The problem we find coming from the immigration situation is not from immigration itself, but from the related corruptions to our fed & state gov't's which feed it. Thomas Sowell or Frederich Bastiat or Walter E. Williams, and more, have given reams of examples and information on how one 'isolated' instance of tampering with the free market, ripples disruptions outward, which prompt compensatory actions which themselves cause more compensatory ripples to spread chaos even further.
To lift a few instances out of the mix at random, minimum wage law, health care rules, public schooling, social services... and on and on. These cause enough problems and conflicts within the regular citizenry, market & gov't interplay all of it's own. But worse, they also cause what should be a highly valued result of America being America - immigration, to be twisted into a visible focal point for each of these corruptions of our political structure to be displayed for us in harsh flashing neon.
There is nothing more valuable than people (the "Ultimate Resource") - qualified as people who do understand the value of liberty and freedom, seeking to come here and practice it in their lives. A non nanny state gov't, such as America predominantly was prior to the 20th century, was it's own immune system, drawing in only those willing to take a risk on their own skills and abilities to earn a livelihood and better the lives of their families. On the whole, immigration, on the melting pot plan - learn the language, learn the founders political philosophy, adopt the culture, work hard & get ahead - this was America's secret weapon from the founders time on, and on the basic principles, even from the 1600's and Jamestown, on.
All of the Nanny state, regulatory, gov't mandated policies and services that have been implemented, to mark a fuzzy line, from Teddy Roosevelt, from that time on, and amplified with the Warren Court decisions, have served to undermine and corrupt that lifeblood little by little, until now what should still be a supreme value for us, is a raging infection.
My personal view on immigration, in an uncorrupted gov't, would be to open the doors and welcome them in, only being sure to take their names, make sure they are not spreading disease, are not felon's, track and ensure that they are becoming good Americans, and on to the next issue. 911 modifies that to put a tighter, more in depth focus on the taking of names, background and tracking, finger printing, reporting in, etc, but the rest still holds.
It even holds for those from Mexico or Canada who want to come temporarily to earn some money and return home, again, with emphasis on the tracking and law abiding parts. There is only benefit for us and them - as long as the qualifiers are in place.
Anyone who flouts our laws should be unceremoniously given the boot, and never allowed back in. Period.
The difficulty we have now, is separating those coming here to take a risk on their own skills and abilities to earn a livelihood and better the lives of their families and so on, from those coming to take advantage of public schools, 'public' health care, welfare, etc.
The problem isn't immigration, that is only where the real problem is too visible to turn away from. The problem is that we have allowed progressive, socialist, postmodern, multiculturist 'ideas' to corrupt our system, and ourselves - until they are taken care of, neither the immigration or other problems are going to be taken care of.
Until we again have a free market, and a gov't governing within its proper bounds, we will not have an uncorrupted populace. To dream otherwise, is but to dream.
For the moment, I think that all we can hope for (probably vainly given the mushiness of our congress on the issue) is an effective background checking, identification and tracking system for immigrants. An insistence that they show proficiency in the language within x number of months, and that law abiding behavior be absolutely required, violation of which results in permanent expulsion. And as strict a monitoring of the borders as is feasible, and with unquestioned shoot to kill force being authorized for those patrolling it feel is necessary to their own protection, and jobs.
***
In short, if we see the issue with immigration being in conflict with our laws; when we are at root A Nation of Immigrants, and A Nation of Laws, then we need to look at the rippling set of laws that have prompted that split. If you do, I think you'll find that a great deal of the laws which were passed in the 20th century, are laws that must be passed away. Soon.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Can Vice be Taught?
Socrates was concerned with the question of whether or not Virtue can be taught. Another good question that should be asked, is whether Vice can be taught? I think the answer is Yes. And taught far easier, at that.
Why? Because Vice is usually more directly connected to physical responses of immediate gratification. It doesn’t need to be mediated with thought and consideration, it taps directly into the reward center endorphins just act like food pellets with lab rats, but laced with designer drugs. That being so, thoughts can be, are, dangerous things. It seems to me, that one of the thoughts that should and MUST be taught, is that some thoughts, some ideas, some desires, are not to be approached - especially by an ill equipped mind.
Just as a student pugilist doesn't walk into a ring with Mike Tyson (or whoever the hell is considered tough nowadays), a youth, a student, should not 'get into the ring' with evil – full blown or one of it’s many henchmen - pornography, intoxicants, marxist & postmodernist thoughts. It is too dangerous.
This has always been the case, the biggest difference with us ‘moderns’, is that we’ve forgotten how to deal with dangerous thoughts. Does this mean that if thoughts are dangerous, that they should be regulated? Monitored?
Thank you Mr. Leftie Answer-Man (and not a few of you Rightie ones as well), but no. No it doesn’t mean that at all. What it does mean, is that way back when, when the wise wanted to keep dangerous thoughts out of the hands of those who weren’t ready to handle them, they did the only sensible thing that can be done with potentially dangerous medicines – they hid them away from the grasp of immature and otherwise unprepared minds. They put warning labels on them. They also made sure to show the evil (the term may be controversial for pomofo’s but not for sensible educated peoples) to be clearly baaad. The easy will always be available as an option – unless it’s already too late. There is no avoiding the possibility – your only hope is of making it seem a less desirable choice to make.
How? Well, before answering that, let’s first lets conduct a little housekeeping concerning a few common prejudices many of us moderns have against those who lived way back when.
First off, that those who lived way back when dressed in a fashion we consider to be goofy doesn’t mean they were incredulous, naïve or otherwise stupid. For those of you not so sure (probably those in their twenties (mentally and or chronogically) or less), wait until you get a load of your fashion… ten or twenty years from now. Fashion doesn't necessarily imply foolishness.
Next, think of what you mean when you refer to someone as being Wise. Would such a person be likely to believe in fairy tales, the tooth fairy, talking animals, etc.? No? What makes you think that a wise person living two or three thousand years ago would have either?
And technology. It's fine and all to have it, I rather like the internet, but it doesn't make you any wiser. Would they think You wise because you could turn on a light switch? Wisdom is not deepened with stuff – extended perhaps, but not deepened.
