heart ... and also heartbreak bites"
"Hmm. umh-huh... ok fine. Next line please"
"But it's the same darn line!"
"It most certainly is not! The print is smaller, which means that you have to look more intently at it. Now please, it's getting late, read the next line and tell me what it means." The doctor punctuated his last words with his pen tapping sharply upon his tablet.
"I told you!" Smith's hands rose up and outwards miming an explosions plume.
"You summarized what it said, now tell me what it means! You must look deeper"
"What do you mean?"
Dr. Lock set his pen upon the tablet and rubbed his eyes a moment, then "The next deeper meaning, of course! Is your depth perception completely gone?! Just look for the deeper meaning in the verse."
"For what???"
"MEANING! Are you deaf as well? M-E-A-N-I-N-G"
"What Meaning!?"
"Oh my... The meaning you are able to find within, within it, and yourself. You have to find it - it can mean many different particulars..." and then guessing at his worry, "Don't worry about some 'proper' answer, there can be many different answers, but in their depth their meaning will be the same, there is but One Truth - if you look deep enough for it. Please, try - I'd hate to have to certify you as imaginatively blind."
"Is this covered on my insurance?... oK!" he hastily added, slightly fearful at the sudden forward movement of Dr. Locke towards him. "Hold on a sec eh... um.. oo-okay, ahm... how about this, the night has many distractions, but while the day has only one it gives the most light to see by... and warmth... um random thoughts and interests can keep you occupied, but only love is worth your time, and you'll miss it most when it's gone...a'right?"
"mmm... emahuh... moment, let me just make a note here...I see.... Okay, next please."
"You kidding me?"
"Mr. Smith, I assure you my sense of humor has momentarily fled the building. I am very serious. There are two more verses, you must read each one progressively deeper into the Poem, or I will certify you as utterly lacking in depth perception, and imaginatively blind. That will bar you from the employment you seek. Smaller print, bigger meaning, come on, dig deeper... gonna test your peripheral abstractions here. Please... proceed."
"mmm...err....ulghmph... eh.. ok, uh... Thoughts alone make for a cold heart, especially little ones like stars scattered about the night sky - eh they glitter, but don't warm.... In daylight, you find one light, the little distractions hidden by its brilliance & it gives warmth ... meaning to your life.... if you lose that, um, your life will be... uh... hurt...?"
"I see... ok, better, but you're definitely going to need some corrective lenses here... encouraging though. Ok, next and last line please."
"Oh my, please... that's it for me, what else is there? I don't see anywhere else to go with it, come on...."
Dr. Locke's manner softened, he leaned back against the counter and placed his tablet upon it. "Where else could it go? There are many, many directions it could take you. One would be towards many attractions, trysts, versus a committed and true Love. You could also take it in the direction of materialist distractions versus true spirituality, religion. There are avenues of Philosophy, friendship, Love, Passion... there are many journeys this Poem could take you upon within your mind and soul. Unfortunately for you, you were only able to take three, very shallow steps... so I can't certify your depth perceptions as acceptable at this time, however I don't see any signs of lasting damage... I don't see this as a permanent condition - if you're willing to work on it, that is."
Smith slowly collapsed backwards into the chair, but roused slightly at the last.
"I'm going to write you a prescription for some psychical therapy, and medicinal dosages... are you a religious person?"
"uhm... why?"
"The answer isn't particularly important, only that I want to point you in an unfamiliar direction rather than a familiar one... the medication will be more effective this way."
"Well... sort of, lapsed I guess... for awhile."
"I see...", the doctor mumbled scribbling his prescription. "Ok, I want you to take the first set of remedies in the morning and evening, in three repetitive courses. One all the way through, then the other and so on, progressively... in as large a time dose as you are able to spare." He leveled a hard stare at Smith, "Find the time..." Smith nodded quickly and he relaxed his gaze. "So the main doses are to be Aristotle's Poetics, followed by Longinus on the Sublime, then Dante to Cangrande: English Version, followed by C.S. Lewis's 'An Experiment in Criticism'. There are many, many others that would do, which you can pursue later, but I'd like you to complete these first - I'd prefer you didn't substitute any generic medications until these are completed, understood?"
Smith nodded and gasped.
"Ok, those are the primary medications; now after completing The Poetics, I'd like you to also begin with smaller doses of one Psalm per week, looking at them each to four levels deep, you understand?" Smith nodded again, "do so for four weeks, then Sophocles' Theban plays..." Smith's look went distinctly blank, "Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Cologna, and Antigone" he explained while handing the Rx to his patient.
Smith's face was a bit bewildered as he took the paper and looked at it "Why is everything so old? Nothing new will do?"
"I don't recommend modern works on such a weak and flattened vision as yours... you need to build up some foundational structure first. As it becomes second nature for you to look for deeper meaning, to savor and enjoy doing so... then you can work up to some Shakespeare, Burke, Addison and if your depth perception is still solid, well... then you can wade through the swamps of modernity and find those few gems that exist."
"Thanks Doc... eh... how long till I can reapply for the position"
"Hard to say Mr. Smith, but as I mentioned, it seems as if your disability may be due to merely a simple case of neglect, your fundamentals don't seem to be damaged, so I'd say your prognosis is quite good. Work through the therapy and prescriptions and see me again in 3 month's time, we'll check you out again and go from there."
"Yes they are, very good. Now would you read them please?" Dr. Locke answered absently, still finishing a few scribbled notes upon his tablet.
Smith's head made a surprised movement, a sort of rotational click, the forehead turning slightly down, the back of the head moving upwards, chin into the throat, he shrugged and recited the first set of verse:
'The Night has a Thousand Eyes'"Fine. And what does it say?"
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is
done.
-- Francis William
Bourdillon
"I just told you"
"You misunderstand me. You read the words, now tell me what it says please." John Smith's head ducked forward this time, eyebrows arching as his head twisted in a silent question. After a moment of eternal silence Dr. Locke continued, "Mr. Smith, I'm not an eye doctor I'm an "I" doctor. I'm not interested merely in what the letters spell, if I'm going to check your Vision, I need to hear what they mean to you. Now please... tell me what you see it as meaning." he added into the unbroken silent pause "... summarize it for me."
The eyebrows and neck uncocked, Smith's gaze turned slightly inwards then haltingly answered "The night has a bunch of lights, but the most light comes from one sun and losing it would hurt most, uhm...pretty much the same thing for the mind over the heart ... and also heartbreak bites"
"Hmm. umh-huh... ok fine. Next line please"
"But it's the same darn line!"
"It most certainly is not! The print is smaller, which means that you have to look more intently at it. Now please, it's getting late, read the next line and tell me what it means." The doctor punctuated his last words with his pen tapping sharply upon his tablet.
"I told you!" Smith's hands rose up and outwards miming an explosions plume.
"You summarized what it said, now tell me what it means! You must look deeper"
"What do you mean?"
Dr. Lock set his pen upon the tablet and rubbed his eyes a moment, then "The next deeper meaning, of course! Is your depth perception completely gone?! Just look for the deeper meaning in the verse."
"For what???"
"MEANING! Are you deaf as well? M-E-A-N-I-N-G"
"What Meaning!?"
"Oh my... The meaning you are able to find within, within it, and yourself. You have to find it - it can mean many different particulars..." and then guessing at his worry, "Don't worry about some 'proper' answer, there can be many different answers, but in their depth their meaning will be the same, there is but One Truth - if you look deep enough for it. Please, try - I'd hate to have to certify you as imaginatively blind."
"Is this covered on my insurance?... oK!" he hastily added, slightly fearful at the sudden forward movement of Dr. Locke towards him. "Hold on a sec eh... um.. oo-okay, ahm... how about this, the night has many distractions, but while the day has only one it gives the most light to see by... and warmth... um random thoughts and interests can keep you occupied, but only love is worth your time, and you'll miss it most when it's gone...a'right?"
"mmm... emahuh... moment, let me just make a note here...I see.... Okay, next please."
"You kidding me?"
"Mr. Smith, I assure you my sense of humor has momentarily fled the building. I am very serious. There are two more verses, you must read each one progressively deeper into the Poem, or I will certify you as utterly lacking in depth perception, and imaginatively blind. That will bar you from the employment you seek. Smaller print, bigger meaning, come on, dig deeper... gonna test your peripheral abstractions here. Please... proceed."
"mmm...err....ulghmph... eh.. ok, uh... Thoughts alone make for a cold heart, especially little ones like stars scattered about the night sky - eh they glitter, but don't warm.... In daylight, you find one light, the little distractions hidden by its brilliance & it gives warmth ... meaning to your life.... if you lose that, um, your life will be... uh... hurt...?"
"I see... ok, better, but you're definitely going to need some corrective lenses here... encouraging though. Ok, next and last line please."
"Oh my, please... that's it for me, what else is there? I don't see anywhere else to go with it, come on...."
Dr. Locke's manner softened, he leaned back against the counter and placed his tablet upon it. "Where else could it go? There are many, many directions it could take you. One would be towards many attractions, trysts, versus a committed and true Love. You could also take it in the direction of materialist distractions versus true spirituality, religion. There are avenues of Philosophy, friendship, Love, Passion... there are many journeys this Poem could take you upon within your mind and soul. Unfortunately for you, you were only able to take three, very shallow steps... so I can't certify your depth perceptions as acceptable at this time, however I don't see any signs of lasting damage... I don't see this as a permanent condition - if you're willing to work on it, that is."
Smith slowly collapsed backwards into the chair, but roused slightly at the last.
"I'm going to write you a prescription for some psychical therapy, and medicinal dosages... are you a religious person?"
"uhm... why?"
"The answer isn't particularly important, only that I want to point you in an unfamiliar direction rather than a familiar one... the medication will be more effective this way."
"Well... sort of, lapsed I guess... for awhile."
"I see...", the doctor mumbled scribbling his prescription. "Ok, I want you to take the first set of remedies in the morning and evening, in three repetitive courses. One all the way through, then the other and so on, progressively... in as large a time dose as you are able to spare." He leveled a hard stare at Smith, "Find the time..." Smith nodded quickly and he relaxed his gaze. "So the main doses are to be Aristotle's Poetics, followed by Longinus on the Sublime, then Dante to Cangrande: English Version, followed by C.S. Lewis's 'An Experiment in Criticism'. There are many, many others that would do, which you can pursue later, but I'd like you to complete these first - I'd prefer you didn't substitute any generic medications until these are completed, understood?"
Smith nodded and gasped.
"Ok, those are the primary medications; now after completing The Poetics, I'd like you to also begin with smaller doses of one Psalm per week, looking at them each to four levels deep, you understand?" Smith nodded again, "do so for four weeks, then Sophocles' Theban plays..." Smith's look went distinctly blank, "Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Cologna, and Antigone" he explained while handing the Rx to his patient.
Smith's face was a bit bewildered as he took the paper and looked at it "Why is everything so old? Nothing new will do?"
"I don't recommend modern works on such a weak and flattened vision as yours... you need to build up some foundational structure first. As it becomes second nature for you to look for deeper meaning, to savor and enjoy doing so... then you can work up to some Shakespeare, Burke, Addison and if your depth perception is still solid, well... then you can wade through the swamps of modernity and find those few gems that exist."
"Thanks Doc... eh... how long till I can reapply for the position"
"Hard to say Mr. Smith, but as I mentioned, it seems as if your disability may be due to merely a simple case of neglect, your fundamentals don't seem to be damaged, so I'd say your prognosis is quite good. Work through the therapy and prescriptions and see me again in 3 month's time, we'll check you out again and go from there."
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Divide and Conquer, Axioms, One Cosmos and The 300 - What are words for Part 5
“Is it True, or is it Just a Myth?” from a documentary narrator regarding Alexander The Great cutting the Gordian knot.
“...do you really believe that he changed Water into Wine?!”choose your source, many to pick from“...
“Truth is irrelevant, these are facts”Select any institute of higher learning as your choice for this source
Why do statements like these come about?
Where from comes the idea that you can establish a fact that doesn’t associate with truth, or that Truth is nothing more than a low level fact, the idea that you could speak of a Myth qua myth, as somehow incompatible with Truth, as if Truth on that contextual level is comprised of nothing more than catalogs of descriptive physical facts?
Beneath our words and follies and organized thoughts, are Truths deeper and more substantial than all of our thoughts, and it is these Truths, apparent in everything we say and do - yet respected by few, reviled by many, and unheard of to the rest - that give form and substance to our every thoughtful moment. Every thought you think reinforces them, whether or not you recognize them. They have power, power that can free you, if you but submit to them; and in submitting to them you can become a Free Man, gaining freedom that the wild human being(primitive or modernist) can never conceive of. Within them is the power to defeat those who would divide us – if we but look. As with the Gods though, they require respect, and if ignored… well they are jealous gods, and will send their progeny to aid in our destruction.
Our Words do more than identify small, isolated physical facts. There is in fact no such thing as an isolated fact. The Universe is One – in fact without us, it is no-thing, only an undifferentiated, seamless lump of stuff. It is only with we conscious, living creatures, and especially those conceptual beings of Free Will, that the universe can be seen as being divided into ‘parts’, and it is only with the existence of Free Will, that there can be true and false, good and bad, right and wrong; and all of it depends on our ability to get it wrong – without the possibility of error, there is no possibility of being correct.
Those boobs seeking Artificial Intelligence would do better to seek to create machines that can err, than can ones that will get it right. Truth is, however, that both approaches are participants in the great divide, they drop the essential context, they ignore what we bring to the equation: Awareness. Conscious Awareness. Without that, nothing but elaborate calculators will be created, and to calculators there is no right or wrong, only results, only stuff.
Let’s review for a moment, what it means to be human, and to bring this Universe into existence within a Human understanding.
At the root of Mankind, as opposed to mere human beings, is The Techne, Language. Language enables us to hold our thoughts before us, to examine them, to reflect upon and improve them, and to affect actions upon ourselves - across time. To behave as if past, present and future, were a single entity with which we can project our self creation upon.
It is through Language's most visible mechanism, Words, that we acknowledge reality, reveal identity and discover consciousness. The act of doing so in a manner that contextually relates and integrates reality, identity and consciousness in a factual manner, is the process that reveals Truth; the degree to which our integrations don’t reflect reality, is the degree to which Truth will be obscured to us through a haze of falsehood and error.
To make a diligent effort to consciously conduct these contextual integrations accurately, and to criticaly reflect upon them, is to engage in the pursuit Truth. Applying this action of truth seeking to areas of human activity – action, decision, behavior, defense, make up the Virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Courage. Studying and teaching this process is the occupation of those who love wisdom, Philosophers.
The conscious and active intent to deny truth, to purposefully mis-integrate reality, is vice, to intentionally mislead another for the purpose of shearing them away, Dividing them, from the bosom of reality, is Evil.
Interesting to note that this process of divisiveness and deception reveals a familiarity with the structure of Truth which few honest people are conscious of; few honest people know truth as a liar does – a liar knows it’s anatomy, what it relies upon for its very existence, and resents that knowledge as if it were a hateful venomous poison. Through a malevolent misdirective glamour, they turn the eyes of the naïve away from the lifeblood of truth – and Truth itself wounds both the blinders and the blinded for their shortened sight. Studying and teaching this process is the occupation of those who disdain wisdom, and their names are legion – modernists, post modernists, progressives and leftists are enough of them for our purposes here. This practice of divorcing fact and truth from ethics and the Good is what liars and modernists do.
Knowledge, at its very root, I contend is an Ethical concept - all of Ethics can be derived from a single statement, or even something as simple as a grain of sand – examined in its full context. What you take to be True, defines all for your life from there on out. To say that something IS, is to acknowledge Existence, and not just a portion of it but all the wide One Cosmos, it also implies that in some mysterious way you somehow stand outside it, while yet remaining within it, this unique thing called conscious awareness is the faculty that enables us to identifies parts of the Whole. Examining the ever widening context of even a 'single Truth', is how we Colonize our minds and expand our Souls. The more profitable expansions will be upward into the Vertical, which will in turn extend your colonization ever wider, and so on and on and on.
To Divide And Conquer
The great divider, or maybe better termed the great flattener, is a tactic which any school kid knows to use when trying to convince a parent he should be able to do something he shouldn’t, or when he is trying to convince another child to do what they both know they shouldn’t “What is it going to hurt if we do X?” The trick is to discard the realm of any Vertical conception at the outset. Pretend any moral considerations aren’t worth considering, that “Reality” consists only of what you can touch. The Liar instinctively seeks after some horizontal measure that can be used to reduce all Vertical considerations to. Once that’s done, it’s all just a matter of nibbling comparisons and negotiations.
Once you separate the normative, the Vertical, Moral, Ethical, Spiritual – call it what you will, once that is separated from your actions, total ‘victory’ over Man is achieved, and the mere human being is cut loose to run wild - not free, that is lost, just wild. In doing this, the deeper Truths are spat upon and discarded, all that is wholly within you is cast down, all they created is open to be used as tools of chaos and destruction, and chaos and destruction can not be escaped – this is the oversight which all who seek to live a lie “just this once” so bitterly come to discover and embody.