They weren't, they didn't and they wouldn’t. Something else, tamper proof caps and child resistant packaging were not invented after the Tylenol scare, they were invented long before that, way back when, with “A long time ago, in a land (or galaxy) far, far away….”
Here it is that we approach the deep well, the knotty packaging of Myth. Intended and innate to Myths, at their central core, is Truth with a capital “T”. There are deeper mines of meaning in our folk tales, our Myths, our Religions, than are visible upon the surface of their narratives. And something truly magical about them, is that there not only may be, but almost certainly does exist, more Truth within them, than those who wrote them down were aware of at the time of their writing them.
The remarkable thing about Truth, is that it integrates into and throughout all of what is True. Truth is Whole, it is One. There is no – and I do mean NO truth, that exists separate and isolated, from all else that is true. Lies and falsehood can be random, contradictory and completely unrelated to each other, but Truth is a different species altogether.
The truth of a tale told, contains that truth intended by the authors, but it also contains others perhaps unplanned, unforeseen, by the authors, but because of the nature of Truth, all others are unavoidably there all the same. In Myth, in story, the tale reveals only so much meaning as the reader is willing and able to comprehend, and so long as they are restrained from going off half cocked in applying it in some literal fashion (again, that's where teachers and parents come in), they are given only that amount of knowledge that they are ready to receive. But the levels of Truth contained in even one True Tale, go down to unforeseeable depths – and expand outwards in concentric circles & spheres to the very boundaries of the universe.
Consider Adam and Eve. For those viewing the story on the 1st level, there is of course the near literal interpretation of the Serpent tempting Eve, and she of Adam – essentially if you listen to the devil, you’d better be prepared to pay the consequences. Loss of paradise, poor clothing and fratricidal children are only some of the obvious payback sure to follow.
(BTW, If you believe that a literal snake spoke to, and tempted Eve... well consult the previous houskeeping measures concerning the Wise. But also don't be fooled into thinking that it doesn't have true meaning to it. Thinking is required, at whatever depth and speed as you can manage. The tales will patiently wait for you to catch up. )
By looking just a little deeper, there can be found more to the tale than just talking sssnake stories. For one thing, I don't think it takes a lot of thought, really just a little consultation with your friendly neighborhood teenager, to figure out that the fruit lately translated as 'apple' might be referring to… something else.
Pomegranates have been floated, sure, strawberries, berries, however, not to be vulgar, but try consider perhaps another red morsel, one that doesn't necessarily grow upon a tree would be more to this point – the Cherry. Not the cherry which grows on the tree in the garden, but the cherry that springs from the tree of life. Ask you're friendly neighborhood teenage boy, if the word 'Cherry', spoken in relation to girls, doesn't bring up some ideas - and fears, and rules. Rules not to be broken, lest you be pushed from your safe and secure home, suddenly a father burdened with responsibilities, a responsible bread-winner, no longer a child, and soon to be blessed with children of his own who must be carefully raised and taught right from wrong, or evil is sure to follow.
Even so – you can be pretty much guaranteed that evil will be sure to follow. Not because of an apple bitten into, but because of the nature of the human mind, of intelligence, of freewill – freewill to have meaning, must include the possibility of making errors. And errors unrecognized, or unheeded, will lead to many black thoughts and deeds.
That aspect of Myth brings to mind very relevant admonitions about maturing adolescents. There are other such ‘Myth’s’ as well; Pandora's box was originally Pandora's urn or goblet, another standin or allusion to the womb, and the release of 'evils', responsibilities that can overcome the unprepared. Persephone, carried off to Hades, couldn't be released by Zeuss scott free, because she had eaten a pomegranate. She had eaten of the fruit of earthly desire and pleasure, and was tied to it, no longer the innocent and free child, but one bound to the soil.
Are these inferences anachronistic? Modern concerns that perhaps didn't exist, or in the same way 400 or 500 b.c.? Certainly. Did they derive other lessons from them then? Of course. That's the point. A story, a myth, because it distills a Truth in action, a psychological and philosophical truth, it is able to refract truth, no matter the quality or intensity of light shone into it. That is one of the ways you know that you are dealing with eternal and transcendent truth.
Perhaps the root meaning, original in the Judaic and the Greek myths, was that in a very definite sense, that bringing forth children, the responsibilities it incurs, the temptations it can foster - the urges to provide for them, posture for them, that from the womb can issue immortality through the father son line of the Tree of Life, but evil can follow as well.
And that is but one level deeper than the narrative. There are many levels beyond that, such as where the snake, his crafty speech, so wriggling manner of moving, so close to the ground, to things, to the physical, horizontal reality, can seduce you away from what is good and proper, with a simple "what can it hurt to try? It's tasssty!" Gagdad Bob has done several excellent explorations of what the Serpent in the garden represents. The twisting manner, the slickly smooth hissing of the snakes words as Intelligence shorn of Wisdom – “Spin” perhaps captures it ."Eat of the apple, and you will know of eternal life"
With women, Eve (or Pandora, or...) representing your worldly desires, dreams, values, can easily sway you - not even by her direct actions, but merely by her existence, into seeking shortcuts to God-like abilities. And before you realize it, you are grabbing for knowledge over wisdom, nudging you into the valuing of quantity over quality, horizontal over vertical, death over life. In an instant, with a word, a temptation, you are banished by your own actions, from the cool garden of wisdom, barred from returning to it by the sharp blade of your own burning desires, forced by your own choices and decisions (de-cision, to cut away from), to endure the sense of nakedness inherent in knowing that there is a schism between what you affirm, and how you act. You are guilty of falling.
There is much to that interpretation. There is much that can be argued. There are thoughts to be thought, and wisdom to be found in the process – and very little of it will be able to be found in memorization, or bubble tests, only in exploration and contemplation. And most likely that will only happen, under the tutelage of a teacher, one wiser than yourself, one who has a grasp of what he'd like to show you of the Good, the Beautiful and the True.
Myths and story also have another beneficial feature. They reflect the Good, the Beautiful and the True at each and every layer of their existence. Whether it be through wonder or adventure or heart ache or even horror – they are enjoyable to be with, to read and to tell. They are open to be explored deeper, and deeper, and deeper. ‘Tests’ can even be exciting in the hands of a skilled teacher, asking if the student is able to see more within aspects of the story that seem to be puzzling, and they will often be initiated by the student;
Student “Didn’t people ever wonder what Atlas was supposed to be standing upon when he held the world upon his shoulders?”,
Teacher “Perhaps some did, as did you, but the clever ones knew that those were clues to deeper meaning, do you suppose it might mean something more?” perhaps even posing it as a riddle to be solved.
Not so with a textbook. And more still, there is a value in story, in engaging with the story, in drawing the story into you with imagination, that leaves some portion of its value behind within you. As C.S. Lewis says in his Narnia books “Once a King or Queen of Narnia, Always a King or Queen of Narnia”. The valorous deeds and truths discovered and defended, create mental integrations – thin perhaps, on their own, but reinforced through other tales, and lessons of manners, they are potentially powerful and deep. Never discount the power of engaging illustrations of a life worthy of emulation; it can prompt the student to choose to try to emulate them. And in that choice, there resides true power.
The problem is, you are most unlikely to be taught anything of the sort in school, or even college. If you are taught to look deeper, it will be in Literature, in imaginative fiction, and there it will be taught as 'what else could the author mean?', not 'what deeper Truth may be revealed here?'. Which is closely related to the other problem with Lit Professors, and Philosophy Professors as well, is that they tend to present anything that is 'well crafted' as being worthy of consideration and discussion. Proust is well crafted, 'deep', many allusions, 'what is he thinking about his mother?... the other child visitor?' What is he thinking that is worth considering, might be a better first question.
As I mentioned at the top, this may be especially needed, because error, vice, and flat out Evil are inherently easier to teach or convey - unintentionally or intentionally, than is Wisdom and Goodness. The Good, the Beautiful and the True, require a focus of spiritual effort upon the Vertical. A sort of spiritual calisthenics is involved in looking at a painting of St. George slaying the dragon, and grasping the balance of layout, the grace of action, the composure of his features, the virtue of the maiden - that takes some effort to See.
On the other hand, it is exceedingly easy to thrill to the action of killing the dragon and carrying off the maiden for purposes her features make obvious. The Crude and Evil come with direct electrified input to satisfied, short term, perceptual - horizontal and flat, desires, thrills, valued for themselves directly and exclusively. Virtue, Goodness, Beauty, only get in the way and impede the physical rewards of the senses.
So how do you approach an Education, that for one thing provides education on an understanding worth having, and two, does so in a way that is least likely to mis-educate? There is no guarantee - the most you can do is show that evil is bad, but in the end it is the student who will choose.
Should the people be protected from dangerous thoughts? Many have concluded so, but only because they didn't first consider what is necessary for any attempt at education to be successful - the student’s exercise of their freewill. No matter how dangerous a foul thought, the attempt to force it either upon, or away, from it's target - is far worse. Worse because that action prevents the mind from operating, processes begun are not only not completed, but are barred from completion, and that leaves a gnawing, festering gap in the mind, a plot for weeds of desire and fear to sprout and spread. Not only for the one 'protected' from it, but for those doing the protecting as well.
The lure of securing a desired end without the proper and necessary natural processes and productions - for the easy satisfaction of desire - for the appearance of the satisfaction of desire... that is the whissspering of the sssnake in the garden. As Gandalf says in LOTR "Don't tempt me! I dare not touch that Ring!"
The Lure of having the Power to satisfy your desires, even your good and proper desires, at the expense of unnatural means - that is the Ring of Power that corrupts all that would be good, to the blackest evil. But the thought needn't be so huge as what we might imagine to be Sauron's Ring of Power; uncorrected mistaken impressions are fertile ground in themselves.
Letting a corrupt thought into your mind, unawares of it's hunting patterns, it's trick contortions and convolutions, it's final hidden ends, the always present something-for-nothing lure of easy gain, is to let some shade of evil in at the controls of your brain, your habits, your directional desires, your character, and your soul. It is foolish and destructive.
And here's a note that seems to be needed - When you are thinking 'bad' thoughts, it won't be in an accent! It won't be accompanied by a narrator warning you "These are bad thoughts!" It'll be you, in your voice, and unless you take care to evaluate and shun wrong headed thoughts, they will become you, and you will become them.
It is for those reasons, and more, that thoughts, deep and wide ranging, which require much consideration and application to be understood, let alone applied, and so easily misapplied if not understood - should also not be taught to those un-ready for them - not forcibly withdrawn, just putting them where you would have to become learned enough to find them, and might also have made you wise enough to manage them.
The process of becoming learned enough to find them, should be arranged similarly to how a fighter is brought up to the skills needed to proceed up the ranks from feather-weight to heavy-weight. What maybe we need instead, or at least in addition to the standard lot of Professors, is a good old fashioned 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' professor.
A professor who will say,
Prof: "What must you be sure to do when approaching dark thoughts?"
Class: "Keep in touch with reality"
Prof:"How is that done?"
Class:"Don't venture past terms you don't understand"
Prof:"How else... Mr. Wease-ly?"
Weasely:"err..."
Prof:"Mr. Pot-ter!"
Potter:"Beware equivocations"
Professor rounding on Potter:"What does that mean Mr.
Paht-ter?"
Potter:"Using the same or similar words which have different meanings... or, uh... in different contexts..."
Prof:"Such as...!"
Potter - silence
Prof rising and turning away in disgust:"yesss ... miss Granger..."
Miss Granger:"Answering a question about what the mind perceives in reality, with a description of the process the mind allegedly uses to filter reality, there by giving the mistaken impression that we don't really perceive reality, but only our process of perceiving it. This drives a wedge between what we know, and how we know it by substituting the How of knowing, for the What of knowin-"
Prof:"That is enough Misss Granger! I asked for an answer Not a lecture!"
Well... Professors will be Professors....