The attempt to divorce our words from the wider reality containing us all, is a farce, a fools errand. The attempt to deny Free Will is cowardice and the evident desire to shirk responsibility for your life and the choices that have gone into its development. Your colonization of the interior of your spiritual continent abandoned, you cling to the ribbon of surf encircling the land mass and mistake it for completion - its interior mountains and valleys never charted, its vast lakes and streams never discovered.
Seeking a status prior to Truth, you artificially separate facts and answers from the One, and a thin moisture is all that there will be left to satisfy your spiritual thirst. It is only through the recognization of the inseparability of fact and value, the fermenting of thought, the drawing of facts into relation with the whole, that your thirst can be slaked, the thin moisture deepened into water and turned into Wine, that most intoxicating Wine of the Gods – Beauty, Truth and Goodness.
What are these deeper truths?
There are deeper Truths which underly all of our thinking, are deeper and more substantial than all of our thoughts, and is that which our thoughts must bow to in order for us to think even a single thought to begin with. They are the self-evident truths upon which all that we know or can say stands, they are the very root of Epistemology (the study of knowledge), and the portals through which any thoughts of Metaphysics must pass, the inescapable Axioms.
An axiom is a self-evident truth upon which any further knowledge and explanations must rest. An Axiom is something you can't avoid referring to, in an attempt to define it, and at the root of all we know or can ever know, there lies that most mystical of numbers, Three, a trinity of unity.
The first Axiom, is that existence exists. You can't even attempt a definition of existence, reality, etc, without referring to existence or something derived from it. It is the Philosophic equivalent of attempting to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. Can't be done, and you look damn silly trying to.
The next axiom that hits you over the head is a two-parter. The first part is that to be able to say that existence exists, means that someone exists and perceives it. The second part is that the process of the perceiver perceiving existence means that the perceiver has a faculty which makes that possible, that which we call consciousness, awareness. The process of perceiving can only be done by a conscious entity.
And the last fundamental Axiom is that that thing being perceived is some-one-thing, and it can't be at the same time and in the same way, be something else.
Our minds, working through these axioms, is enabled to grasp the properties of these “something's” out there, and these identities are able to be grasped in increasing combinations and layers of complexity - line, circle, sphere, moisture, water, steam, clouds, snow, Ice. This is a trail leading from basic perceptual details, leading into a three dimensional item in four dimensional space (height, width, depth and existence in time), the properties of these particular items determine its characteristics amidst different circumstances and quantities, and its value, or threat, to your life.
Taking note of those characteristics, in this case Water, its properties and the circumstances which alter them, taking note of how they can benefit or threaten your life, how you may be able to control them through a better understanding of them - this is the process of Reasoning.
The process of Reasoning relies on factually identifying these things as they are within given contexts, and it is hindered by any misidentifications you might make. This is the ultimate structure of Truth, and Falsehood.
It is important that you do not fall into the trick of horizontalizing your reasoning faculty - attempting to limit it to three dimensional space, that you not attempt to exclude your consciousness, that which grasps and encompasses all of these dimensions, from your Reasoning - that road is what leads towards the notion that things simply are, that they can be thought of as flatly three dimensional and free from error - the possibility of error is what ties YOU into the context.
Without the possibility of error, there would be no possibility of being right, there would be not only no room for, but no possibility of, Free Will. The physical universe is one big flowing, dynamic unfolding of One ultimate matter. Though we may never be able to grasp them in full, the universe operates under laws of Physics, which are but expressions of its properties, its nature. Knowledge of that set of laws, that nature in Total, knowing the Physics of the One Matter unfolding in the universe, would bestow knowing every-thing that has happened, or ever will happen.
Everything that is, except for Us.
We are that which can not be predicted with absolute certainty, because by our natures, we are aware and capable of exercising Free Will. It is tempting to speculate that Life itself, from the lowest amoeba to the highest conceptual being, is an expression of this quality of undeterminable action(in any perfect projection), conscious, aware,– each with some conception of free will. Tempting, but a speculation.
In any case, it is by Reasoning, by factually identifying these things as they are within given contexts, that we come to grasp Truth. The word in that last sentence, which is most often neglected and sometimes even under outright attack, is Context. Forgetting or discarding the immediate context is a common error and an even more common deception. We are part of the context of factually identifying these things as they are – as they are in the Universe, as grasped by, and in relation to, Man.
To sum up, something that is what it is, is there, it takes someone to perceive it, and the process of perceiving it is the basic process of consciousness. Everything we do, every observation we make, every thought we think, involves all three. The liar and the modernist seek to separate all aspects relating to consciousness from the equation. It is foolish, beyond wrong, and destructive beyond all grasp. Their ultimate goal is to ignore and exclude the possibility of error from 'life', of 'discovering' a fully deterministic Secret to the universe. They seek a shortcut to perfection, a way of shirking responsibility for their lives, choices and the dread of making decisions.
The Dividers and Determinists designs can not be put over without repudiating these three fundamental axioms. After all, the sacred tenents of modernism, and Post-Modernism in particular, are that Existence does not exist, that we don't know it, and that nothing is what it seems, and no thing can ever be truly known. If you ever want to have a deliciously nasty spat of fun, engage a post-modernist in conversation, and ask them to express those beliefs, that these axioms do not exist - without resorting to using them in their refutation. If they were honest (something they deny the possibility of), they would have to stop even using words at all ("why do you use that word? you use it as if it means something?"), curl up and die.
The Unprovable Proof - It IS, I Am, You Are
Another source of nasty glee can be had by asking someone newly discovering axioms, to prove they are axioms. It is something which usually drives most of us mad for a period, an Axiom can not be proven. Any proof would be circular in that it must necessarily refer to itself in order prove it. Axioms are not provable, they are not beyond Proof, they are before proof. They are that which are, and must be accepted as being. They are inescapable. They just are… in a clear headed sense, you might say that they must be taken on faith. You might want to take a moment and think that over. It IS. You Know it. In Knowing IT to BE, you are Experienced. And there is no proof possible for it, it is self evident. That You ARE, and can not prove it, IS ‘Proof’ that you are above it. You are an Axiom of the Universe.
For me, THIS is where Water is changed into Wine, and on entering the Blood… intoxicating.
Beneath all words and organized thought, are these three Axioms, and there in lies the defeat of the Dividers, those who seek to separate us from reality, who seek to deify the horizontal and deny and discard the Vertical – if we but recognize it. These are also such things, these Axioms, that if ignored, disrespected… well they are like jealous gods, and will send their progeny, our own thoughts opposed to Truth, to act in our destruction. It can not be otherwise. To ignore them is to put yourself in opposition to reality. They demand but Respect; Respect for Reality – All of it, which if given, will enable our thoughts to grasp the world, but if ignored, will destroy our world once again.
Things are what they are, to attempt to convince yourself or others that something is something other than what it is, is to practice evil in it's most elemental form - to resent things as they are, to desire something to be other than it is by means of your desiring it alone, is to reject the universe in total, to put yourself at odds with reality, Truth & God.
Coming back again to my earlier speculation, I think that it is the implicit awareness of these three axioms which makes our consciousness possible, even in ignorance or opposition to them, they are at once the source and the door through which our expression of life, consciousness and Free Will passes through and into the universe. And that sense that something must be behind them, provable, is the thread that draws us inwardly outwards towards seeking after God. I have no proof of that, we are given no proof of it, but to each of us at some time in our lives, it seems as if it simply is so... you might even say self evident. Perhaps this is another source for the modernist's assaults upon the three axioms.
The quality of intent we exhibit throughout our lives, our actions and thoughts, our culture, they are the mark of our Free Will. Seeing this page, reading this word, is to see not only mere fact, but the Horizontal stuff lifted into the Vertical heights of the Gods by way of your conscious spark, the divine fire. We stand at the intersection of the Horizontal and the Vertical; human life perhaps being the sparks which fly from their contact.
Whether or not you believe your soul lives on, it lives now, and to identify something as what it is, is to imply not only the necessity of doing so, but the value and purpose for doing so - sustaining your life, and doing so for a purpose. By identifying A as being A and not B, you assert the value of truth, and that error or falsehood is counter to a proper life.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Good. The Word identified reality, not just some aspect of reality, but reality in its totality. To say that this IS a particular thing, is to say that something is True or it is False, and from that we can build to all of epistemology, all of philosophy, all of Ethics... I Am that I AM.
This is the chain of Morality.
Seeing the Three in The 300
With all the preceding in mind, I saw "The 300" today with my oldest boy – 18 yrs old, his younger brother, 14 yrs old, was at a friends, or I would’ve brought him along as well. I was tipped off to this movie by an article by Victor Davis Hanson last year. My eldest’s high school mascot is the Spartan’s, so he and his schoolmates were eager to see it for that reason alone, I on the other hand was expecting something a bit more worthwhile to be present, and a review by a primitive NewYorkTimesmen (a creature by the name of A.O. Scott) tipped me off that I would find what I was looking for in the movie. The reviewer was a pitiful specimen typical of his tribe, in “The 300” he saw only a “Manly” movie, “a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal”, suitable only for mocking, particularly for engaging in that supreme folly – believing in Right and Wrong, the Human Spirit, Freedom and our need to defend it. What could be more ludicrous to such a one?
“The Persians, pioneers in the art of facial piercing, have vastly greater numbers — including ninjas, dervishes, elephants, a charging rhino and an angry bald giant — but the Spartans clearly have superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities” To this flattest example of the finest in horizontal-centric primitive NewYorkTimesmen, realism is all, and imagination is nonexistent. He wouldn’t recognize a poetic truth if it flamed up in his own heart – a fear I’m sure he need not fear.
The movies dialog ‘he’(?) finds especially open for ridicule, in phrases such as Leonidas’s wife saying “Come home with your shield or on it,”; apparently he's unaware of its being historically accurate, a common refrain of Spartan mothers and wives to their men leaving for battle. When later she observes that “freedom is not free.”, he considers that to be trite and empty. The Greeks response to the assertion that the Persians arrows will be so numerous as to blot out the sun, “Then we will fight in the shade!” to be merely overblown rhetoric “…themes, conveyed with more nuance and irony, in a Pokémon cartoon.” He seems to be aware that the Persian Wars did in fact take place, but he either ignored the existence of Herodotus’s account of them, or was ignorant of it – amounts to the same. This isn’t surprising of course, for a flatland horizontal-centric primitive NewYorkTimesmen, what is not ‘realistic’ (read pathetic and decadent examples of human misery and pointlessness), is unimaginable and worthless.
What I saw in the movie was the spirit of The Iliad & the Odyssey come to life, that spirit which modernists of all stripes have been seeking to obliterate from education and public discourse for 150 years.
The idea that Man is alive, and that living requires more than breathing. That Beauty and Truth are values supreme. That freedom is not free, that those who recognize this and defend it not only Live, but live for all time – those who oppose it are monstrous, living but not alive, errors to be corrected, discarded and forgotten.
Western Civilization (the fusion of Greco/Roman and Judeo/Christian philosophy), that which was begun with the Greeks, is the only civilization built upon this understanding of the unity and indivisibility of the world and the spirit. And their achievement was in every way Heroic.
The primitive NewYorkTimesmen sees reality as something to be divided, divided into the horizontal… and the excess verticality to be discarded. To them, there is no Vertical, and to them there is no Art, no Poetry, no Truth that is truer than fact. To them there is nothing at all to quaint notions of Heroic Spartans or Water being changed to Wine. Imagination that doesn’t stick to degraded realities, is but childish illusion and unworthy of any serious consideration. Aristotle’s observation that Poetry tells not just what was, but what should have been and ought to be, is completely lost on such a flatlander.
I’m well aware of the historical inconsistencies and unrealistic aspects of "The 300", but they are insignificant in the face of what the movie encompasses and projects. History as it should and ought to have been sums it up well. There is nudity in this movie and the violence is extensive, yet I wouldn’t bat an eye at having my 14 yr old see it, possibly even my 7 yr old (though my wife would probably share some violence with me if I tried!). To my mind, there is no comparison, no relation whatsoever between the graphic nature of this movie, and anything of the sort of filth that ‘Quentin Tarrentino’ type modernists tout. That sort is pornographic to me in its every frame, word and action.
To me, the graphic scenes, nudity and violence, found in The 300, are almost reverent.
Take the Dividers dictum, the great Flattener “What will it hurt?” and turn it on it’s head, “What will it achieve?” and you begin to see what the primitive NewYorkTimesmen fears. This movie, and all the Virtuous (‘Manly’ in latin, actions worthy of a Good Man) literature of Western Civilization stirs the spirit of free men and woman, it awakens us to the idea that WE ARE and I AM, that the world is and that We are in it, entwined and fused, a fusion of the Horizontal and the Vertical. The flatlanders fear these movies and literature, because with just one line, such as “Freedom is not free, sometimes it must be paid for with blood.”, it invokes and acknowledges our Three Axioms, and portends total and complete destruction of the modernist progressive ‘message’, the message that we are all just physical flesh trapped in a pointless horizontal plane, determinist fodder tossed about on the faddish waves of economic ‘culture’.
Every frame of this movie gives the lie to that message, and drives a stake into its heart.
If this movie has an unseen theme, it is that the world of shear existence can not be divided from Man, that you should not seek life without Living, that Existence exists and We, the fusion of Horizontal AND Vertical, are a part of it, and death is to be preferred to rejecting any part of that.
I Loved it.
“...do you really believe that he changed Water into Wine?!”choose your source, many to pick from“...
“Truth is irrelevant, these are facts”Select any institute of higher learning as your choice for this source
Why do statements like these come about?
Where from comes the idea that you can establish a fact that doesn’t associate with truth, or that Truth is nothing more than a low level fact, the idea that you could speak of a Myth qua myth, as somehow incompatible with Truth, as if Truth on that contextual level is comprised of nothing more than catalogs of descriptive physical facts?
Beneath our words and follies and organized thoughts, are Truths deeper and more substantial than all of our thoughts, and it is these Truths, apparent in everything we say and do - yet respected by few, reviled by many, and unheard of to the rest - that give form and substance to our every thoughtful moment. Every thought you think reinforces them, whether or not you recognize them. They have power, power that can free you, if you but submit to them; and in submitting to them you can become a Free Man, gaining freedom that the wild human being(primitive or modernist) can never conceive of. Within them is the power to defeat those who would divide us – if we but look. As with the Gods though, they require respect, and if ignored… well they are jealous gods, and will send their progeny to aid in our destruction.
Our Words do more than identify small, isolated physical facts. There is in fact no such thing as an isolated fact. The Universe is One – in fact without us, it is no-thing, only an undifferentiated, seamless lump of stuff. It is only with we conscious, living creatures, and especially those conceptual beings of Free Will, that the universe can be seen as being divided into ‘parts’, and it is only with the existence of Free Will, that there can be true and false, good and bad, right and wrong; and all of it depends on our ability to get it wrong – without the possibility of error, there is no possibility of being correct.
Those boobs seeking Artificial Intelligence would do better to seek to create machines that can err, than can ones that will get it right. Truth is, however, that both approaches are participants in the great divide, they drop the essential context, they ignore what we bring to the equation: Awareness. Conscious Awareness. Without that, nothing but elaborate calculators will be created, and to calculators there is no right or wrong, only results, only stuff.
Let’s review for a moment, what it means to be human, and to bring this Universe into existence within a Human understanding.
At the root of Mankind, as opposed to mere human beings, is The Techne, Language. Language enables us to hold our thoughts before us, to examine them, to reflect upon and improve them, and to affect actions upon ourselves - across time. To behave as if past, present and future, were a single entity with which we can project our self creation upon.
It is through Language's most visible mechanism, Words, that we acknowledge reality, reveal identity and discover consciousness. The act of doing so in a manner that contextually relates and integrates reality, identity and consciousness in a factual manner, is the process that reveals Truth; the degree to which our integrations don’t reflect reality, is the degree to which Truth will be obscured to us through a haze of falsehood and error.
To make a diligent effort to consciously conduct these contextual integrations accurately, and to criticaly reflect upon them, is to engage in the pursuit Truth. Applying this action of truth seeking to areas of human activity – action, decision, behavior, defense, make up the Virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Courage. Studying and teaching this process is the occupation of those who love wisdom, Philosophers.
The conscious and active intent to deny truth, to purposefully mis-integrate reality, is vice, to intentionally mislead another for the purpose of shearing them away, Dividing them, from the bosom of reality, is Evil.
Interesting to note that this process of divisiveness and deception reveals a familiarity with the structure of Truth which few honest people are conscious of; few honest people know truth as a liar does – a liar knows it’s anatomy, what it relies upon for its very existence, and resents that knowledge as if it were a hateful venomous poison. Through a malevolent misdirective glamour, they turn the eyes of the naïve away from the lifeblood of truth – and Truth itself wounds both the blinders and the blinded for their shortened sight. Studying and teaching this process is the occupation of those who disdain wisdom, and their names are legion – modernists, post modernists, progressives and leftists are enough of them for our purposes here. This practice of divorcing fact and truth from ethics and the Good is what liars and modernists do.
Knowledge, at its very root, I contend is an Ethical concept - all of Ethics can be derived from a single statement, or even something as simple as a grain of sand – examined in its full context. What you take to be True, defines all for your life from there on out. To say that something IS, is to acknowledge Existence, and not just a portion of it but all the wide One Cosmos, it also implies that in some mysterious way you somehow stand outside it, while yet remaining within it, this unique thing called conscious awareness is the faculty that enables us to identifies parts of the Whole. Examining the ever widening context of even a 'single Truth', is how we Colonize our minds and expand our Souls. The more profitable expansions will be upward into the Vertical, which will in turn extend your colonization ever wider, and so on and on and on.