Why? Because Vice is usually more directly connected to physical responses of immediate gratification. It doesn’t need to be mediated with thought and consideration, it taps directly into the reward center endorphins just act like food pellets with lab rats, but laced with designer drugs. That being so, thoughts can be, are, dangerous things. It seems to me, that one of the thoughts that should and MUST be taught, is that some thoughts, some ideas, some desires, are not to be approached - especially by an ill equipped mind.
Just as a student pugilist doesn't walk into a ring with Mike Tyson (or whoever the hell is considered tough nowadays), a youth, a student, should not 'get into the ring' with evil – full blown or one of it’s many henchmen - pornography, intoxicants, marxist & postmodernist thoughts. It is too dangerous.
This has always been the case, the biggest difference with us ‘moderns’, is that we’ve forgotten how to deal with dangerous thoughts. Does this mean that if thoughts are dangerous, that they should be regulated? Monitored?
Thank you Mr. Leftie Answer-Man (and not a few of you Rightie ones as well), but no. No it doesn’t mean that at all. What it does mean, is that way back when, when the wise wanted to keep dangerous thoughts out of the hands of those who weren’t ready to handle them, they did the only sensible thing that can be done with potentially dangerous medicines – they hid them away from the grasp of immature and otherwise unprepared minds. They put warning labels on them. They also made sure to show the evil (the term may be controversial for pomofo’s but not for sensible educated peoples) to be clearly baaad. The easy will always be available as an option – unless it’s already too late. There is no avoiding the possibility – your only hope is of making it seem a less desirable choice to make.
How? Well, before answering that, let’s first lets conduct a little housekeeping concerning a few common prejudices many of us moderns have against those who lived way back when.
First off, that those who lived way back when dressed in a fashion we consider to be goofy doesn’t mean they were incredulous, naïve or otherwise stupid. For those of you not so sure (probably those in their twenties (mentally and or chronogically) or less), wait until you get a load of your fashion… ten or twenty years from now. Fashion doesn't necessarily imply foolishness.
Next, think of what you mean when you refer to someone as being Wise. Would such a person be likely to believe in fairy tales, the tooth fairy, talking animals, etc.? No? What makes you think that a wise person living two or three thousand years ago would have either?
And technology. It's fine and all to have it, I rather like the internet, but it doesn't make you any wiser. Would they think You wise because you could turn on a light switch? Wisdom is not deepened with stuff – extended perhaps, but not deepened.
They weren't, they didn't and they wouldn’t. Something else, tamper proof caps and child resistant packaging were not invented after the Tylenol scare, they were invented long before that, way back when, with “A long time ago, in a land (or galaxy) far, far away….”
Here it is that we approach the deep well, the knotty packaging of Myth. Intended and innate to Myths, at their central core, is Truth with a capital “T”. There are deeper mines of meaning in our folk tales, our Myths, our Religions, than are visible upon the surface of their narratives. And something truly magical about them, is that there not only may be, but almost certainly does exist, more Truth within them, than those who wrote them down were aware of at the time of their writing them.
The remarkable thing about Truth, is that it integrates into and throughout all of what is True. Truth is Whole, it is One. There is no – and I do mean NO truth, that exists separate and isolated, from all else that is true. Lies and falsehood can be random, contradictory and completely unrelated to each other, but Truth is a different species altogether.
The truth of a tale told, contains that truth intended by the authors, but it also contains others perhaps unplanned, unforeseen, by the authors, but because of the nature of Truth, all others are unavoidably there all the same. In Myth, in story, the tale reveals only so much meaning as the reader is willing and able to comprehend, and so long as they are restrained from going off half cocked in applying it in some literal fashion (again, that's where teachers and parents come in), they are given only that amount of knowledge that they are ready to receive. But the levels of Truth contained in even one True Tale, go down to unforeseeable depths – and expand outwards in concentric circles & spheres to the very boundaries of the universe.
Consider Adam and Eve. For those viewing the story on the 1st level, there is of course the near literal interpretation of the Serpent tempting Eve, and she of Adam – essentially if you listen to the devil, you’d better be prepared to pay the consequences. Loss of paradise, poor clothing and fratricidal children are only some of the obvious payback sure to follow.
(BTW, If you believe that a literal snake spoke to, and tempted Eve... well consult the previous houskeeping measures concerning the Wise. But also don't be fooled into thinking that it doesn't have true meaning to it. Thinking is required, at whatever depth and speed as you can manage. The tales will patiently wait for you to catch up. )
By looking just a little deeper, there can be found more to the tale than just talking sssnake stories. For one thing, I don't think it takes a lot of thought, really just a little consultation with your friendly neighborhood teenager, to figure out that the fruit lately translated as 'apple' might be referring to… something else.
Pomegranates have been floated, sure, strawberries, berries, however, not to be vulgar, but try consider perhaps another red morsel, one that doesn't necessarily grow upon a tree would be more to this point – the Cherry. Not the cherry which grows on the tree in the garden, but the cherry that springs from the tree of life. Ask you're friendly neighborhood teenage boy, if the word 'Cherry', spoken in relation to girls, doesn't bring up some ideas - and fears, and rules. Rules not to be broken, lest you be pushed from your safe and secure home, suddenly a father burdened with responsibilities, a responsible bread-winner, no longer a child, and soon to be blessed with children of his own who must be carefully raised and taught right from wrong, or evil is sure to follow.
Even so – you can be pretty much guaranteed that evil will be sure to follow. Not because of an apple bitten into, but because of the nature of the human mind, of intelligence, of freewill – freewill to have meaning, must include the possibility of making errors. And errors unrecognized, or unheeded, will lead to many black thoughts and deeds.
That aspect of Myth brings to mind very relevant admonitions about maturing adolescents. There are other such ‘Myth’s’ as well; Pandora's box was originally Pandora's urn or goblet, another standin or allusion to the womb, and the release of 'evils', responsibilities that can overcome the unprepared. Persephone, carried off to Hades, couldn't be released by Zeuss scott free, because she had eaten a pomegranate. She had eaten of the fruit of earthly desire and pleasure, and was tied to it, no longer the innocent and free child, but one bound to the soil.