To Divide And Conquer
The great divider, or maybe better termed the great flattener, is a tactic which any school kid knows to use when trying to convince a parent he should be able to do something he shouldn’t, or when he is trying to convince another child to do what they both know they shouldn’t “What is it going to hurt if we do X?” The trick is to discard the realm of any Vertical conception at the outset. Pretend any moral considerations aren’t worth considering, that “Reality” consists only of what you can touch. The Liar instinctively seeks after some horizontal measure that can be used to reduce all Vertical considerations to. Once that’s done, it’s all just a matter of nibbling comparisons and negotiations.
Once you separate the normative, the Vertical, Moral, Ethical, Spiritual – call it what you will, once that is separated from your actions, total ‘victory’ over Man is achieved, and the mere human being is cut loose to run wild - not free, that is lost, just wild. In doing this, the deeper Truths are spat upon and discarded, all that is wholly within you is cast down, all they created is open to be used as tools of chaos and destruction, and chaos and destruction can not be escaped – this is the oversight which all who seek to live a lie “just this once” so bitterly come to discover and embody.
The attempt to divorce our words from the wider reality containing us all, is a farce, a fools errand. The attempt to deny Free Will is cowardice and the evident desire to shirk responsibility for your life and the choices that have gone into its development. Your colonization of the interior of your spiritual continent abandoned, you cling to the ribbon of surf encircling the land mass and mistake it for completion - its interior mountains and valleys never charted, its vast lakes and streams never discovered.
Seeking a status prior to Truth, you artificially separate facts and answers from the One, and a thin moisture is all that there will be left to satisfy your spiritual thirst. It is only through the recognization of the inseparability of fact and value, the fermenting of thought, the drawing of facts into relation with the whole, that your thirst can be slaked, the thin moisture deepened into water and turned into Wine, that most intoxicating Wine of the Gods – Beauty, Truth and Goodness.
What are these deeper truths?
There are deeper Truths which underly all of our thinking, are deeper and more substantial than all of our thoughts, and is that which our thoughts must bow to in order for us to think even a single thought to begin with. They are the self-evident truths upon which all that we know or can say stands, they are the very root of Epistemology (the study of knowledge), and the portals through which any thoughts of Metaphysics must pass, the inescapable Axioms.
An axiom is a self-evident truth upon which any further knowledge and explanations must rest. An Axiom is something you can't avoid referring to, in an attempt to define it, and at the root of all we know or can ever know, there lies that most mystical of numbers, Three, a trinity of unity.
The first Axiom, is that existence exists. You can't even attempt a definition of existence, reality, etc, without referring to existence or something derived from it. It is the Philosophic equivalent of attempting to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. Can't be done, and you look damn silly trying to.
The next axiom that hits you over the head is a two-parter. The first part is that to be able to say that existence exists, means that someone exists and perceives it. The second part is that the process of the perceiver perceiving existence means that the perceiver has a faculty which makes that possible, that which we call consciousness, awareness. The process of perceiving can only be done by a conscious entity.
And the last fundamental Axiom is that that thing being perceived is some-one-thing, and it can't be at the same time and in the same way, be something else.
Our minds, working through these axioms, is enabled to grasp the properties of these “something's” out there, and these identities are able to be grasped in increasing combinations and layers of complexity - line, circle, sphere, moisture, water, steam, clouds, snow, Ice. This is a trail leading from basic perceptual details, leading into a three dimensional item in four dimensional space (height, width, depth and existence in time), the properties of these particular items determine its characteristics amidst different circumstances and quantities, and its value, or threat, to your life.
Taking note of those characteristics, in this case Water, its properties and the circumstances which alter them, taking note of how they can benefit or threaten your life, how you may be able to control them through a better understanding of them - this is the process of Reasoning.
The process of Reasoning relies on factually identifying these things as they are within given contexts, and it is hindered by any misidentifications you might make. This is the ultimate structure of Truth, and Falsehood.
It is important that you do not fall into the trick of horizontalizing your reasoning faculty - attempting to limit it to three dimensional space, that you not attempt to exclude your consciousness, that which grasps and encompasses all of these dimensions, from your Reasoning - that road is what leads towards the notion that things simply are, that they can be thought of as flatly three dimensional and free from error - the possibility of error is what ties YOU into the context.
Without the possibility of error, there would be no possibility of being right, there would be not only no room for, but no possibility of, Free Will. The physical universe is one big flowing, dynamic unfolding of One ultimate matter. Though we may never be able to grasp them in full, the universe operates under laws of Physics, which are but expressions of its properties, its nature. Knowledge of that set of laws, that nature in Total, knowing the Physics of the One Matter unfolding in the universe, would bestow knowing every-thing that has happened, or ever will happen.
Everything that is, except for Us.
We are that which can not be predicted with absolute certainty, because by our natures, we are aware and capable of exercising Free Will. It is tempting to speculate that Life itself, from the lowest amoeba to the highest conceptual being, is an expression of this quality of undeterminable action(in any perfect projection), conscious, aware,– each with some conception of free will. Tempting, but a speculation.
In any case, it is by Reasoning, by factually identifying these things as they are within given contexts, that we come to grasp Truth. The word in that last sentence, which is most often neglected and sometimes even under outright attack, is Context. Forgetting or discarding the immediate context is a common error and an even more common deception. We are part of the context of factually identifying these things as they are – as they are in the Universe, as grasped by, and in relation to, Man.
To sum up, something that is what it is, is there, it takes someone to perceive it, and the process of perceiving it is the basic process of consciousness. Everything we do, every observation we make, every thought we think, involves all three. The liar and the modernist seek to separate all aspects relating to consciousness from the equation. It is foolish, beyond wrong, and destructive beyond all grasp. Their ultimate goal is to ignore and exclude the possibility of error from 'life', of 'discovering' a fully deterministic Secret to the universe. They seek a shortcut to perfection, a way of shirking responsibility for their lives, choices and the dread of making decisions.
The Dividers and Determinists designs can not be put over without repudiating these three fundamental axioms. After all, the sacred tenents of modernism, and Post-Modernism in particular, are that Existence does not exist, that we don't know it, and that nothing is what it seems, and no thing can ever be truly known. If you ever want to have a deliciously nasty spat of fun, engage a post-modernist in conversation, and ask them to express those beliefs, that these axioms do not exist - without resorting to using them in their refutation. If they were honest (something they deny the possibility of), they would have to stop even using words at all ("why do you use that word? you use it as if it means something?"), curl up and die.
The Unprovable Proof - It IS, I Am, You Are
Another source of nasty glee can be had by asking someone newly discovering axioms, to prove they are axioms. It is something which usually drives most of us mad for a period, an Axiom can not be proven. Any proof would be circular in that it must necessarily refer to itself in order prove it. Axioms are not provable, they are not beyond Proof, they are before proof. They are that which are, and must be accepted as being. They are inescapable. They just are… in a clear headed sense, you might say that they must be taken on faith. You might want to take a moment and think that over. It IS. You Know it. In Knowing IT to BE, you are Experienced. And there is no proof possible for it, it is self evident. That You ARE, and can not prove it, IS ‘Proof’ that you are above it. You are an Axiom of the Universe.
For me, THIS is where Water is changed into Wine, and on entering the Blood… intoxicating.
Beneath all words and organized thought, are these three Axioms, and there in lies the defeat of the Dividers, those who seek to separate us from reality, who seek to deify the horizontal and deny and discard the Vertical – if we but recognize it. These are also such things, these Axioms, that if ignored, disrespected… well they are like jealous gods, and will send their progeny, our own thoughts opposed to Truth, to act in our destruction. It can not be otherwise. To ignore them is to put yourself in opposition to reality. They demand but Respect; Respect for Reality – All of it, which if given, will enable our thoughts to grasp the world, but if ignored, will destroy our world once again.
Things are what they are, to attempt to convince yourself or others that something is something other than what it is, is to practice evil in it's most elemental form - to resent things as they are, to desire something to be other than it is by means of your desiring it alone, is to reject the universe in total, to put yourself at odds with reality, Truth & God.
Coming back again to my earlier speculation, I think that it is the implicit awareness of these three axioms which makes our consciousness possible, even in ignorance or opposition to them, they are at once the source and the door through which our expression of life, consciousness and Free Will passes through and into the universe. And that sense that something must be behind them, provable, is the thread that draws us inwardly outwards towards seeking after God. I have no proof of that, we are given no proof of it, but to each of us at some time in our lives, it seems as if it simply is so... you might even say self evident. Perhaps this is another source for the modernist's assaults upon the three axioms.
The quality of intent we exhibit throughout our lives, our actions and thoughts, our culture, they are the mark of our Free Will. Seeing this page, reading this word, is to see not only mere fact, but the Horizontal stuff lifted into the Vertical heights of the Gods by way of your conscious spark, the divine fire. We stand at the intersection of the Horizontal and the Vertical; human life perhaps being the sparks which fly from their contact.
Whether or not you believe your soul lives on, it lives now, and to identify something as what it is, is to imply not only the necessity of doing so, but the value and purpose for doing so - sustaining your life, and doing so for a purpose. By identifying A as being A and not B, you assert the value of truth, and that error or falsehood is counter to a proper life.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Good. The Word identified reality, not just some aspect of reality, but reality in its totality. To say that this IS a particular thing, is to say that something is True or it is False, and from that we can build to all of epistemology, all of philosophy, all of Ethics... I Am that I AM.
This is the chain of Morality.
Seeing the Three in The 300
With all the preceding in mind, I saw "The 300" today with my oldest boy – 18 yrs old, his younger brother, 14 yrs old, was at a friends, or I would’ve brought him along as well. I was tipped off to this movie by an article by Victor Davis Hanson last year. My eldest’s high school mascot is the Spartan’s, so he and his schoolmates were eager to see it for that reason alone, I on the other hand was expecting something a bit more worthwhile to be present, and a review by a primitive NewYorkTimesmen (a creature by the name of A.O. Scott) tipped me off that I would find what I was looking for in the movie. The reviewer was a pitiful specimen typical of his tribe, in “The 300” he saw only a “Manly” movie, “a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal”, suitable only for mocking, particularly for engaging in that supreme folly – believing in Right and Wrong, the Human Spirit, Freedom and our need to defend it. What could be more ludicrous to such a one?
“The Persians, pioneers in the art of facial piercing, have vastly greater numbers — including ninjas, dervishes, elephants, a charging rhino and an angry bald giant — but the Spartans clearly have superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities” To this flattest example of the finest in horizontal-centric primitive NewYorkTimesmen, realism is all, and imagination is nonexistent. He wouldn’t recognize a poetic truth if it flamed up in his own heart – a fear I’m sure he need not fear.
The movies dialog ‘he’(?) finds especially open for ridicule, in phrases such as Leonidas’s wife saying “Come home with your shield or on it,”; apparently he's unaware of its being historically accurate, a common refrain of Spartan mothers and wives to their men leaving for battle. When later she observes that “freedom is not free.”, he considers that to be trite and empty. The Greeks response to the assertion that the Persians arrows will be so numerous as to blot out the sun, “Then we will fight in the shade!” to be merely overblown rhetoric “…themes, conveyed with more nuance and irony, in a Pokémon cartoon.” He seems to be aware that the Persian Wars did in fact take place, but he either ignored the existence of Herodotus’s account of them, or was ignorant of it – amounts to the same. This isn’t surprising of course, for a flatland horizontal-centric primitive NewYorkTimesmen, what is not ‘realistic’ (read pathetic and decadent examples of human misery and pointlessness), is unimaginable and worthless.
What I saw in the movie was the spirit of The Iliad & the Odyssey come to life, that spirit which modernists of all stripes have been seeking to obliterate from education and public discourse for 150 years.
The idea that Man is alive, and that living requires more than breathing. That Beauty and Truth are values supreme. That freedom is not free, that those who recognize this and defend it not only Live, but live for all time – those who oppose it are monstrous, living but not alive, errors to be corrected, discarded and forgotten.
Western Civilization (the fusion of Greco/Roman and Judeo/Christian philosophy), that which was begun with the Greeks, is the only civilization built upon this understanding of the unity and indivisibility of the world and the spirit. And their achievement was in every way Heroic.
The primitive NewYorkTimesmen sees reality as something to be divided, divided into the horizontal… and the excess verticality to be discarded. To them, there is no Vertical, and to them there is no Art, no Poetry, no Truth that is truer than fact. To them there is nothing at all to quaint notions of Heroic Spartans or Water being changed to Wine. Imagination that doesn’t stick to degraded realities, is but childish illusion and unworthy of any serious consideration. Aristotle’s observation that Poetry tells not just what was, but what should have been and ought to be, is completely lost on such a flatlander.
I’m well aware of the historical inconsistencies and unrealistic aspects of "The 300", but they are insignificant in the face of what the movie encompasses and projects. History as it should and ought to have been sums it up well. There is nudity in this movie and the violence is extensive, yet I wouldn’t bat an eye at having my 14 yr old see it, possibly even my 7 yr old (though my wife would probably share some violence with me if I tried!). To my mind, there is no comparison, no relation whatsoever between the graphic nature of this movie, and anything of the sort of filth that ‘Quentin Tarrentino’ type modernists tout. That sort is pornographic to me in its every frame, word and action.
To me, the graphic scenes, nudity and violence, found in The 300, are almost reverent.
Take the Dividers dictum, the great Flattener “What will it hurt?” and turn it on it’s head, “What will it achieve?” and you begin to see what the primitive NewYorkTimesmen fears. This movie, and all the Virtuous (‘Manly’ in latin, actions worthy of a Good Man) literature of Western Civilization stirs the spirit of free men and woman, it awakens us to the idea that WE ARE and I AM, that the world is and that We are in it, entwined and fused, a fusion of the Horizontal and the Vertical. The flatlanders fear these movies and literature, because with just one line, such as “Freedom is not free, sometimes it must be paid for with blood.”, it invokes and acknowledges our Three Axioms, and portends total and complete destruction of the modernist progressive ‘message’, the message that we are all just physical flesh trapped in a pointless horizontal plane, determinist fodder tossed about on the faddish waves of economic ‘culture’.
Every frame of this movie gives the lie to that message, and drives a stake into its heart.
If this movie has an unseen theme, it is that the world of shear existence can not be divided from Man, that you should not seek life without Living, that Existence exists and We, the fusion of Horizontal AND Vertical, are a part of it, and death is to be preferred to rejecting any part of that.
I Loved it.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Kiln Fired or Feet of Clay?
Do You See Heroes with feet of clay, or clay shaped into Heroes?
I just finished re-reading Victor Davis Hansons “The Soul of Battle”, and this morning watched the movie “Patton”, who is the last subject of the three leaders examined in the book(Epaminondas, Sherman & Patton). I surfed around reading a few related articles, and not surprisingly found that several of them were eager to jump on Patton’s theatrical façade, his error’s… his “feet of clay, slapping soldiers and using Nazi’s, were his undoing!”.
I think it interesting that the quote “Heroes with feet of clay” is always some variant of “the hero had feet of clay, and was undone by them”. Now there is a legitimate way of making such notes, of directing students to be careful of hubristic oversight, etc. But the usual intent seems to be of pointing out that "people are flawed, we’re all flawed, and these posers, these puffed up self important SOB’s – well, they’re flawed too! They’re no better than us, and like us they can’t stand up higher than the rest! Not for long!”
What I find interesting in that, is that the perspective they don’t see is that these people, these heroes, they DO come from the same stuff as the rest of us, and they manage to form themselves, to mold themselves, to shape themselves into this larger than life Hero who accomplishes what the rest of us can only marvel at. From “mere clay” (which by the way, is the implication they wish us to accept without thought, that we are all only merely people), this person has managed to fashion from the same material common to the rest of us, an Inspired Hero for all time to be astonished by.
How is that so rarely the lesson deemed worth of teaching?
What would be a better use of the clay footer's breath and language, rather than chortling at the heroes’ feet of clay, would be to make an examination of what enables the clay man to fashion his own moist clay into that of the carefuly sculpted and kiln fired clay of the Hero - that would be a lesson worth teaching and learning.
What is it that enables someone to take the features of his life, those features which most of us look back on as isolated scenes and periods that on reflection have led only to where we are; and instead draw such scenes into one force, one synthetic whole that doesn’t just lead to where you are in life at this moment in time, but to see this moment as being part of a unified and continuous whole, one which can be seen not just stretching into the future, but existing complete in the past, present and future - a life unified and whole,destined and Heroic!
That IS Heroic! That is someone who manages to take their common clay, and fire it with the human Spirit into a real life, larger than life Hero. The deeper tragedy is that the rest of us, so awed at their accomplishments, so rarely realize that such heroes were in essence no different from us, that we too could choose to unify and form our lives into a continuous, purposeful whole.