Are these inferences anachronistic? Modern concerns that perhaps didn't exist, or in the same way 400 or 500 b.c.? Certainly. Did they derive other lessons from them then? Of course. That's the point. A story, a myth, because it distills a Truth in action, a psychological and philosophical truth, it is able to refract truth, no matter the quality or intensity of light shone into it. That is one of the ways you know that you are dealing with eternal and transcendent truth.
Perhaps the root meaning, original in the Judaic and the Greek myths, was that in a very definite sense, that bringing forth children, the responsibilities it incurs, the temptations it can foster - the urges to provide for them, posture for them, that from the womb can issue immortality through the father son line of the Tree of Life, but evil can follow as well.
And that is but one level deeper than the narrative. There are many levels beyond that, such as where the snake, his crafty speech, so wriggling manner of moving, so close to the ground, to things, to the physical, horizontal reality, can seduce you away from what is good and proper, with a simple "what can it hurt to try? It's tasssty!" Gagdad Bob has done several excellent explorations of what the Serpent in the garden represents. The twisting manner, the slickly smooth hissing of the snakes words as Intelligence shorn of Wisdom – “Spin” perhaps captures it ."Eat of the apple, and you will know of eternal life"
With women, Eve (or Pandora, or...) representing your worldly desires, dreams, values, can easily sway you - not even by her direct actions, but merely by her existence, into seeking shortcuts to God-like abilities. And before you realize it, you are grabbing for knowledge over wisdom, nudging you into the valuing of quantity over quality, horizontal over vertical, death over life. In an instant, with a word, a temptation, you are banished by your own actions, from the cool garden of wisdom, barred from returning to it by the sharp blade of your own burning desires, forced by your own choices and decisions (de-cision, to cut away from), to endure the sense of nakedness inherent in knowing that there is a schism between what you affirm, and how you act. You are guilty of falling.
There is much to that interpretation. There is much that can be argued. There are thoughts to be thought, and wisdom to be found in the process – and very little of it will be able to be found in memorization, or bubble tests, only in exploration and contemplation. And most likely that will only happen, under the tutelage of a teacher, one wiser than yourself, one who has a grasp of what he'd like to show you of the Good, the Beautiful and the True.
Myths and story also have another beneficial feature. They reflect the Good, the Beautiful and the True at each and every layer of their existence. Whether it be through wonder or adventure or heart ache or even horror – they are enjoyable to be with, to read and to tell. They are open to be explored deeper, and deeper, and deeper. ‘Tests’ can even be exciting in the hands of a skilled teacher, asking if the student is able to see more within aspects of the story that seem to be puzzling, and they will often be initiated by the student;
Student “Didn’t people ever wonder what Atlas was supposed to be standing upon when he held the world upon his shoulders?”,
Teacher “Perhaps some did, as did you, but the clever ones knew that those were clues to deeper meaning, do you suppose it might mean something more?” perhaps even posing it as a riddle to be solved.
Not so with a textbook. And more still, there is a value in story, in engaging with the story, in drawing the story into you with imagination, that leaves some portion of its value behind within you. As C.S. Lewis says in his Narnia books “Once a King or Queen of Narnia, Always a King or Queen of Narnia”. The valorous deeds and truths discovered and defended, create mental integrations – thin perhaps, on their own, but reinforced through other tales, and lessons of manners, they are potentially powerful and deep. Never discount the power of engaging illustrations of a life worthy of emulation; it can prompt the student to choose to try to emulate them. And in that choice, there resides true power.
The problem is, you are most unlikely to be taught anything of the sort in school, or even college. If you are taught to look deeper, it will be in Literature, in imaginative fiction, and there it will be taught as 'what else could the author mean?', not 'what deeper Truth may be revealed here?'. Which is closely related to the other problem with Lit Professors, and Philosophy Professors as well, is that they tend to present anything that is 'well crafted' as being worthy of consideration and discussion. Proust is well crafted, 'deep', many allusions, 'what is he thinking about his mother?... the other child visitor?' What is he thinking that is worth considering, might be a better first question.
As I mentioned at the top, this may be especially needed, because error, vice, and flat out Evil are inherently easier to teach or convey - unintentionally or intentionally, than is Wisdom and Goodness. The Good, the Beautiful and the True, require a focus of spiritual effort upon the Vertical. A sort of spiritual calisthenics is involved in looking at a painting of St. George slaying the dragon, and grasping the balance of layout, the grace of action, the composure of his features, the virtue of the maiden - that takes some effort to See.
On the other hand, it is exceedingly easy to thrill to the action of killing the dragon and carrying off the maiden for purposes her features make obvious. The Crude and Evil come with direct electrified input to satisfied, short term, perceptual - horizontal and flat, desires, thrills, valued for themselves directly and exclusively. Virtue, Goodness, Beauty, only get in the way and impede the physical rewards of the senses.
So how do you approach an Education, that for one thing provides education on an understanding worth having, and two, does so in a way that is least likely to mis-educate? There is no guarantee - the most you can do is show that evil is bad, but in the end it is the student who will choose.
Should the people be protected from dangerous thoughts? Many have concluded so, but only because they didn't first consider what is necessary for any attempt at education to be successful - the student’s exercise of their freewill. No matter how dangerous a foul thought, the attempt to force it either upon, or away, from it's target - is far worse. Worse because that action prevents the mind from operating, processes begun are not only not completed, but are barred from completion, and that leaves a gnawing, festering gap in the mind, a plot for weeds of desire and fear to sprout and spread. Not only for the one 'protected' from it, but for those doing the protecting as well.
The lure of securing a desired end without the proper and necessary natural processes and productions - for the easy satisfaction of desire - for the appearance of the satisfaction of desire... that is the whissspering of the sssnake in the garden. As Gandalf says in LOTR "Don't tempt me! I dare not touch that Ring!"
The Lure of having the Power to satisfy your desires, even your good and proper desires, at the expense of unnatural means - that is the Ring of Power that corrupts all that would be good, to the blackest evil. But the thought needn't be so huge as what we might imagine to be Sauron's Ring of Power; uncorrected mistaken impressions are fertile ground in themselves.
Letting a corrupt thought into your mind, unawares of it's hunting patterns, it's trick contortions and convolutions, it's final hidden ends, the always present something-for-nothing lure of easy gain, is to let some shade of evil in at the controls of your brain, your habits, your directional desires, your character, and your soul. It is foolish and destructive.
And here's a note that seems to be needed - When you are thinking 'bad' thoughts, it won't be in an accent! It won't be accompanied by a narrator warning you "These are bad thoughts!" It'll be you, in your voice, and unless you take care to evaluate and shun wrong headed thoughts, they will become you, and you will become them.
It is for those reasons, and more, that thoughts, deep and wide ranging, which require much consideration and application to be understood, let alone applied, and so easily misapplied if not understood - should also not be taught to those un-ready for them - not forcibly withdrawn, just putting them where you would have to become learned enough to find them, and might also have made you wise enough to manage them.
The process of becoming learned enough to find them, should be arranged similarly to how a fighter is brought up to the skills needed to proceed up the ranks from feather-weight to heavy-weight. What maybe we need instead, or at least in addition to the standard lot of Professors, is a good old fashioned 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' professor.
A professor who will say,
Prof: "What must you be sure to do when approaching dark thoughts?"
Class: "Keep in touch with reality"
Prof:"How is that done?"
Class:"Don't venture past terms you don't understand"
Prof:"How else... Mr. Wease-ly?"
Weasely:"err..."
Prof:"Mr. Pot-ter!"
Potter:"Beware equivocations"
Professor rounding on Potter:"What does that mean Mr.
Paht-ter?"
Potter:"Using the same or similar words which have different meanings... or, uh... in different contexts..."
Prof:"Such as...!"
Potter - silence
Prof rising and turning away in disgust:"yesss ... miss Granger..."
Miss Granger:"Answering a question about what the mind perceives in reality, with a description of the process the mind allegedly uses to filter reality, there by giving the mistaken impression that we don't really perceive reality, but only our process of perceiving it. This drives a wedge between what we know, and how we know it by substituting the How of knowing, for the What of knowin-"
Prof:"That is enough Misss Granger! I asked for an answer Not a lecture!"
Well... Professors will be Professors....
What of Education?
A once-been, broken up, has-been, trying to getbacktogether again and beee somebody again band, "Rage Against the Machine" prompted an article in the San Jose Mercury News. It is pretty much a throw away article full of exhibitions of pathetic attention seeking Bush Derangement Syndrome, but arresting to me because of the response of one of the fans quoted in it.
Rafael Ramon, 25, a History Teacher, History mind you, has an interesting quote in the article. Interesting, in the way that the contents of Jeffrey Dahmers refrigerator would be interesting.
This from a History Teacher, presumably teaching the youth of San Jose, about the important points of history, and the importance of ideas to their lives, the importance of good sound ideas and principles - and how history shows the effects of those ideas being applied, or misapplied to make - history.
What in the hell is that about?
This 'Teacher' went to a college of some sort, presumably graduated, and was hired for the fruits of his education. Just what in the hell did that education consist of, and how is it that such an education left one of it's educated open to having his political philosophy influenced, well... forget influenced - flat out Determined by a cheesy rock band? Or by any band, for that matter whether from the A, B or C list.
What was it that was passed off as an education to this kid? And how did those balls-of-brass con men turned Deans and Administrators, manage to pass it off as an education and collect $20,000 to $50,000 - or more, much more - for it? And remain not only free and clear, but not even pursued?
No matter where you find yourself on the political spectrum, how does that not raise your hackles? How do you defend that? What is this thing, 'Education', and how can it be so worthless as to not even be able to stand up to the 'work' of a rock band? Or worse yet, find no conflict between it's 'work', and the bands 'work'?
At this point though, one question should be clanging through your head, what is an Education? What is this product so easily packaged and sold by packaging and price alone? What do parents think they are buying their children? Putting into their children?
Is it for Skills? 'Go to college, learn a skill'? 'Go to college and get ahead'?
I wonder if any of them are aware of what Aristotle said about those that are skilled? He said that those who merely operate by way of others instructions and ideas for their motivation and actions, are fit only for slaves. Did Rafael Ramon's parents know this? Do you? Are you in the least bit interested in whether he had a point in saying that? Do they, or their educated children, or you, even know of Aristotle?
Now, knowing what Aristotle said upon one point or another, is of no value in and of itself except as impressive cocktail party blather, but Understanding his point, is of inestimable value to your very mortal soul. It is in that way, that knowing Aristotle is of value. It is in that way that Prof. Robinson was familiar with him. He described that sense of familiarity as "a friend of his that he went to school with, who died in 322 b.c., by the name of Aristotle", I doubt Ramon ever knew him in this way. I suspect he would have had a different process for determining his political philosophy, if he had.
But still, what is it? I've heard the process of educating described as taking a Whole from where it exists within one person, a teacher, and transmitting it into the mind of another, a student, piece by piece, and helping them to reassemble the parts within themselves - I kind of like that description (from Leonard Piekoff) - but that is not Education itself, but only transmitting, teaching, some part of it.
I suppose the easy answer, which will have to do for the moment, is that of Liberal Education, of imparting that knowledge which is essential for making you a free man. It's limited, but we'll try to flesh it out over the next few posts.
I think I can say with confidence that whatever an education is, education is not that which enables a random rock band to influence the course of your life, views and deepest beliefs about self and society. If what you bought as an education for your children leaves them open for that to happen, I suggest you seek police assistance. If their education gives them no deeper foundation than for their 'ideas' to change under the sway of bar band music, their mental structure is in peril of the first storm to come along.
Is It Just Learning?
As John Cardinal Henry Newman pointed out long ago, in 'What Is a University?', that any competent person, reading a decent selection of books, will be able to discover the fundamental Core principles governing any subject, but it is only through a knowledgeable guide, a true Teacher, of sound and wide education himself, pointing to the wider applications and implications of a subject and it's principles, that he will be able to make that learning run wide and deep within the student fortunate enough to have such a Teacher.