That someone makes errors and has flaws as most of us do, should be nothing to remark over. That someone who has those human inherent errors and flaws and yet still manages to fashion their life into an Heroic Life, an inspiring life, a life worthy of emulating, THAT should impress the hell out of anyone who sees them. It certainly should be what those tasked with teaching others about this Hero, should teach. Not that they were merely human, but that here was someone who was of the same human clay as the rest of us, yet managed to form that material common to us all into a life of heroic proportions.
When such Heroic lives are examined, and when such lessons are taught and taught well, then when trying times do come upon us, it will be through the lessons of Heroes of the past that we of the present will be able to be in some part inspired, inspired with the realization that we too can be worthy of the heroic – in such times generations such as those of the Founders and those of WWII, do stand and form themselves straight and tall to endure and prevail, and fitting prophecies of the end of the world which would have been singularly appropriate to come to pass, are seen to be merely fanciful fears averted once again.
The ever-present End of the World Apocalypse is only ever brought about by small minded, narrow visioned peoples too focused on their uninteresting petty pleasures (see the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). Apocalypse means a "lifting of the veil", a revealing the end of the story - and it comes about because such peoples ARE the end of their story, there is no where else for their story to progress towards; by their own actions they write their doom, and the next story prepares to begin from their ashes. Examples of the recent sad socialist sinking of Britannia, or the present waffling of our own times, most definitely should give people pause - we should be worried about an Apocalypse, Life and History won't pause for long, there are far too many more stories waiting to be told.
The Apocalypse, The End, is only averted, the story is only continued or picked up for another season, through the actions of the lives of Heroes formed from human clay, inspired and fired by the wholly Spirit of Truth and Principled Purpose (see Victor Davis Hanson’s “The Soul of Battle”), their deeds and actions are the inspiring stuff needed to rally entire peoples to continue on, to live and tell other tales of their own.
Future times will look back on our times for lessons in one direction or the other – do you have more stories to tell? Do you see your life leading only up to the present, or extending into the future? Will your contribution to history be a life of moist clay or Kiln Fire?
I just finished re-reading Victor Davis Hansons “The Soul of Battle”, and this morning watched the movie “Patton”, who is the last subject of the three leaders examined in the book(Epaminondas, Sherman & Patton). I surfed around reading a few related articles, and not surprisingly found that several of them were eager to jump on Patton’s theatrical façade, his error’s… his “feet of clay, slapping soldiers and using Nazi’s, were his undoing!”.
I think it interesting that the quote “Heroes with feet of clay” is always some variant of “the hero had feet of clay, and was undone by them”. Now there is a legitimate way of making such notes, of directing students to be careful of hubristic oversight, etc. But the usual intent seems to be of pointing out that "people are flawed, we’re all flawed, and these posers, these puffed up self important SOB’s – well, they’re flawed too! They’re no better than us, and like us they can’t stand up higher than the rest! Not for long!”
What I find interesting in that, is that the perspective they don’t see is that these people, these heroes, they DO come from the same stuff as the rest of us, and they manage to form themselves, to mold themselves, to shape themselves into this larger than life Hero who accomplishes what the rest of us can only marvel at. From “mere clay” (which by the way, is the implication they wish us to accept without thought, that we are all only merely people), this person has managed to fashion from the same material common to the rest of us, an Inspired Hero for all time to be astonished by.
How is that so rarely the lesson deemed worth of teaching?
What would be a better use of the clay footer's breath and language, rather than chortling at the heroes’ feet of clay, would be to make an examination of what enables the clay man to fashion his own moist clay into that of the carefuly sculpted and kiln fired clay of the Hero - that would be a lesson worth teaching and learning.
What is it that enables someone to take the features of his life, those features which most of us look back on as isolated scenes and periods that on reflection have led only to where we are; and instead draw such scenes into one force, one synthetic whole that doesn’t just lead to where you are in life at this moment in time, but to see this moment as being part of a unified and continuous whole, one which can be seen not just stretching into the future, but existing complete in the past, present and future - a life unified and whole,destined and Heroic!
That IS Heroic! That is someone who manages to take their common clay, and fire it with the human Spirit into a real life, larger than life Hero. The deeper tragedy is that the rest of us, so awed at their accomplishments, so rarely realize that such heroes were in essence no different from us, that we too could choose to unify and form our lives into a continuous, purposeful whole.
That someone makes errors and has flaws as most of us do, should be nothing to remark over. That someone who has those human inherent errors and flaws and yet still manages to fashion their life into an Heroic Life, an inspiring life, a life worthy of emulating, THAT should impress the hell out of anyone who sees them. It certainly should be what those tasked with teaching others about this Hero, should teach. Not that they were merely human, but that here was someone who was of the same human clay as the rest of us, yet managed to form that material common to us all into a life of heroic proportions.
When such Heroic lives are examined, and when such lessons are taught and taught well, then when trying times do come upon us, it will be through the lessons of Heroes of the past that we of the present will be able to be in some part inspired, inspired with the realization that we too can be worthy of the heroic – in such times generations such as those of the Founders and those of WWII, do stand and form themselves straight and tall to endure and prevail, and fitting prophecies of the end of the world which would have been singularly appropriate to come to pass, are seen to be merely fanciful fears averted once again.
The ever-present End of the World Apocalypse is only ever brought about by small minded, narrow visioned peoples too focused on their uninteresting petty pleasures (see the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). Apocalypse means a "lifting of the veil", a revealing the end of the story - and it comes about because such peoples ARE the end of their story, there is no where else for their story to progress towards; by their own actions they write their doom, and the next story prepares to begin from their ashes. Examples of the recent sad socialist sinking of Britannia, or the present waffling of our own times, most definitely should give people pause - we should be worried about an Apocalypse, Life and History won't pause for long, there are far too many more stories waiting to be told.
The Apocalypse, The End, is only averted, the story is only continued or picked up for another season, through the actions of the lives of Heroes formed from human clay, inspired and fired by the wholly Spirit of Truth and Principled Purpose (see Victor Davis Hanson’s “The Soul of Battle”), their deeds and actions are the inspiring stuff needed to rally entire peoples to continue on, to live and tell other tales of their own.
Future times will look back on our times for lessons in one direction or the other – do you have more stories to tell? Do you see your life leading only up to the present, or extending into the future? Will your contribution to history be a life of moist clay or Kiln Fire?
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Back to Iraq
This woke me up at 6:30 this morning out of a sound sleep, would't let me alone. So here it is.
There. Now I'm going back to bed.
On a West Texas highway, David’s telling Josh about his recent breakup
while driving to the airport.
“…And she just dumped me, just like that!” David snapped his fingers with a swift wrist flick towards Josh’s face. “Tore me up, I tell you what.”
Josh had been focused on the highway rushing beneath them, but the movement caught his eye, he turned to face his friend, uniformed body still seated at attention, cap and head swiveling smoothly towards him, eyes intent and locked on David.
“That good enough for you?”
David turned from his driving to face him a moment, his face a little shocked, before turning back to the road “Huh? Good enough for me… what the hell do you mean by that?”
Josh’s gaze hadn’t changed “I mean are you content to let your life just happen like that? Let things occur in it, let it process you like so many sausage links tied off into little sections… maybe cook ‘em up someday, savor the taste, swallow ‘em & shit ‘em out?”
David’s head flicked back towards his friend… shock turned to concern “What the hell Josh?”
“I’m going back to Iraq David. I don’t know if I’m coming back again. I don’t have time to let life just happen and move along… maybe do something with it latter, when I’m older. I think you think you do. But you don’t, it’s just that I realize it and you don’t. You could get killed today driving back home from the airport.”
David’s head flicked back again, a double take, but no words.
“It seems to me that you can let life happen, and go no further with it, or you can take what happens and go deeper… find some meaning there to make the moment of life you have, now, more.” His eyes were intense, drilling his friend. He caught himself and turned smoothly back to face the road. “I been thinking a lot, and it seems to me that the time we get is all we get,” he paused, silence somehow imposed over the blaring radio, “but we don’t have to let that time we get be all we get out of it… you can’t let it just happen without chewing it well, getting every bit of flavor out before swallowing.”
“How are you supposed…”
“Go get it Dave, take it, it’s there waiting for you…use your head, experience it. What happened when she dumped you? What did you think? Did it change you, do you like the change? Could you have done better? Are you going to allow it? Is there something else, some other meaning you can find in it for your life…Live it my friend, don’t just let it happen, ya know? Those are moments that can nourish your soul… or they can just happen and be forgotten” David nodded to the road, “Don’t just let it happen. thas all I’m sayin’ ”
The airport was coming into view, the radio continued to blare on in silence as David turned off on the exit ramp.
There. Now I'm going back to bed.
Friday, February 16, 2007
I am not what I am - unMoored from Above
One of the vilest characters in all of Western Literature is Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello, I think he is also the one we should be most careful of all to learn from. Othello is the story of a solid and good man, a Moorish commander in the employ of Venice to help defend it from the Turks, and how he is undone – defeated not in physical war, but through Spiritual warfare.
As the play opens, we find that Desdemona, the fair daughter of a Venetian senator is in love with Othello, and he with her. Othello has just filled an opening in his leadership ranks with a rear line officer named Michael Cassio, a Florentine; passing over an experienced battle tested officer, Iago, who is Othello's trusted advisor.
Iago is ostensibly offended that he has not been named to the leadership post himself, and he determines to set all against all in order to destroy Othello - at any cost.
Iago sums up his position in Act I, Scene I, speaking to Roderigo (who also has feelings for Desdemona, and whom Iago will also manipulate towards his own ends).
For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
Iago is saying that if he had the choice, he would not be himself, and behaves as if he weren't - he will pretend otherwise for the moment, but when the time comes he will make plain his intents, and appearances be damned. In the Old Testament, God identifies himself to Moses as "I Am that I Am", and with "I am not what I am" Shakespeare has Iago explicitly and purposefully put himself in opposition to that.
We initially think Iago’s motives 'soundly' of envious revenge at being passed over, but as the play progresses, he allows other motives to flow from his lips as the situation suits, so that we know not which one, if any at all, are his true (true? does it apply to such a one?) motives for destroying the Soul of Othello; and that is precisely his intent. Not to backstab him, or merely to have him think himself a cuckold, but to destroy his Soul, and drip by drip of his poisonous tongue Iago accomplishes this, so that Othello, a man of solid character, upright intent, honorable and virtuous as they come, is removed from himself using his strengths and his values, by way of his trust in his own judgment.
Othello, unassailable by force, is defeated within. As a man of action, his values are what can be seen and touched and demonstrated, as he demonstrates his authority when approached with drawn swords, disarming them with his words and presence alone "Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them" and
Desdemona is Good and True, Chaste and Just - and by his ownwords at the end, we know that he knows it as well. But Iago has turned his impressions of circumstances into a conviction of belief - and without hierarchical beliefs, what has he that is higher? “Good Honest Iago” uses lies, innuendo and a stolen handkerchief from Desdemona, a gift from Othello which was his Mother’s, that he is maneuvered to find in the possession of Cassio, and the facts themselves – physical features without any attempt at seeking a higher and deeper truth from Cassio and Desdemona themselves – are sufficient to convict them in his eyes, and his soul is laid waste.
The good, though mercenary, Moor is to be unmoored from his values by dint of them.
As the heirloom of Othello’s Mother given to his bride is lost and arranged to be falsely found by Iago, the heirloom of the West, the wisdom of Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian literature, is lost and falsely found to be but fable by our Academe. With it the beliefs we have in truth and justice are distrusted and cast aside in favor of a deadening web of facts woven about us and holding our hearts down to the ground.
Othello, knowing the light she is to his own soul, says as he puts fair Desdemona to death “Put out the Light, and then put out the light”, with her death, his.
We in the West have cast off our anchor from the Vertical, and we too are unmoored and while afloat still, sinking all the same.
I've heard many explanations of Othello, but not one that matches where I'm going with this, so be warned, and perhaps I'm far a field, but to me it seems plain - Shakespeare meant Othello to stand for the virtues of the West, and Iago for the 'new Man' of the renaissance, as a warning and a diagnosis of the humanistic learning flourishing in Venice and Florence and the rest of the West. He meant to show that though in physical battle with a miserable enemy (ironically, then as now the Moslem), that enemy was defeatable by force of arms as well as by Nature, as they are in the play - but the true danger to the West lies within the west, among those it trusts the most, its advisors and defenders.
Othello thought his enemy was Cassio, the Florentine – just as we often hear those espousing Values denouncing Machiavelli, the Florentine, as being our enemy; but his true enemy was his closest advisor – as I think our true enemy is our closest and most trusted advisor, the teachings of Academe.
Coleridge had a phrase for describing Iago, 'the motive hunting of motiveless malignancy' the doing of evil for evils sake. But its presented as a quirk of personality, with no source outside its own self. While I agree with his description of the effects of Iago's personality, I think the source of it is traceable to our most trusted adviser, the learning we so prize, the teachings of Academe which are given us as facts and knowledge without rank, spread out flat, lacking any vertical anchor in the Cosmos; a flattened level of values where whim and malice are equally justified and justifiable in the absence of any hierarchy of values; and that may be our deadliest danger of all.
The New Man of the Renaissance makes many appearances in Shakespeare, his tragedies are rife with them in his villains, heroes as well as the everyman. Hamlet himself is a more benign, but equally adrift exponent of the thinking sweeping Europe, best exemplified at the time by Machiavelli. Now Machiavelli today is assumed to be some dark exponent of pursuing evil for powers sake, but that is untrue of him. He had values, and they were Florence, sound government and orderly rule; but they were his values by dint of birth, and extended no further above his plane of ethics than another. He advocated the doing of deeds for the purpose of accomplishing what he saw needed to be done. The purpose itself... could come from anywhere. It was no longer rooted in ethics or religon, Christian or any other for that matter.
There was no secular replacement for the Good and the True forthcoming from the Renaissance - Man, horizontal Man freed from the Vertical, was the measure of all things.
Shakespeare is famous for not seeming to advance an agenda in his plays, he doesn't seek to stand for any conception of the Good and True, he endorces no set of Values over another, but methodically goes about describing the Actual with a more piercing clarity turned upon human nature, its strengths, virtues, frailties and vices - than has been done by any other before or since. To my mind he illustrates the chaos of Valueless Man far better by way of leaving out what is not there, than he ever could have by trying to write them in.
Shakespeare was seeing the first incoming tide of the Renaissance, and along with the undeniable greatness and benefits it promised, he saw equally clearly the rot within it, that of power unchecked by goodness, and he saw the many Iago's inherent within its reach. Iago, MacBeth, Richard III, Henry V are all exemplars of different shades cast from its prism, and of course poor Hamlet the melancholy Dane, probably the only one besides Shakespeare himself who saw its strengths, its evils, and worse, its laying upon the souls of each man, the reigns, the spurs and the spinning compass of the unrooted normative. Man was seeking to acquire near Godlike power, perhaps even approaching the knowledge of the Gods - but what was most horrifying - melancholy-ifying – of all is the vision of attaining all the power of the Gods, while lacking the center and peace of Godlike wisdom.
Without that, what is left? What can be counted on of people, who look to no scale of virtue or justice to steer by? Does “As above, so below” apply, when the notions of above and below are discarded?
Does this give Shakespeare too much credit? Too much prognosticative abilities to see how the West will develop and unfold? Perhaps... but in answer to that, I have to first ask, have you read Shakespeare? Aristotle was probably the last man to comprehend all of mans knowledge and philosophy, but Shakespeare was possibly the first and last to comprehend all of mans soul, its heights and depths and middling’s... and if there is any truth whatsoever to what Harold Bloom claims, that Shakespeare invented the human, I don't see that adding Too and Too together to get Forethought, is all that much beyond him.
But even if this is not what was intended by Shakespeare through his plays in general, and with Othello in particular, one of the values of Poetry is that it not only enables the Poet to transmit his point of view to you in order to more clearly see the Truth as he does, but it also enables the reader, me and you, to apply that same lens to our own times and from our own perspective, to more clearly see the Truth of the world found all around me, and found all around you.
That is the power of Poetry, and why not only what Shakespeare wrote 400+ years ago, but also what Sophocles & Aeschylus wrote 2,500 years ago are still relevant, and still apply to our lives. What they said applies to our lives because what they said can be applied to our lives via our active hearts and minds; Not to mention Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Moses....
Through that lens, to my eye, I see that not can come of knowledge unMoored from above, but a shallow spreading pool of evil, drowning all who persist in lying before it. Like a person who falls asleep and drowns in a bathtub - escaping the tepid waters of death requires the easiest of things, but to awaken and sit up. But the sleep is deep, and the flickering dreams are flashy and distracting, and oh so exciting... don't wake me just yet... just a few more minutes.
I Am what I Am,
I am not what I am,
Put out the Light, and then... put out the light.
As the play opens, we find that Desdemona, the fair daughter of a Venetian senator is in love with Othello, and he with her. Othello has just filled an opening in his leadership ranks with a rear line officer named Michael Cassio, a Florentine; passing over an experienced battle tested officer, Iago, who is Othello's trusted advisor.
Iago is ostensibly offended that he has not been named to the leadership post himself, and he determines to set all against all in order to destroy Othello - at any cost.
Iago sums up his position in Act I, Scene I, speaking to Roderigo (who also has feelings for Desdemona, and whom Iago will also manipulate towards his own ends).
For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
Iago is saying that if he had the choice, he would not be himself, and behaves as if he weren't - he will pretend otherwise for the moment, but when the time comes he will make plain his intents, and appearances be damned. In the Old Testament, God identifies himself to Moses as "I Am that I Am", and with "I am not what I am" Shakespeare has Iago explicitly and purposefully put himself in opposition to that.
We initially think Iago’s motives 'soundly' of envious revenge at being passed over, but as the play progresses, he allows other motives to flow from his lips as the situation suits, so that we know not which one, if any at all, are his true (true? does it apply to such a one?) motives for destroying the Soul of Othello; and that is precisely his intent. Not to backstab him, or merely to have him think himself a cuckold, but to destroy his Soul, and drip by drip of his poisonous tongue Iago accomplishes this, so that Othello, a man of solid character, upright intent, honorable and virtuous as they come, is removed from himself using his strengths and his values, by way of his trust in his own judgment.
Othello, unassailable by force, is defeated within. As a man of action, his values are what can be seen and touched and demonstrated, as he demonstrates his authority when approached with drawn swords, disarming them with his words and presence alone "Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them" and
Hold your hands,
Both you of my inclining and the rest.
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
Without a prompter.
Desdemona is Good and True, Chaste and Just - and by his ownwords at the end, we know that he knows it as well. But Iago has turned his impressions of circumstances into a conviction of belief - and without hierarchical beliefs, what has he that is higher? “Good Honest Iago” uses lies, innuendo and a stolen handkerchief from Desdemona, a gift from Othello which was his Mother’s, that he is maneuvered to find in the possession of Cassio, and the facts themselves – physical features without any attempt at seeking a higher and deeper truth from Cassio and Desdemona themselves – are sufficient to convict them in his eyes, and his soul is laid waste.
The good, though mercenary, Moor is to be unmoored from his values by dint of them.
As the heirloom of Othello’s Mother given to his bride is lost and arranged to be falsely found by Iago, the heirloom of the West, the wisdom of Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian literature, is lost and falsely found to be but fable by our Academe. With it the beliefs we have in truth and justice are distrusted and cast aside in favor of a deadening web of facts woven about us and holding our hearts down to the ground.
Othello, knowing the light she is to his own soul, says as he puts fair Desdemona to death “Put out the Light, and then put out the light”, with her death, his.
We in the West have cast off our anchor from the Vertical, and we too are unmoored and while afloat still, sinking all the same.
I've heard many explanations of Othello, but not one that matches where I'm going with this, so be warned, and perhaps I'm far a field, but to me it seems plain - Shakespeare meant Othello to stand for the virtues of the West, and Iago for the 'new Man' of the renaissance, as a warning and a diagnosis of the humanistic learning flourishing in Venice and Florence and the rest of the West. He meant to show that though in physical battle with a miserable enemy (ironically, then as now the Moslem), that enemy was defeatable by force of arms as well as by Nature, as they are in the play - but the true danger to the West lies within the west, among those it trusts the most, its advisors and defenders.
Othello thought his enemy was Cassio, the Florentine – just as we often hear those espousing Values denouncing Machiavelli, the Florentine, as being our enemy; but his true enemy was his closest advisor – as I think our true enemy is our closest and most trusted advisor, the teachings of Academe.
Coleridge had a phrase for describing Iago, 'the motive hunting of motiveless malignancy' the doing of evil for evils sake. But its presented as a quirk of personality, with no source outside its own self. While I agree with his description of the effects of Iago's personality, I think the source of it is traceable to our most trusted adviser, the learning we so prize, the teachings of Academe which are given us as facts and knowledge without rank, spread out flat, lacking any vertical anchor in the Cosmos; a flattened level of values where whim and malice are equally justified and justifiable in the absence of any hierarchy of values; and that may be our deadliest danger of all.
The New Man of the Renaissance makes many appearances in Shakespeare, his tragedies are rife with them in his villains, heroes as well as the everyman. Hamlet himself is a more benign, but equally adrift exponent of the thinking sweeping Europe, best exemplified at the time by Machiavelli. Now Machiavelli today is assumed to be some dark exponent of pursuing evil for powers sake, but that is untrue of him. He had values, and they were Florence, sound government and orderly rule; but they were his values by dint of birth, and extended no further above his plane of ethics than another. He advocated the doing of deeds for the purpose of accomplishing what he saw needed to be done. The purpose itself... could come from anywhere. It was no longer rooted in ethics or religon, Christian or any other for that matter.
There was no secular replacement for the Good and the True forthcoming from the Renaissance - Man, horizontal Man freed from the Vertical, was the measure of all things.
Shakespeare is famous for not seeming to advance an agenda in his plays, he doesn't seek to stand for any conception of the Good and True, he endorces no set of Values over another, but methodically goes about describing the Actual with a more piercing clarity turned upon human nature, its strengths, virtues, frailties and vices - than has been done by any other before or since. To my mind he illustrates the chaos of Valueless Man far better by way of leaving out what is not there, than he ever could have by trying to write them in.
Shakespeare was seeing the first incoming tide of the Renaissance, and along with the undeniable greatness and benefits it promised, he saw equally clearly the rot within it, that of power unchecked by goodness, and he saw the many Iago's inherent within its reach. Iago, MacBeth, Richard III, Henry V are all exemplars of different shades cast from its prism, and of course poor Hamlet the melancholy Dane, probably the only one besides Shakespeare himself who saw its strengths, its evils, and worse, its laying upon the souls of each man, the reigns, the spurs and the spinning compass of the unrooted normative. Man was seeking to acquire near Godlike power, perhaps even approaching the knowledge of the Gods - but what was most horrifying - melancholy-ifying – of all is the vision of attaining all the power of the Gods, while lacking the center and peace of Godlike wisdom.
Without that, what is left? What can be counted on of people, who look to no scale of virtue or justice to steer by? Does “As above, so below” apply, when the notions of above and below are discarded?
Does this give Shakespeare too much credit? Too much prognosticative abilities to see how the West will develop and unfold? Perhaps... but in answer to that, I have to first ask, have you read Shakespeare? Aristotle was probably the last man to comprehend all of mans knowledge and philosophy, but Shakespeare was possibly the first and last to comprehend all of mans soul, its heights and depths and middling’s... and if there is any truth whatsoever to what Harold Bloom claims, that Shakespeare invented the human, I don't see that adding Too and Too together to get Forethought, is all that much beyond him.
But even if this is not what was intended by Shakespeare through his plays in general, and with Othello in particular, one of the values of Poetry is that it not only enables the Poet to transmit his point of view to you in order to more clearly see the Truth as he does, but it also enables the reader, me and you, to apply that same lens to our own times and from our own perspective, to more clearly see the Truth of the world found all around me, and found all around you.
That is the power of Poetry, and why not only what Shakespeare wrote 400+ years ago, but also what Sophocles & Aeschylus wrote 2,500 years ago are still relevant, and still apply to our lives. What they said applies to our lives because what they said can be applied to our lives via our active hearts and minds; Not to mention Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Moses....
Through that lens, to my eye, I see that not can come of knowledge unMoored from above, but a shallow spreading pool of evil, drowning all who persist in lying before it. Like a person who falls asleep and drowns in a bathtub - escaping the tepid waters of death requires the easiest of things, but to awaken and sit up. But the sleep is deep, and the flickering dreams are flashy and distracting, and oh so exciting... don't wake me just yet... just a few more minutes.
I Am what I Am,
I am not what I am,
Put out the Light, and then... put out the light.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Lightening Up On The Dark Side - Finding Education in the Oddest of Places
While juggling some heavier balls at the moment, it makes me wonder whether or not lessons of lasting value can only be gleaned from 'deep' material? Is education something that can only happen through approved text books, or time tested classics of literature?
I think Very much - No. Though there is a danger in not ensuring some familiarity with the works of the ages, we'll leave that for later; for the moment, just know that Education - that process of leading you out of bondage, perhaps bondage to constricting beliefs you were either unaware you had, or liberating beliefs you weren't aware existed, is a process that can be encouraged and experienced through any material, event, happening and/or relationship. If you are open to looking for it.
A case in point:
Recently, Deep Thought took to task the story of Star Wars. He thoroughly skins the series of their media hero gloss. Most, if not all, that he notes, is very true. Yoda, Obi Wan, the Rebellion, were all far from perfect, and in many cases thoroughly wrong headed. And the Empire, apart from being more than ok with the thought of wiping out an entire planet to make a point, was far from the evil tyrannical totalitarian dictatorship that we might find in say, Sadam's Iraq, or Hitlers Germany. Next to them, Palpatines Empire could even be seen as a real preferred realpolitik option; I mean, how much different is it than Putin's Russia?
But what educational value if any, can be found in the Star Wars movies? Quite a lot, I think. But where would that educational value be found? Certainly not in the dialog, nor the carefully crafted plot structure. No, its value isn't in its details, and many of its explicit messages I would say are even downright harmful - "Luke, trust in the force Luke, Let go!" all this while he's piloting a super sophisticated, expensive fighter with the lives of millions riding on his judgment and skill. Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream is not a terribly valuable message, either a long time ago, or now.
And no, the value of Star Wars doesn't lay in its mythic-poetic structure - though it is there to be sure, that is just the delivery system to transmit its lessons into your awareness whether you (or the writer/director) are aware of it or not. Joseph Campbell has thoroughly fleshed out the hero cycle which he thinks is critical to the development of each of our own psyche's, so I won't attempt to summarize them here.
No, when you shear off all the Fx, the real core of the story has nothing to do with the Empire or the Rebellion, or even of droids, aliens or lightsabre battles. What it really conveys, is the need for individual character and self mastery, as shown through the primary characters of Anakin/Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The evolution of their characters show in negative and positive lessons, the importance of looking at a situation, ultimately, through your own eyes, and of making your own choices because you see them as being correct. Listen to those you respect, sure, but don't slavishly obey them. Star Wars accomplishes this through its core negative illustrations of:
The Star Wars story illustrates the pull of these unbalanced passions upon the soul, and the ways in which they are most easily and seductively encountered. One way is in which those passions are explicitly acknowledged and pursued for their own calculating and lustful sake (Palpatine), those passions which are repressed yet pursued still through 'higher' ulterior motives of 'the ends justify the means' (Jedi), and those passions which if not consciously mastered, will enslave you with their intoxicating heat, and though you might revel in them for awhile, you will ultimately be left dissipated, cold and hollow from their deadening misuse (Anakin/Vader).
Each results in a tyrannical character, either out of calculated greed and power lust to impose your will on others and have them serve you, or through puritanically seeking to impose 'right' behavior on others while denying (to yourself) your own desire to impose your will on them, or through the reckless pursuit of passion for passions sake, which ultimately enslaves you to an outside Master in an attempt to escape responsibility for your own free will.
(By the way, the novelizations of the movies provide some more detail and make clearer what is barely glimpsed or misread in the movies, all at the low cost of reading mostly shallow but fun adventure stories. The novelization of Episode III by Matthew Stover is a cut above the rest (hey, I'm a sucker for anyone that can work quotes from Aeschylus into a story that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). He does a nice job of illustrating how the isolated decisions that the emperor maneuvers Anakin into making, positions them in such a way as to ensure they are shorn of any wider context of Good and Truth and Beauty, so that step by step you see him making 'reasonable' decisions along the path of good intentions straight into the open arms of Hell. A fine example of the need for a thorough understanding of your own values, and not just the rules you might otherwise mistake for them.)
Finally, it is in the resolution of these conflicts through the development, actions and decisions of Luke Skywalker, where the positive lessons are to be found.
Luke is the first of any of them to come face to face with the responsibilities of his own Free Will and the necessity of it being exercised over your own passions. Yoda tries to tell him to deny his passions, to abandon his friends, to do what he knows to be wrong, for a 'higher' purpose. Luke, rejects that - and though he perhaps acts rashly charging into Vaders trap, his reasons for doing so are proper. He is responsible for their being in danger, and he won't evade it.
Luke sees his 'Dark Side' in both its masks of Vice and pretended Virtue, faces up to their existence within himself and finally doesn't attempt to evade their existence, but to choose well in the face of them. It points up the ultimate danger of a little knowledge, in that by seeing the failings of both the Sith and the Jedi and unreflectively thinking those to be the only choices, it will leave the naive jaded, and slowly lead them around to the dark side.
The tale also illustrates that being in-touch with your inner 'force' is not enough in itself to save you. It still requires that you be aware of the choices arrayed before you, to choose wisely from among them, and maintain control of your own passions and calculations in order to do what is right and true, because it is right and true and not for some purportedly higher (and ultimately undermining) purpose.
Luke saw both the errors and failings of both sides, as well as his own failings, and so chose not to deny them, but to recognize them for what they were - and to look for alternatives. In the end, he chose Rightly and triumphed. He saw in his Father (and there is much that your own inner myth maker reads into that one) that “there is good in him, I feel it" and pursued rescuing that goodness because it was good and true. Through sober choice and character (though a whiner at the start, he was raised to work - and the old agricultural ethos carries him through), he eventually manages to harness his passions to his Reason, and in so doing brings balance, back to the force, his family (living and dead), and we assume to the Galaxy as well (Plato’s city-state writ large).
And silly Sci-fi or not, those are lessons worth learning.
I think Very much - No. Though there is a danger in not ensuring some familiarity with the works of the ages, we'll leave that for later; for the moment, just know that Education - that process of leading you out of bondage, perhaps bondage to constricting beliefs you were either unaware you had, or liberating beliefs you weren't aware existed, is a process that can be encouraged and experienced through any material, event, happening and/or relationship. If you are open to looking for it.
A case in point:
Recently, Deep Thought took to task the story of Star Wars. He thoroughly skins the series of their media hero gloss. Most, if not all, that he notes, is very true. Yoda, Obi Wan, the Rebellion, were all far from perfect, and in many cases thoroughly wrong headed. And the Empire, apart from being more than ok with the thought of wiping out an entire planet to make a point, was far from the evil tyrannical totalitarian dictatorship that we might find in say, Sadam's Iraq, or Hitlers Germany. Next to them, Palpatines Empire could even be seen as a real preferred realpolitik option; I mean, how much different is it than Putin's Russia?
But what educational value if any, can be found in the Star Wars movies? Quite a lot, I think. But where would that educational value be found? Certainly not in the dialog, nor the carefully crafted plot structure. No, its value isn't in its details, and many of its explicit messages I would say are even downright harmful - "Luke, trust in the force Luke, Let go!" all this while he's piloting a super sophisticated, expensive fighter with the lives of millions riding on his judgment and skill. Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream is not a terribly valuable message, either a long time ago, or now.
And no, the value of Star Wars doesn't lay in its mythic-poetic structure - though it is there to be sure, that is just the delivery system to transmit its lessons into your awareness whether you (or the writer/director) are aware of it or not. Joseph Campbell has thoroughly fleshed out the hero cycle which he thinks is critical to the development of each of our own psyche's, so I won't attempt to summarize them here.
No, when you shear off all the Fx, the real core of the story has nothing to do with the Empire or the Rebellion, or even of droids, aliens or lightsabre battles. What it really conveys, is the need for individual character and self mastery, as shown through the primary characters of Anakin/Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The evolution of their characters show in negative and positive lessons, the importance of looking at a situation, ultimately, through your own eyes, and of making your own choices because you see them as being correct. Listen to those you respect, sure, but don't slavishly obey them. Star Wars accomplishes this through its core negative illustrations of:
Palpatine’s machinations to seize ultimate political power for the sake of gaining power for powers sake, the desire to do whatever he chooses in order to make the entire universe out there, conform to his wishes - it leaves him twisted & deformed and without even the sense to be concerned over it.
Yoda, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu and the Jedi in general, seek to ensure that beliefs they agree with are upheld or imposed, no matter the intermediary ethics involved. They think nothing of casually overpowering other individuals freewill "You don't want death sticks, you want to go home and rethink your life", or attempting to cheat at dice, etc, to accomplish what they deem of value. Their arrogance of humility has led them to become an 'ends justify the means' beuacracy.
Anakin's allowing himself to become intoxicated with his own passions and power, letting those passions gain mastery over his will, without exercising his own free will's responsibility of choice over them. He pursues an illegal love, flouting rules he has sworn to uphold, and rather than reexaming his beliefs and perhaps leaving the Jedi order, he seeks instead only to have it both ways. Finally, inevitably, he betrays all that he has claimed to believe in, joining with what he has heretofore considered evil, in order to preserve his wife's life (for his sake, not hers) on the possibility that it may lead to a cure. The 'as they DO, not as they say' lessons of the Jedi, learned too well.
The Star Wars story illustrates the pull of these unbalanced passions upon the soul, and the ways in which they are most easily and seductively encountered. One way is in which those passions are explicitly acknowledged and pursued for their own calculating and lustful sake (Palpatine), those passions which are repressed yet pursued still through 'higher' ulterior motives of 'the ends justify the means' (Jedi), and those passions which if not consciously mastered, will enslave you with their intoxicating heat, and though you might revel in them for awhile, you will ultimately be left dissipated, cold and hollow from their deadening misuse (Anakin/Vader).
Each results in a tyrannical character, either out of calculated greed and power lust to impose your will on others and have them serve you, or through puritanically seeking to impose 'right' behavior on others while denying (to yourself) your own desire to impose your will on them, or through the reckless pursuit of passion for passions sake, which ultimately enslaves you to an outside Master in an attempt to escape responsibility for your own free will.