Unfortunately, most people such as myself, who having received a public education can personally attest to having experienced the absence of such a teacher, and can say that I miss having had such a teacher very much - but in their absence, we do what we can.
But even so, it is those core principles, unfleshed out though they may be, which are the key to that education which contains and builds upon them. Its value stands or falls with their support. It doesn't so much matter if they are adorned with fine looking and sounding elaborations, derivations or decorations, if the core principles are false, rotten, corrupt - the add-ons are but lipstick on a pig. One hundred fine sounding things... if placed upon one principle which undercuts them, which gives a deeper contradictory meaning to their spin, or if any clear honest application of it plainly will counter those 'finer' aspects - it is worthless. In fact, it is worse than worthless, it is worth-corrosive. It will not only not add to your knowledge, it will actually degrade what other legitimate knowledge you might still have, setting you against that which is valid.
Kant said many fine sounding things. But he also said, or implied, many substantial, unfine things - things which sew the soil of your fertile mind with salt and lye. That is the nature of principles - they either support and build up, or disintegrate and tear down. He is not however, and I think by design, someone who can be summarized briefly - yet, if the motivation of true learning and education can be said to be the love of truth and the pursuit of wisdom, what does it say of a philosopher and of his philosophy, when he has stated his guiding light to have been "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith" (from his preface to "Critique of Pure Reason").
Hmm?
Rousseau, Kant's muse, dwelled upon perversion, degradation, and horrid thoughts towards his fellows. Of his five children, with his illiterate mistress, he sent them all away to a foundling hospital, something less than an 'orphanage', who's record indicated they would not live beyond a few years, and they didn't. Reportedly, not a one. One after another. They were born, they were sent (over the protests of their mother), and they died. Such was his love for children and their vaunted innocence.
Is this the type of person you want to consult as to a fruitful education? As a guide for living and realizing a Good Life? Do you realize that he is the root influence of all of modern education? If Virtue can be taught, is it likely to be taught from the likes of this?
Can Virtue be taught?
Can Virtue be taught? This was Socrates’ burning question, and he (and Plato) thought that his dialectic could discover Truth & Virtue, and having once discovered the Good, a mind wouldn't turn away from it and do what was not Good - but for all of his dialogs questioning, I don't think even he was satisfied with his answers. Aristotle thought that Virtue was the result of an habituation towards virtuous actions, and could not directly be taught, only guided towards developing those habituations.
But in a related area, that of an audience viewing a play, a Tragedy, he also thought that Tragedy imparted a beneficial cathartic effect upon the audience - and just what that cathartic effect was, has had people puzzled for 2,500 years. What was the cathartic effect, and was it useful for more than purging the audience of pent up emotions?
Personally, I think these questions are closely related. As I've mentioned before, I think our brains are integrating machines, driven by our minds in order to discover truth, and rewarded with variously charged 'Aha!' experiences along the way. When we learn, integrate new information, we get a little 'aha!', bigger ones with conclusions, larger still with larger issues - we even get that charge, like a lab rat getting it's cheese for completing the maze, when we experience laughter - the unexpected integration of ideas and events, logical only in light of an unusual situation. The more unexpected, the broader and more sudden the integration of the punch line, the more our bellies roll or ache with the LAHA!ughter.
When we see a tragedy, a drama, a comedy, a neighbor conduct himself towards some end - positive or negative, our minds operate similarly, and though perhaps not with pleasant results, we get the cheese (stinky brie possibly) all the same. We see, record, connect and integrate the details good or bad, registering their completion with laughter, satisfaction or pain.
A play affords us the opportunity to see in an immediately graspable span of time, how one thing, one action, one thought can lead to others and spawn events, leading to success or devastation - and we are able to conclude, to tie together those, with a sensation similar to answering a riddle - a completion, a finishing integration, that is both pleasurable, and educative. The more principles they touch upon, the more significant they are, the deeper the connections made or reinforced.
But such spectatorship reaches only so deep, and is only wound so tight.
The lesson, the integration experienced at a distance, is only surface deep. It takes applying that lesson, in as many of it's many shades as possible, to other areas of your life, takes putting it into action in words, discussion, and physical deeds, to reach deeper, and wind them together wider and tighter.
Repetition being key. An habituation towards virtuous actions, in thought, manner and deed.
Do Textbooks accomplish any of this? Does anyone think they do? Bubble tests? Consciousness raising lab projects?
Can Virtue be taught? I think that the recognition of Virtue can be taught. An intellectual understanding of Virtue can be taught. A real world map of Virtue super imposed upon the landscape of life can be taught and passed to a student - but for it to be of Value, of difference to the life of that student, it must be applied, followed in fact - on foot, not just by tracing the path upon paper - it must be lived, and lived consciously in manners and chores, in deeds done together with thought, in order to be sufficiently Learned.
Students like the hapless Rafael Ramon, might have had a better chance, if they were told that the facts and figures they were learning weren't the purpose of learning them, but only a useful means towards learning larger lessons. Skills resulting from self development - not end goals in themselves. Of course that might be more likely to happen, if their teachers understood it. What Virtue applies to 2+2=4? A Good Teacher (a Marva Collins, perhaps), would teach that Virtues, such as dilligence, fortitude, temperance and their benefits, derived from working to develop an understanding of mathematics, or of Grammar, or Football - they are means to an end, because the End cannot CAN NOT be realized, except through the actions of worthy means. These are the lessons that should be emphasized while teaching the stadard lessons to those kids - that the work that they are doing is producing Virtue in them, then and there - the mathematics or other course is a process for that, if they but grasp it.
If the teachers but grasped it. If the teacher grasped it, and made the student aware of it, and the student chose to accept, give weight to, and seek to apply these lessons in and to their lives. If... if they chose one way and not another, the beneficial road, not the easy road... if...if they knew the importance of choosing.
And in the end, it does always come down to freewill - and the choice to exercise it - or not.
Can Vice be Taught?
I think Yes. And easier still. And worse, it can be learned. But more of this later.