(By the way, the novelizations of the movies provide some more detail and make clearer what is barely glimpsed or misread in the movies, all at the low cost of reading mostly shallow but fun adventure stories. The novelization of Episode III by Matthew Stover is a cut above the rest (hey, I'm a sucker for anyone that can work quotes from Aeschylus into a story that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). He does a nice job of illustrating how the isolated decisions that the emperor maneuvers Anakin into making, positions them in such a way as to ensure they are shorn of any wider context of Good and Truth and Beauty, so that step by step you see him making 'reasonable' decisions along the path of good intentions straight into the open arms of Hell. A fine example of the need for a thorough understanding of your own values, and not just the rules you might otherwise mistake for them.)
Finally, it is in the resolution of these conflicts through the development, actions and decisions of Luke Skywalker, where the positive lessons are to be found.
Luke is the first of any of them to come face to face with the responsibilities of his own Free Will and the necessity of it being exercised over your own passions. Yoda tries to tell him to deny his passions, to abandon his friends, to do what he knows to be wrong, for a 'higher' purpose. Luke, rejects that - and though he perhaps acts rashly charging into Vaders trap, his reasons for doing so are proper. He is responsible for their being in danger, and he won't evade it.
Luke sees his 'Dark Side' in both its masks of Vice and pretended Virtue, faces up to their existence within himself and finally doesn't attempt to evade their existence, but to choose well in the face of them. It points up the ultimate danger of a little knowledge, in that by seeing the failings of both the Sith and the Jedi and unreflectively thinking those to be the only choices, it will leave the naive jaded, and slowly lead them around to the dark side.
The tale also illustrates that being in-touch with your inner 'force' is not enough in itself to save you. It still requires that you be aware of the choices arrayed before you, to choose wisely from among them, and maintain control of your own passions and calculations in order to do what is right and true, because it is right and true and not for some purportedly higher (and ultimately undermining) purpose.
Luke saw both the errors and failings of both sides, as well as his own failings, and so chose not to deny them, but to recognize them for what they were - and to look for alternatives. In the end, he chose Rightly and triumphed. He saw in his Father (and there is much that your own inner myth maker reads into that one) that “there is good in him, I feel it" and pursued rescuing that goodness because it was good and true. Through sober choice and character (though a whiner at the start, he was raised to work - and the old agricultural ethos carries him through), he eventually manages to harness his passions to his Reason, and in so doing brings balance, back to the force, his family (living and dead), and we assume to the Galaxy as well (Plato’s city-state writ large).
And silly Sci-fi or not, those are lessons worth learning.
(Why the picture? Trying to get the darned Blogger profile to work!)
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Over the hill and through the woods and off the cliff we go....
Well, I survived the sacking of the IT Mgr, restructuring of the project from a Visual Studio 2003 web based ASP.Net Portal app to windows forms & Services Oriented architecture in Visual Studio 2005, the change of programming languages from VB to C#, and the death march project schedule & crunch time rollout tasks; but now that the core project is done, I'm not being picked up to stay on for the new development work.
“Hey, can you come in here?”
“Sure…”
“What are you working on now?”,
“Testing is all I’ve got left assigned”,
“Your Admin screens tight?”,
“Yep, all are working well & no problems”,
“Cool. Well… The projects rolled out & Ken’s gonna be able to handle the new dev work, so we’re going to let your contract expire next Friday. I just wanted to give you a heads up & some notice, I’ve already contacted your company. Nothing personal. Cool?”
pause… “Yep, that’ll work, thanks.”
Of three contractors, one was to be chosen to stay on as an employee - I wasn't it & so my contract ends 2/10/07.
I suspected, but was hoping that for once I was reading the words in the air wrong. Could have politicted it perhaps... but I really don't want it on those terms... anyway, that's that. It's always a hit, and a relief at the same time - dread and curiosity - what the heck am I going to do now?
Update the resume', dust off the shirt & tie & start interviewing again.
Got to get some more Guiness.
“Hey, can you come in here?”
“Sure…”
“What are you working on now?”,
“Testing is all I’ve got left assigned”,
“Your Admin screens tight?”,
“Yep, all are working well & no problems”,
“Cool. Well… The projects rolled out & Ken’s gonna be able to handle the new dev work, so we’re going to let your contract expire next Friday. I just wanted to give you a heads up & some notice, I’ve already contacted your company. Nothing personal. Cool?”
pause… “Yep, that’ll work, thanks.”
Of three contractors, one was to be chosen to stay on as an employee - I wasn't it & so my contract ends 2/10/07.
I suspected, but was hoping that for once I was reading the words in the air wrong. Could have politicted it perhaps... but I really don't want it on those terms... anyway, that's that. It's always a hit, and a relief at the same time - dread and curiosity - what the heck am I going to do now?
Update the resume', dust off the shirt & tie & start interviewing again.
Got to get some more Guiness.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Hubris of The Doomed
The Darkness is falling! The Darkness is falling!
I hear that a lot lately. A recent commenter deep within a GagDad post, Michael Andreyakovich, recently begaied us all with a 'drunken' lament of Doom and Gloom, and that anyone who is even considering having children today, are just cruel and negligent!
Now, I confess to occasionaly indulging in my own dark forebodings, often brought on by news such as President Bush’s latest comment “If Iran is implicated in harming US Personal, there will be a firm response” – What the hell?! I'd much Rather hear him say “We've vaporized 5 Iranian military bases today, one for each US Soldier we have reason to believe was killed by Iranian backed personnel…” I mean if we don’t stand, surely we must fall?! The word on the street is that we are losing it, we are doomed… and in that thought of doom, there is an implication that It All hasn’t always been in danger of being lost, that WE haven’t always been in imminent danger of losing the light – that there is a NEW thick, deep darkness falling upon us.
First I want to take a look at what this ‘we’re doomed!’ really means and is, how unique to our times it is, and what - if anything - there is for us to do about it.
The Greeks identified one trait unforgivable to the Gods, and certain to invite their Doom, that of Hubris. The human conceit that ‘I know all that needs to be known, no one can tell me anything different, I have no need of further consideration of caution’ and taking ‘Pride’ in such ‘knowledge’; in short, taking upon oneself a surety of knowledge which even the Gods do not possess. This is the false Pride that goeth before a fall. The Greeks knew of it, the Romans were aware of it, the British suspected it of everyone else, the MSM declares it of (Republican) Presidents.
What does saying ‘we’re Doomed!’ mean? Doesn’t it mean that you have surveyed the scene, read the tea-leaves, and have attained to absolute certainty that there is no escape from the future which your crystal ball has foretold? That no one living or to be born can think, do, discover, teach or perform any act or series of acts which you haven’t forseen which could change the course of history, because YOU see that we are DOOMED!? That this Doom is so certain, that other people, deficient in your prescience, daring to have children (Children! The Fools!) are irresponsible in the extreme, that having any hope of a life worth living is just negligent and petty of them in the face of your foreknowledge. Hmm… I smell something burning, but it ain’t the world.
Wake up and smell the Hubris Michael Andreyakovich.
When Have We Not Been Doomed?
Let’s take a closer look at this certain doom, in particular at other times when apparently life was so Good and True as to NOT be doomed. There is much I think that we miss with our surface despair & assurance of having fallen away from previous golden states of security. What are these times that are often looked back upon as being better ones? I suppose that the easier pickings are those of the Founding Fathers, and those of the Greatest Generation, and even the youth of the big-babyboomers.
We can assume that the technological comforts of 21st century life vs 16th, 17,th, 18th, 19th and even 20th century life, medicine, machines, refrigeration etc aren't the focus of their lament – let’s assume that what is being lamented at having been lost from their time to ours, is something other than the eases and creature comforts of our luxuries and those luxuries we consider to be necessities.
Let's look at the Founders time - which part of their times do we think back on as having been free from the threat of Doom, so rosy and sound? True, they showed their sense and courage by rising up against the looming tyranny of Great Britain, well... perhaps a little over a third of them did anyway - but as many or more of them didn't support the revolution. Sure there was Washington, S. & J.Adams, and Jefferson... but there were also large numbers of the populace who were opposed to, or indifferent to revolution, or were sunshine patriots who, like Benedict Arnold, turned when their own weather turned foul - and others of his kind abounded - not a sound and pleasant time in which to live or raise children, surely.
Well, ok, then... still keeping with the Founders time, but lets focus on the period after the revolution. Surely here was a time of Goodness and Truth, and no implacable darkness about to fall upon and engulf them in doom. Er... but wouldn't that be the period where the unity of the colonies was falling apart, where it was actually conceivable that New Jersey would go to war with New York, when all the states sought to shirk their revolutionary debts and agreements... and when during this idyllic period there were rebellions across the land, such as with Shay's Rebellion.... Good times? Steady times?
Well, ok then, after the constitution was written, surely THEN it was a Good time, a True time, a time free of the implacable and impending Doom. Hmm... wouldn't that be the period that saw the whiskey rebellion? Those fine peaceable times when the frenchie-phile incited press was agitating against Washington (the Man, not the city)? Those fine days when half of the states still upheld legal slavery and ensured a coming Civil War? Those fine and inspiring days during which a vice president (Aaron Burr) shot and killed one of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton? Good times?
Hardly.
Ok then, forget about the Founders then (silly whigs), how about the Greatest Generation who defeated totalitarianism & imperialism – are also the same ones of The Right Stuff, and Camelot and the Apollo program and landing on the Moon! No Doom there! Um… except that they were also the ones who ushered in a boom in Government Regulatory agencies, saw China lost to the communists, the UN was created (a low of lows)...Mississippi burning, Vietnam, & The Draft, The assassinations of JFK-> MLK->RFK… and was Woodstock really a Good time? The drug culture?
When Have There Ever Been Comfortable Highpoints?
And yet these times, or rather the catch phrases of these times, are so often held up as high points of our heritage. What are the images which sway us into thinking they were so fine? 1776, The Greatest Generation, Camelot, Apollo... Images, Icons, Glamours of times which we think of being peopled with people who had high Ideals. But what you’ll find if you press the matter with someone, is that these impressions of monolithically solidly golden, good & true times invariably crumble.
Looking back at those times, you’ll find that what we see as the High Ideals illuminating the times, in fact were not shared by all, and often not even by a majority. What we do from our vantage point is back date those ideals, associating them with the known outcomes, as Images of good times. The typical wackademic thing to do on discovering this is to gleefully point out that the heroes of the times had feet of clay. I think that that is foolish. In the extreme. There’s nothing to be learned from such a ‘discovery’, there is no history in such history. What is it we look for in history after all, do we focus on particular individuals and times because we expect them to be completely unlike us, perfect in every way, and by virtue of their perfection were able to escape Doom!?
No.
We should expect every person to have weakness’s, faults, imperfect virtues – that’s nothing remarkable, no different than Bob the consultants, nothing to be learned from there. What we look to learn from significant people and times of history is not their faults, but their ability to rise above the common faults shared by you and me, and to prevail over the tide of doom and doomsayers, and accomplish something truly remarkable – focus on their ideals and persevere.
It’s also very much worth noting again, that those ideals which we mistake as being common to the time, were held – even in their highpoint, by a minority. You think you’re bummed because the majority of your countrymen aren’t of your mind, and you see THEM as lacking? Talk to Samuel Adams before James Otis’s speech or the Boston Massacre, for a clearer picture of being in a minority.
Perhaps what is really lacking, is your accepting that our minority status is of any worth or consequence whatsoever, THAT is an impediment. What would be better worth our attention is not the fact that the darkness is threatening to fall upon us, still – as always, but that small minorities of the public have so often prevailed over the more hostile or indifferent majorities in the past. A useful question to ask in our time, might be what did they have, if anything, that we don't? What do we have, if anything, that they did not? And if the balance is in our favor, shouldn’t we be feeling even more optimistic than Samuel Adams did, nearly alone in the belief that this continent could and should host “a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…”
Doom Busters
The founders ink hadn't dried on the constitution, before it was being assailed. There is such a thing as entropy in physics, which is the tendency for things to fall apart. Mentally and spiritually, a similar principle applies - if you don't continue to integrate your higher truths, not just in concepts and words, but in action and deeds in time, then their understanding, even their definitions will begin to slip, become fuzzy, and slowly fade away.
Living is an active process. Grasping the Truth is an active process. If you try to hold onto it, tack it statically to the wall, it will dry, wither and crack into pieces, each blade separate and false.
Doom is such a thing. Doom is the attempt to take a barely grasped truth, and tack it to the wall, a talisman against change and against the need for understanding. Buying into the concept of Doom, allows you to pretend to be better than the world, or at least your neighbors, and so by not sullying yourself by interacting with reality, you can lay claim to virtue in the eyes of those who are impressed by your grasp of dry and dead concepts.
The lamenting of being Doomed is an act of Hubris all it's own - the assertion that you know the fate of man, the world and of the God(s). This process of civilizational decay has happened before - and to the biggest and toughest nations of their times, results of which we look back on and back date into a declaration that they were Doomed. Athens led the Western World in the Persian Wars and for 50 years after, before losing theirselves, Rome began a trek down the favorite 'free food! siren call.
But Hubris is a call that can be met with many fitting replies. Anything from Empire, to Something for nothing, to Irrational Greed, to We Know Best!... to We Are Doomed! But the real answer to why they reaped doom, is that those who knew better did nothing, feeling that they were alone in the face of overwhelming opposition – and that those who might have realized their peril, were never alerted either to it, or to the need to speak out, and that they weren’t alone.The biggest new wrinkle in history which I see in our favor, is that this time We DO know it is being done to us, we scattered 'few' are not only able to see it ourselves, but we have ready access to methods of contact and communication and education, which we can use to band together... to do what?
Quite simply, to answer back! Don't concede the equating of Good and True with flat facts and lists of don’t and do's. Don't quietly accept the Politically Correct comment, the dismissive insults from mental and moral munchkins. And don't fall into strident imitation of them, state your peace - clearly and with level head, such quiet strength will shout down their inanity more than shrillness ever could.
We are able to communicate with each other without relying on a few elite mouthpieces to do, or ignore, it all. I think we've got a shot at redirecting the tide of history this time through the cycle. The trick will be to get all the normal people to realize that what it takes is for us to stop letting the Politically Correct comment at the local gathering go unchallenged & unmocked. Stop looking for the big battle and fight the little ones at hand.
When I think of Sam Adams, nearly alone, sitting in a Boston pub writing stories and editorials in an effort to change history, I feel embarrassed at my cushy position in comparison to his. How does his position differ in substance from our own?
Stand up, speak out, call a fool a fool and a good man good, and pay no further heed to the fact that it's going to hell in a hand basket - it always has been - it just needs a few of us to become that vocal minority, even though we all suspect and fear that no one listens to us, to speak up and win the day.
A little bit of Light goes a very long way
It will never be easy. It never has been easy. The night is only pushed back by keeping the fire lit... But look at how much is pushed back by only a small flame? Be a flame, large or small doesn't matter - the dark will hate you equally. Have you ever lit a candle in a dark room? How much darkness is displaced, what kind of radius does that little flame banish? Maybe a 15 of 20 foot radius? One little candle.
Picture the results of lighting one, running several yards out and lighting another and so on - it doesn't take much light to disturb the reign of the darkness, and whats more, it’s mass doesn’t need to be equaled. A little bit of Light goes a very long way. But it does take effort, the match must be struck & held to the wick - and when the old candle burns down, it must be replaced. Just because our fathers & grandfathers pushed back the darkness of totalitarianism and imperialism 60 years ago, did you really expect that to fix the situation?
Leave Doom for the Doomed
Hope always requires engagement; it requires making the effort to defend and spread your thoughts, "Go forth and multiply!”. The thought you grasp, the truth you understand, if you grasp it well enough, you will be able to extract that light from your soul, and without diminishing your own glow in the least (but in fact, enhances it), pass it on to others, who may do the same, and so on and so on...
In the beginning there was The Word, and then there was Light – and That is a miracle.
I hear that a lot lately. A recent commenter deep within a GagDad post, Michael Andreyakovich, recently begaied us all with a 'drunken' lament of Doom and Gloom, and that anyone who is even considering having children today, are just cruel and negligent!
Now, I confess to occasionaly indulging in my own dark forebodings, often brought on by news such as President Bush’s latest comment “If Iran is implicated in harming US Personal, there will be a firm response” – What the hell?! I'd much Rather hear him say “We've vaporized 5 Iranian military bases today, one for each US Soldier we have reason to believe was killed by Iranian backed personnel…” I mean if we don’t stand, surely we must fall?! The word on the street is that we are losing it, we are doomed… and in that thought of doom, there is an implication that It All hasn’t always been in danger of being lost, that WE haven’t always been in imminent danger of losing the light – that there is a NEW thick, deep darkness falling upon us.
First I want to take a look at what this ‘we’re doomed!’ really means and is, how unique to our times it is, and what - if anything - there is for us to do about it.
The Greeks identified one trait unforgivable to the Gods, and certain to invite their Doom, that of Hubris. The human conceit that ‘I know all that needs to be known, no one can tell me anything different, I have no need of further consideration of caution’ and taking ‘Pride’ in such ‘knowledge’; in short, taking upon oneself a surety of knowledge which even the Gods do not possess. This is the false Pride that goeth before a fall. The Greeks knew of it, the Romans were aware of it, the British suspected it of everyone else, the MSM declares it of (Republican) Presidents.
What does saying ‘we’re Doomed!’ mean? Doesn’t it mean that you have surveyed the scene, read the tea-leaves, and have attained to absolute certainty that there is no escape from the future which your crystal ball has foretold? That no one living or to be born can think, do, discover, teach or perform any act or series of acts which you haven’t forseen which could change the course of history, because YOU see that we are DOOMED!? That this Doom is so certain, that other people, deficient in your prescience, daring to have children (Children! The Fools!) are irresponsible in the extreme, that having any hope of a life worth living is just negligent and petty of them in the face of your foreknowledge. Hmm… I smell something burning, but it ain’t the world.
Wake up and smell the Hubris Michael Andreyakovich.
When Have We Not Been Doomed?
Let’s take a closer look at this certain doom, in particular at other times when apparently life was so Good and True as to NOT be doomed. There is much I think that we miss with our surface despair & assurance of having fallen away from previous golden states of security. What are these times that are often looked back upon as being better ones? I suppose that the easier pickings are those of the Founding Fathers, and those of the Greatest Generation, and even the youth of the big-babyboomers.
We can assume that the technological comforts of 21st century life vs 16th, 17,th, 18th, 19th and even 20th century life, medicine, machines, refrigeration etc aren't the focus of their lament – let’s assume that what is being lamented at having been lost from their time to ours, is something other than the eases and creature comforts of our luxuries and those luxuries we consider to be necessities.
Let's look at the Founders time - which part of their times do we think back on as having been free from the threat of Doom, so rosy and sound? True, they showed their sense and courage by rising up against the looming tyranny of Great Britain, well... perhaps a little over a third of them did anyway - but as many or more of them didn't support the revolution. Sure there was Washington, S. & J.Adams, and Jefferson... but there were also large numbers of the populace who were opposed to, or indifferent to revolution, or were sunshine patriots who, like Benedict Arnold, turned when their own weather turned foul - and others of his kind abounded - not a sound and pleasant time in which to live or raise children, surely.
Well, ok, then... still keeping with the Founders time, but lets focus on the period after the revolution. Surely here was a time of Goodness and Truth, and no implacable darkness about to fall upon and engulf them in doom. Er... but wouldn't that be the period where the unity of the colonies was falling apart, where it was actually conceivable that New Jersey would go to war with New York, when all the states sought to shirk their revolutionary debts and agreements... and when during this idyllic period there were rebellions across the land, such as with Shay's Rebellion.... Good times? Steady times?
Well, ok then, after the constitution was written, surely THEN it was a Good time, a True time, a time free of the implacable and impending Doom. Hmm... wouldn't that be the period that saw the whiskey rebellion? Those fine peaceable times when the frenchie-phile incited press was agitating against Washington (the Man, not the city)? Those fine days when half of the states still upheld legal slavery and ensured a coming Civil War? Those fine and inspiring days during which a vice president (Aaron Burr) shot and killed one of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton? Good times?
Hardly.
Ok then, forget about the Founders then (silly whigs), how about the Greatest Generation who defeated totalitarianism & imperialism – are also the same ones of The Right Stuff, and Camelot and the Apollo program and landing on the Moon! No Doom there! Um… except that they were also the ones who ushered in a boom in Government Regulatory agencies, saw China lost to the communists, the UN was created (a low of lows)...Mississippi burning, Vietnam, & The Draft, The assassinations of JFK-> MLK->RFK… and was Woodstock really a Good time? The drug culture?
When Have There Ever Been Comfortable Highpoints?
And yet these times, or rather the catch phrases of these times, are so often held up as high points of our heritage. What are the images which sway us into thinking they were so fine? 1776, The Greatest Generation, Camelot, Apollo... Images, Icons, Glamours of times which we think of being peopled with people who had high Ideals. But what you’ll find if you press the matter with someone, is that these impressions of monolithically solidly golden, good & true times invariably crumble.
Looking back at those times, you’ll find that what we see as the High Ideals illuminating the times, in fact were not shared by all, and often not even by a majority. What we do from our vantage point is back date those ideals, associating them with the known outcomes, as Images of good times. The typical wackademic thing to do on discovering this is to gleefully point out that the heroes of the times had feet of clay. I think that that is foolish. In the extreme. There’s nothing to be learned from such a ‘discovery’, there is no history in such history. What is it we look for in history after all, do we focus on particular individuals and times because we expect them to be completely unlike us, perfect in every way, and by virtue of their perfection were able to escape Doom!?
No.
We should expect every person to have weakness’s, faults, imperfect virtues – that’s nothing remarkable, no different than Bob the consultants, nothing to be learned from there. What we look to learn from significant people and times of history is not their faults, but their ability to rise above the common faults shared by you and me, and to prevail over the tide of doom and doomsayers, and accomplish something truly remarkable – focus on their ideals and persevere.
It’s also very much worth noting again, that those ideals which we mistake as being common to the time, were held – even in their highpoint, by a minority. You think you’re bummed because the majority of your countrymen aren’t of your mind, and you see THEM as lacking? Talk to Samuel Adams before James Otis’s speech or the Boston Massacre, for a clearer picture of being in a minority.
Perhaps what is really lacking, is your accepting that our minority status is of any worth or consequence whatsoever, THAT is an impediment. What would be better worth our attention is not the fact that the darkness is threatening to fall upon us, still – as always, but that small minorities of the public have so often prevailed over the more hostile or indifferent majorities in the past. A useful question to ask in our time, might be what did they have, if anything, that we don't? What do we have, if anything, that they did not? And if the balance is in our favor, shouldn’t we be feeling even more optimistic than Samuel Adams did, nearly alone in the belief that this continent could and should host “a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…”
Doom Busters
The founders ink hadn't dried on the constitution, before it was being assailed. There is such a thing as entropy in physics, which is the tendency for things to fall apart. Mentally and spiritually, a similar principle applies - if you don't continue to integrate your higher truths, not just in concepts and words, but in action and deeds in time, then their understanding, even their definitions will begin to slip, become fuzzy, and slowly fade away.
Living is an active process. Grasping the Truth is an active process. If you try to hold onto it, tack it statically to the wall, it will dry, wither and crack into pieces, each blade separate and false.
Doom is such a thing. Doom is the attempt to take a barely grasped truth, and tack it to the wall, a talisman against change and against the need for understanding. Buying into the concept of Doom, allows you to pretend to be better than the world, or at least your neighbors, and so by not sullying yourself by interacting with reality, you can lay claim to virtue in the eyes of those who are impressed by your grasp of dry and dead concepts.
The lamenting of being Doomed is an act of Hubris all it's own - the assertion that you know the fate of man, the world and of the God(s). This process of civilizational decay has happened before - and to the biggest and toughest nations of their times, results of which we look back on and back date into a declaration that they were Doomed. Athens led the Western World in the Persian Wars and for 50 years after, before losing theirselves, Rome began a trek down the favorite 'free food! siren call.
But Hubris is a call that can be met with many fitting replies. Anything from Empire, to Something for nothing, to Irrational Greed, to We Know Best!... to We Are Doomed! But the real answer to why they reaped doom, is that those who knew better did nothing, feeling that they were alone in the face of overwhelming opposition – and that those who might have realized their peril, were never alerted either to it, or to the need to speak out, and that they weren’t alone.The biggest new wrinkle in history which I see in our favor, is that this time We DO know it is being done to us, we scattered 'few' are not only able to see it ourselves, but we have ready access to methods of contact and communication and education, which we can use to band together... to do what?
Quite simply, to answer back! Don't concede the equating of Good and True with flat facts and lists of don’t and do's. Don't quietly accept the Politically Correct comment, the dismissive insults from mental and moral munchkins. And don't fall into strident imitation of them, state your peace - clearly and with level head, such quiet strength will shout down their inanity more than shrillness ever could.
We are able to communicate with each other without relying on a few elite mouthpieces to do, or ignore, it all. I think we've got a shot at redirecting the tide of history this time through the cycle. The trick will be to get all the normal people to realize that what it takes is for us to stop letting the Politically Correct comment at the local gathering go unchallenged & unmocked. Stop looking for the big battle and fight the little ones at hand.
When I think of Sam Adams, nearly alone, sitting in a Boston pub writing stories and editorials in an effort to change history, I feel embarrassed at my cushy position in comparison to his. How does his position differ in substance from our own?
Stand up, speak out, call a fool a fool and a good man good, and pay no further heed to the fact that it's going to hell in a hand basket - it always has been - it just needs a few of us to become that vocal minority, even though we all suspect and fear that no one listens to us, to speak up and win the day.
A little bit of Light goes a very long way
It will never be easy. It never has been easy. The night is only pushed back by keeping the fire lit... But look at how much is pushed back by only a small flame? Be a flame, large or small doesn't matter - the dark will hate you equally. Have you ever lit a candle in a dark room? How much darkness is displaced, what kind of radius does that little flame banish? Maybe a 15 of 20 foot radius? One little candle.
Picture the results of lighting one, running several yards out and lighting another and so on - it doesn't take much light to disturb the reign of the darkness, and whats more, it’s mass doesn’t need to be equaled. A little bit of Light goes a very long way. But it does take effort, the match must be struck & held to the wick - and when the old candle burns down, it must be replaced. Just because our fathers & grandfathers pushed back the darkness of totalitarianism and imperialism 60 years ago, did you really expect that to fix the situation?
Leave Doom for the Doomed
Hope always requires engagement; it requires making the effort to defend and spread your thoughts, "Go forth and multiply!”. The thought you grasp, the truth you understand, if you grasp it well enough, you will be able to extract that light from your soul, and without diminishing your own glow in the least (but in fact, enhances it), pass it on to others, who may do the same, and so on and so on...
In the beginning there was The Word, and then there was Light – and That is a miracle.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
What ARE Words For?
So what are words for?
Perhaps better phrased as ‘what are the purposes that words fulfill?’ What arises before the night’s fire, which gives cause for words?
How is it that someone can articulate an idea in words, to which someone else might then say “that’s ‘xactly what I’ve always thought!” without your ever having had those words within their own head?
When we open our eyes, when we move and have the sensation of touching something out there in the world, when we smell a scent in the air, when we taste a morsel… when we interact with the world, impressions of it are written to disc in our heads. Some basic, rudimentary integrations are made by the default actions of our hardware. ‘Water good’, ‘sound of snarling bear behind me – bad’, these things we register and know.
Some integrations of basic observations are made – at this level principles aren’t proper to use, they haven’t even been grasped yet - merely observations of things which are regularly seen to happen together.
When the trousered ape observes a thug more powerful than himself breaking into their apartment and stealing the TV from their living room, they experience fear and anger. When they then see a politician saying on TV (someone elses) “What we need are the Rights of our Citizens to be defended. We need laws in place to allow the police to act against criminals who would steal from our citizens that which is rightly theirs.”, the trousered ape may nod and exclaim ‘tat’s ‘xactly what I’ve always t’ought!” but rest assured, it never was anything that he had ever thought. For when the more powerful policemen bursts in his door to arrest him on assault charges stemming from his arguing with a liquor store owner attempting to stop him from walking out the door without paying for the fifth of gin in his pocket, you can be assured that he never ever had within his head the words – (beyond their mere auditory impressions), let alone the concepts, of ‘Citizen’, ‘Law’, ‘Rights’, ‘Police’.
What did he have? Why the feeling that what someone else is saying is on the tip of his tongue, when it clearly never was?
What he had on the tip of his tongue was vaguely associated generalities, which when evoked through someone elses use of words, he recognizes that his basic “t’oughts” have been strummed by this other person using a bunch of other words. Those same basic “t’oughts” could also just as easily have been strummed by someone saying “What we need to ensure is that those who think that just because they are Rich, that they can keep us from fairly distributing to us our fair share of this countries wealth!” – rest assured that the trousered ape will nod and exclaim ‘tat’s ‘xactly what I’ve always t’ought!”
So what are the purposes which words are suited to fulfilling?
The answer is two fold. One, is they enable us to grasp vast general observations, and communicate them to someone else. The second thing they enable us to do is to finely distinguish minute shades of meaning. Just as the Eskimo supposedly has a multitude of different words to describe distinctions between different types of snow, so language enables to use words to enable us to build a structure of meaning upon which we can ascend to a multitude of variations in describing what is Moral behavior, Individual Rights and Virtue.
Communication vs conveying impressions.
Our fellow who always t’ought what you might have said, doesn’t have a sufficient grasp of language, concepts or civilized distinctions of thought, to communicate in a manner that the Founding Fathers sought to communicate the idea of a constitutional republic to posterity. He is not able to communicate in any meaningful way at all, what he is able to do is to convey vague impressions of commonly felt observations in order to satisfy his needs, urges and whims. But he does not communicate.
Communication is not something that comes naturally to human beings, at most we are only equipped with the natural ability to convey impressions – those that are of a sensory nature, and some rudimentary abstractions arising from them. The types of things that grunting, motioning and facial expressions and gesticulating would be able to convey equally well.
Communication, however, is a vastly different thing. Communication enables a nearly magical transmission of developed thoughts from your consciousness – from your internal grasp of reality – to travel into the mind & soul of another in such a way that assuming an equivalent grasp of language, they will be able to share, think and feel just what you do mean. That life which you are living is able to be shared and experienced and even improved upon through its communication with the mind and spirit of others.
That is something remarkable and magical and rare, and it is not natural, it is not something that one acquires through being taught names and words, it is not something anyone attains to by being exposed to cultural sensitivities or other such nonsense.
Becoming a Human Being, in a non animal sense, is the work and effort of years of attentive parenting, of storytelling, of play, of education (NOT schooling, but education – which may or may not[more likely not] occur in a modern day school) in the fruits of your culture, it’s normative distinctions, history and literature.
For words to attain to their fullest potential, they must be learned in a fashion which integrates them, their meaning, in an hierarchical way. They must make use of our particular ability of conceptual formation, of being able to associate related words into ever more and more complex conceptual structures. They must be built upon wider conceptual platforms, integrating with all others, in an ever expanding pyramidal, or cone shaped fashion.
When someone is heard to express those thoughts which seem to strum your deepest convictions, it is up to you to grasp at those words, to explore and understand them, to make them fully understood to yourself and truly yours. Then you can say you have partaken in communication, and have benefited from that most wondrous of things – grasping Truth which another has exposed, and then internalizing and integrating it within you – making it yours, and you one with it.
That is what you can do with Words.
And wisdom is had through those who realize it, who never allow the Poetic to be completely separated from the prose. No matter the detail, there is always a general truth and vision of which it is a part – to forget that is to risk disintegration. Those who know this thoroughly, who are wise, are wise not only in their words, but in their every action, for the word is then made flesh, and you can see it in their level heads and steady gaze.
Must minds be built this way? Sadly, no. We are creatures of Free Will, and that means that we can do things correctly, incorrectly or even not at all – by choice, or by avoidance of choice. Our souls are ours to build – as attentively and with as much craftsmanship as we care to, or care not to, engage ourselves in.
A properly constructed mind will have at root a single platform firmly affixed to reality, and upon and through that connection, it will always build upon and seek to develop in a truthful and proper fashion – but that is not necessary.
A person can easily allow several seemingly separate structures to be scattered around their mind, randomly globbing this observation on to that one (‘fair’ with ‘I get as much as they do!”), beliefs can easily be asserted without cohesion, integration or any thorough correspondence to reality.
A person does not need to seek to understand the ideas of what are Good and True and Beautiful, and in not seeking to, banishes himself from experiencing them; having instead to make do with their horizontal perceptions in physical pleasure, getting away with what they can, and fleeting visual skin deep appeal.
A person doesn’t need to seek to understand Individual Rights, a Constitutional Republic, or the Pursuit of Happiness, they can instead settle for the brute risks of might makes right, getting all the goods their pressure group is able to secure from others, and grabbing all the toys and pleasures they can - before dying from them – at least until a Master arises who will tell them what they can and cannot do or acquire and keeps the trains running on time. For awhile. For some.
A Good life is the rarest of things, because the effort required in constructing it from within and without, is so rarely expended, and becoming rarer all the time. What causes that effort to become more or less rare? Words. That is what Words are for, that is the purpose which words serve to fulfill through careful application, construction and integration. Through that most intricate weaving of observation, conceptualization, emotion and Truth – through Poetry, we are able to connect with and establish what is Good and True and Beautiful – to affix our single platform to reality, and upon which an orderly progression of thought and deed can be constructed into a life worth living.
Poetry provides the structural image to be attained to, Reason (not logic chopping, but whole-souled Reason) the method for transmitting it into reality, and Philosophy the means to ensure that you are indeed proceeding according to plan. To be successful, to successfully pursue Happiness, requires that you keep all in tune and harmoniously resonating through not only yourself, but the Reality you are secured to – and that ineffable something which encompasses both.
The attempt to deny hierarchy in Values, to deny the single encompassing unity of Truth, to seek to promote the perceptually easy and thrilling, over the effort of conceptualy grasping and integrating of that which is True; that is what is balkanizing our minds and our souls even as it is balkanizing our political and civic experiences.
That misuse of Words, of Language and of Culture and Meaning has delivered us to the state where a Supreme Court Justice can blithely say that he is considering the necessity of ensuring ‘free and fair’ elections in mandating equal amounts of ‘free speech’, as being behind his interpretation of constitutional law. Cast away are both the concept of a single guiding Truth, and of the finer distinctions necessary for its proper applicaiton in principled law.
We have allowed the philosophers, the progressives, the Politically Correct strident purveyors of license masquerading as liberty, to gain control over the education of our young and of ourselves. We have allowed them to demand that our understanding of Truth and Mythic Poetry compare in quantified measurement with the flattest of factual depictions, making it easy to dispense with such ideas as Truth and Virtue, and soon after that of Duty, Honor and Country and even of any conception of God as well.
And we have allowed them to make those comparisons, the idea that the Vertical dimensions can be stretched out and tacked onto the Horizontal surfaces of their sophistry – and that we allow ourselves to be embarrassed at the inconsistencies they point out - chortling at us – triumphantly pointing out ridges, wrinkles and gaps in the horizontal image inevitably conveyed from an object of spherical depth when it is attempted to be represented and squashed upon the table.
That has been our gravest error, to allow that most uncommon thing, common sense, the seemingly simple conceptions which resulted only from the fruits of three thousand plus years of development of Western Civilization; that process which is the product of our poetry, myths, stories – religion, literature, customs and history being reverently and laboriously communicated from one generation to the next; we have allowed ourselves to risk severing that holy transmission – through the verbal tricks of sophists, charlatans and fools to make us feel embarrassed at seeking to be good and true.
Over not daring to uphold the greater value of a child’s effort and strain in learning what is valuable, over their easy play of smiling and frolicking – as do the imbeciles who tell us the later is more desirable and superior to the former.
Math is difficult? Here’s a NEW math, History is difficult? Here’s social studies, Rhetoric is difficult? Here’s See and Say! Liberty is difficult? Here’s what we’ll call liberty – enjoy it.“What, do mean you really believe that a bearded God in the sky created the universe in SEVEN Days?! You don’t REALLY believe in Truth that is always True, do you? You think this nation is Good?! Don’t you realize that people are starving in Africa, and this country ALLOWS IT! Is that Good?! You really think that All Men are created EQUAL! – some are born RICH and some POOR, WE must MAKE them EQUAL!!!”
All of this damage they have caused, forcing us to turn away from our own marvelous tool of common sense – and with what weapon? What nefarious tool? While they’ve used Philosophy to supply theirs stances with ‘plausible’ reasons and excuses, that hasn’t been their chief tool. What has?
The idea has been culturally sold, that if someone drops a wallet, you’re a sucker for turning it in. If the cashier gives you too much change back, and you discover it as you’re getting in your car – who would not feel at least a moment’s hesitation to tell your friends that you’re going back in to return the extra cash? Not so much whether you would or not, only that we all know that it would be the right thing to do, and we all know that you would be snickered at for doing so, accepting that it is socially geeky to do what is Right.
Note however what I am talking about here, and what I’m not. I’m not talking about the worthiness of the action, only that all present would have thought that it WAS the right thing to do… and accepted that you shouldn’t admit to it.
Think about that.
When President Bush says “Thank you, and may God Bless America” who hasn’t noted the smirk on the faces of the Peter Jennings MSM types? That they do is not nearly so troubling, as that we don’t react in outrage over it. That their power lies in our willingness to feel embarrassment over saying what is good and true in the face of what is accepted as being sophisticated and cool.
That also is what words are for. To spin cultural norms into culturally-legal custom -restraints on social behavior – think of what is behind such customary ‘law’ to prevent people from doing what is Right. There is the existence of true, pure Evil in our midst, words turned against truth, and sold as desirable.
We’ve allowed that the smarter, wiser, cooler thing to posture, believe and say, is the cynical over the Proper. And rather than ignore such ‘cooler’ people, we say nothing, or go along with them – for fear of Embarrassment. Believe it or not, the big fearsome tool wielded against us has been our own fear of Embarrassment.
Truly Pride doth goeth before a fall.
Some of the most important purposes which Words are for, are for grasping a comprehensive vision of what to believe and value – and for those talented, even inspired few, to weave that vision and value into Poetry in order to fire the minds of the culture. Words are also for communicating your grasp of that shared quest with each other. And Words are for enabling you, within yourself, to clearly define what you know, so that you can understand your values, and pursue them. Words are for doing all three, and more, for creating a mind and soul that is known to yourself, and for communicating that soul, for mingling some portion of your values and ideals with those whom you love.
Words are for you to grasp and inspect what you believe to be true – for communicating Truth, or conveying Evil, and it requires you to choose between the two – avoidance of either is just a default and only slightly more roundabout way, of delivering us back to that time 40,000+ years ago before we had Words at all.
Or Humanity.
And that truly is what Words are for, for furthering, or dismantling, the Humanity that they had such a Promethean hand in instilling into us all those millennia ago.
In the beginning there was the Word… and then there was light… as above, so below.
Perhaps better phrased as ‘what are the purposes that words fulfill?’ What arises before the night’s fire, which gives cause for words?
How is it that someone can articulate an idea in words, to which someone else might then say “that’s ‘xactly what I’ve always thought!” without your ever having had those words within their own head?
When we open our eyes, when we move and have the sensation of touching something out there in the world, when we smell a scent in the air, when we taste a morsel… when we interact with the world, impressions of it are written to disc in our heads. Some basic, rudimentary integrations are made by the default actions of our hardware. ‘Water good’, ‘sound of snarling bear behind me – bad’, these things we register and know.
Some integrations of basic observations are made – at this level principles aren’t proper to use, they haven’t even been grasped yet - merely observations of things which are regularly seen to happen together.
When the trousered ape observes a thug more powerful than himself breaking into their apartment and stealing the TV from their living room, they experience fear and anger. When they then see a politician saying on TV (someone elses) “What we need are the Rights of our Citizens to be defended. We need laws in place to allow the police to act against criminals who would steal from our citizens that which is rightly theirs.”, the trousered ape may nod and exclaim ‘tat’s ‘xactly what I’ve always t’ought!” but rest assured, it never was anything that he had ever thought. For when the more powerful policemen bursts in his door to arrest him on assault charges stemming from his arguing with a liquor store owner attempting to stop him from walking out the door without paying for the fifth of gin in his pocket, you can be assured that he never ever had within his head the words – (beyond their mere auditory impressions), let alone the concepts, of ‘Citizen’, ‘Law’, ‘Rights’, ‘Police’.
What did he have? Why the feeling that what someone else is saying is on the tip of his tongue, when it clearly never was?
What he had on the tip of his tongue was vaguely associated generalities, which when evoked through someone elses use of words, he recognizes that his basic “t’oughts” have been strummed by this other person using a bunch of other words. Those same basic “t’oughts” could also just as easily have been strummed by someone saying “What we need to ensure is that those who think that just because they are Rich, that they can keep us from fairly distributing to us our fair share of this countries wealth!” – rest assured that the trousered ape will nod and exclaim ‘tat’s ‘xactly what I’ve always t’ought!”
So what are the purposes which words are suited to fulfilling?
The answer is two fold. One, is they enable us to grasp vast general observations, and communicate them to someone else. The second thing they enable us to do is to finely distinguish minute shades of meaning. Just as the Eskimo supposedly has a multitude of different words to describe distinctions between different types of snow, so language enables to use words to enable us to build a structure of meaning upon which we can ascend to a multitude of variations in describing what is Moral behavior, Individual Rights and Virtue.
Communication vs conveying impressions.
Our fellow who always t’ought what you might have said, doesn’t have a sufficient grasp of language, concepts or civilized distinctions of thought, to communicate in a manner that the Founding Fathers sought to communicate the idea of a constitutional republic to posterity. He is not able to communicate in any meaningful way at all, what he is able to do is to convey vague impressions of commonly felt observations in order to satisfy his needs, urges and whims. But he does not communicate.
Communication is not something that comes naturally to human beings, at most we are only equipped with the natural ability to convey impressions – those that are of a sensory nature, and some rudimentary abstractions arising from them. The types of things that grunting, motioning and facial expressions and gesticulating would be able to convey equally well.
Communication, however, is a vastly different thing. Communication enables a nearly magical transmission of developed thoughts from your consciousness – from your internal grasp of reality – to travel into the mind & soul of another in such a way that assuming an equivalent grasp of language, they will be able to share, think and feel just what you do mean. That life which you are living is able to be shared and experienced and even improved upon through its communication with the mind and spirit of others.
That is something remarkable and magical and rare, and it is not natural, it is not something that one acquires through being taught names and words, it is not something anyone attains to by being exposed to cultural sensitivities or other such nonsense.
Becoming a Human Being, in a non animal sense, is the work and effort of years of attentive parenting, of storytelling, of play, of education (NOT schooling, but education – which may or may not[more likely not] occur in a modern day school) in the fruits of your culture, it’s normative distinctions, history and literature.
For words to attain to their fullest potential, they must be learned in a fashion which integrates them, their meaning, in an hierarchical way. They must make use of our particular ability of conceptual formation, of being able to associate related words into ever more and more complex conceptual structures. They must be built upon wider conceptual platforms, integrating with all others, in an ever expanding pyramidal, or cone shaped fashion.
When someone is heard to express those thoughts which seem to strum your deepest convictions, it is up to you to grasp at those words, to explore and understand them, to make them fully understood to yourself and truly yours. Then you can say you have partaken in communication, and have benefited from that most wondrous of things – grasping Truth which another has exposed, and then internalizing and integrating it within you – making it yours, and you one with it.
That is what you can do with Words.
And wisdom is had through those who realize it, who never allow the Poetic to be completely separated from the prose. No matter the detail, there is always a general truth and vision of which it is a part – to forget that is to risk disintegration. Those who know this thoroughly, who are wise, are wise not only in their words, but in their every action, for the word is then made flesh, and you can see it in their level heads and steady gaze.
Must minds be built this way? Sadly, no. We are creatures of Free Will, and that means that we can do things correctly, incorrectly or even not at all – by choice, or by avoidance of choice. Our souls are ours to build – as attentively and with as much craftsmanship as we care to, or care not to, engage ourselves in.
A properly constructed mind will have at root a single platform firmly affixed to reality, and upon and through that connection, it will always build upon and seek to develop in a truthful and proper fashion – but that is not necessary.
A person can easily allow several seemingly separate structures to be scattered around their mind, randomly globbing this observation on to that one (‘fair’ with ‘I get as much as they do!”), beliefs can easily be asserted without cohesion, integration or any thorough correspondence to reality.
A person does not need to seek to understand the ideas of what are Good and True and Beautiful, and in not seeking to, banishes himself from experiencing them; having instead to make do with their horizontal perceptions in physical pleasure, getting away with what they can, and fleeting visual skin deep appeal.
A person doesn’t need to seek to understand Individual Rights, a Constitutional Republic, or the Pursuit of Happiness, they can instead settle for the brute risks of might makes right, getting all the goods their pressure group is able to secure from others, and grabbing all the toys and pleasures they can - before dying from them – at least until a Master arises who will tell them what they can and cannot do or acquire and keeps the trains running on time. For awhile. For some.
A Good life is the rarest of things, because the effort required in constructing it from within and without, is so rarely expended, and becoming rarer all the time. What causes that effort to become more or less rare? Words. That is what Words are for, that is the purpose which words serve to fulfill through careful application, construction and integration. Through that most intricate weaving of observation, conceptualization, emotion and Truth – through Poetry, we are able to connect with and establish what is Good and True and Beautiful – to affix our single platform to reality, and upon which an orderly progression of thought and deed can be constructed into a life worth living.
Poetry provides the structural image to be attained to, Reason (not logic chopping, but whole-souled Reason) the method for transmitting it into reality, and Philosophy the means to ensure that you are indeed proceeding according to plan. To be successful, to successfully pursue Happiness, requires that you keep all in tune and harmoniously resonating through not only yourself, but the Reality you are secured to – and that ineffable something which encompasses both.
The attempt to deny hierarchy in Values, to deny the single encompassing unity of Truth, to seek to promote the perceptually easy and thrilling, over the effort of conceptualy grasping and integrating of that which is True; that is what is balkanizing our minds and our souls even as it is balkanizing our political and civic experiences.
That misuse of Words, of Language and of Culture and Meaning has delivered us to the state where a Supreme Court Justice can blithely say that he is considering the necessity of ensuring ‘free and fair’ elections in mandating equal amounts of ‘free speech’, as being behind his interpretation of constitutional law. Cast away are both the concept of a single guiding Truth, and of the finer distinctions necessary for its proper applicaiton in principled law.
We have allowed the philosophers, the progressives, the Politically Correct strident purveyors of license masquerading as liberty, to gain control over the education of our young and of ourselves. We have allowed them to demand that our understanding of Truth and Mythic Poetry compare in quantified measurement with the flattest of factual depictions, making it easy to dispense with such ideas as Truth and Virtue, and soon after that of Duty, Honor and Country and even of any conception of God as well.
And we have allowed them to make those comparisons, the idea that the Vertical dimensions can be stretched out and tacked onto the Horizontal surfaces of their sophistry – and that we allow ourselves to be embarrassed at the inconsistencies they point out - chortling at us – triumphantly pointing out ridges, wrinkles and gaps in the horizontal image inevitably conveyed from an object of spherical depth when it is attempted to be represented and squashed upon the table.
That has been our gravest error, to allow that most uncommon thing, common sense, the seemingly simple conceptions which resulted only from the fruits of three thousand plus years of development of Western Civilization; that process which is the product of our poetry, myths, stories – religion, literature, customs and history being reverently and laboriously communicated from one generation to the next; we have allowed ourselves to risk severing that holy transmission – through the verbal tricks of sophists, charlatans and fools to make us feel embarrassed at seeking to be good and true.
Over not daring to uphold the greater value of a child’s effort and strain in learning what is valuable, over their easy play of smiling and frolicking – as do the imbeciles who tell us the later is more desirable and superior to the former.
Math is difficult? Here’s a NEW math, History is difficult? Here’s social studies, Rhetoric is difficult? Here’s See and Say! Liberty is difficult? Here’s what we’ll call liberty – enjoy it.“What, do mean you really believe that a bearded God in the sky created the universe in SEVEN Days?! You don’t REALLY believe in Truth that is always True, do you? You think this nation is Good?! Don’t you realize that people are starving in Africa, and this country ALLOWS IT! Is that Good?! You really think that All Men are created EQUAL! – some are born RICH and some POOR, WE must MAKE them EQUAL!!!”
All of this damage they have caused, forcing us to turn away from our own marvelous tool of common sense – and with what weapon? What nefarious tool? While they’ve used Philosophy to supply theirs stances with ‘plausible’ reasons and excuses, that hasn’t been their chief tool. What has?
The idea has been culturally sold, that if someone drops a wallet, you’re a sucker for turning it in. If the cashier gives you too much change back, and you discover it as you’re getting in your car – who would not feel at least a moment’s hesitation to tell your friends that you’re going back in to return the extra cash? Not so much whether you would or not, only that we all know that it would be the right thing to do, and we all know that you would be snickered at for doing so, accepting that it is socially geeky to do what is Right.
Note however what I am talking about here, and what I’m not. I’m not talking about the worthiness of the action, only that all present would have thought that it WAS the right thing to do… and accepted that you shouldn’t admit to it.
Think about that.
When President Bush says “Thank you, and may God Bless America” who hasn’t noted the smirk on the faces of the Peter Jennings MSM types? That they do is not nearly so troubling, as that we don’t react in outrage over it. That their power lies in our willingness to feel embarrassment over saying what is good and true in the face of what is accepted as being sophisticated and cool.
That also is what words are for. To spin cultural norms into culturally-legal custom -restraints on social behavior – think of what is behind such customary ‘law’ to prevent people from doing what is Right. There is the existence of true, pure Evil in our midst, words turned against truth, and sold as desirable.
We’ve allowed that the smarter, wiser, cooler thing to posture, believe and say, is the cynical over the Proper. And rather than ignore such ‘cooler’ people, we say nothing, or go along with them – for fear of Embarrassment. Believe it or not, the big fearsome tool wielded against us has been our own fear of Embarrassment.
Truly Pride doth goeth before a fall.
Some of the most important purposes which Words are for, are for grasping a comprehensive vision of what to believe and value – and for those talented, even inspired few, to weave that vision and value into Poetry in order to fire the minds of the culture. Words are also for communicating your grasp of that shared quest with each other. And Words are for enabling you, within yourself, to clearly define what you know, so that you can understand your values, and pursue them. Words are for doing all three, and more, for creating a mind and soul that is known to yourself, and for communicating that soul, for mingling some portion of your values and ideals with those whom you love.
Words are for you to grasp and inspect what you believe to be true – for communicating Truth, or conveying Evil, and it requires you to choose between the two – avoidance of either is just a default and only slightly more roundabout way, of delivering us back to that time 40,000+ years ago before we had Words at all.
Or Humanity.
And that truly is what Words are for, for furthering, or dismantling, the Humanity that they had such a Promethean hand in instilling into us all those millennia ago.
In the beginning there was the Word… and then there was light… as above, so below.
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