Rafael Ramon, 25, a History Teacher, History mind you, has an interesting quote in the article. Interesting, in the way that the contents of Jeffrey Dahmers refrigerator would be interesting.
"They changed my life. They made me a liberal," said sweat-drenched history teacher Rafael Ramon, 25, who had waited in a crowd packed shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the stage all day."They changed my life. They made me a liberal.
This from a History Teacher, presumably teaching the youth of San Jose, about the important points of history, and the importance of ideas to their lives, the importance of good sound ideas and principles - and how history shows the effects of those ideas being applied, or misapplied to make - history.
"Stomping, shouting into his microphone, grabbing his curly hair and inciting the audience to "keep fighting," de la Rocha powered through songs… He also railed against the war in Iraq and likened Bush administration officials to Nazi war criminals. "This current administration is no exception. They should be tried and hung and shot," he said”The 'music' and the ideas contained in them, of these intellectual pissants, were somehow able to cause a college graduate, and teacher of History to say "They changed my life. They made me a liberal."
What in the hell is that about?
This 'Teacher' went to a college of some sort, presumably graduated, and was hired for the fruits of his education. Just what in the hell did that education consist of, and how is it that such an education left one of it's educated open to having his political philosophy influenced, well... forget influenced - flat out Determined by a cheesy rock band? Or by any band, for that matter whether from the A, B or C list.
What was it that was passed off as an education to this kid? And how did those balls-of-brass con men turned Deans and Administrators, manage to pass it off as an education and collect $20,000 to $50,000 - or more, much more - for it? And remain not only free and clear, but not even pursued?
No matter where you find yourself on the political spectrum, how does that not raise your hackles? How do you defend that? What is this thing, 'Education', and how can it be so worthless as to not even be able to stand up to the 'work' of a rock band? Or worse yet, find no conflict between it's 'work', and the bands 'work'?
At this point though, one question should be clanging through your head, what is an Education? What is this product so easily packaged and sold by packaging and price alone? What do parents think they are buying their children? Putting into their children?
Is it for Skills? 'Go to college, learn a skill'? 'Go to college and get ahead'?
I wonder if any of them are aware of what Aristotle said about those that are skilled? He said that those who merely operate by way of others instructions and ideas for their motivation and actions, are fit only for slaves. Did Rafael Ramon's parents know this? Do you? Are you in the least bit interested in whether he had a point in saying that? Do they, or their educated children, or you, even know of Aristotle?
Now, knowing what Aristotle said upon one point or another, is of no value in and of itself except as impressive cocktail party blather, but Understanding his point, is of inestimable value to your very mortal soul. It is in that way, that knowing Aristotle is of value. It is in that way that Prof. Robinson was familiar with him. He described that sense of familiarity as "a friend of his that he went to school with, who died in 322 b.c., by the name of Aristotle", I doubt Ramon ever knew him in this way. I suspect he would have had a different process for determining his political philosophy, if he had.
But still, what is it? I've heard the process of educating described as taking a Whole from where it exists within one person, a teacher, and transmitting it into the mind of another, a student, piece by piece, and helping them to reassemble the parts within themselves - I kind of like that description (from Leonard Piekoff) - but that is not Education itself, but only transmitting, teaching, some part of it.
I suppose the easy answer, which will have to do for the moment, is that of Liberal Education, of imparting that knowledge which is essential for making you a free man. It's limited, but we'll try to flesh it out over the next few posts.
I think I can say with confidence that whatever an education is, education is not that which enables a random rock band to influence the course of your life, views and deepest beliefs about self and society. If what you bought as an education for your children leaves them open for that to happen, I suggest you seek police assistance. If their education gives them no deeper foundation than for their 'ideas' to change under the sway of bar band music, their mental structure is in peril of the first storm to come along.
Is It Just Learning?
As John Cardinal Henry Newman pointed out long ago, in 'What Is a University?', that any competent person, reading a decent selection of books, will be able to discover the fundamental Core principles governing any subject, but it is only through a knowledgeable guide, a true Teacher, of sound and wide education himself, pointing to the wider applications and implications of a subject and it's principles, that he will be able to make that learning run wide and deep within the student fortunate enough to have such a Teacher.
Unfortunately, most people such as myself, who having received a public education can personally attest to having experienced the absence of such a teacher, and can say that I miss having had such a teacher very much - but in their absence, we do what we can.
But even so, it is those core principles, unfleshed out though they may be, which are the key to that education which contains and builds upon them. Its value stands or falls with their support. It doesn't so much matter if they are adorned with fine looking and sounding elaborations, derivations or decorations, if the core principles are false, rotten, corrupt - the add-ons are but lipstick on a pig. One hundred fine sounding things... if placed upon one principle which undercuts them, which gives a deeper contradictory meaning to their spin, or if any clear honest application of it plainly will counter those 'finer' aspects - it is worthless. In fact, it is worse than worthless, it is worth-corrosive. It will not only not add to your knowledge, it will actually degrade what other legitimate knowledge you might still have, setting you against that which is valid.
Kant said many fine sounding things. But he also said, or implied, many substantial, unfine things - things which sew the soil of your fertile mind with salt and lye. That is the nature of principles - they either support and build up, or disintegrate and tear down. He is not however, and I think by design, someone who can be summarized briefly - yet, if the motivation of true learning and education can be said to be the love of truth and the pursuit of wisdom, what does it say of a philosopher and of his philosophy, when he has stated his guiding light to have been "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith" (from his preface to "Critique of Pure Reason").
Hmm?
Rousseau, Kant's muse, dwelled upon perversion, degradation, and horrid thoughts towards his fellows. Of his five children, with his illiterate mistress, he sent them all away to a foundling hospital, something less than an 'orphanage', who's record indicated they would not live beyond a few years, and they didn't. Reportedly, not a one. One after another. They were born, they were sent (over the protests of their mother), and they died. Such was his love for children and their vaunted innocence.
Is this the type of person you want to consult as to a fruitful education? As a guide for living and realizing a Good Life? Do you realize that he is the root influence of all of modern education? If Virtue can be taught, is it likely to be taught from the likes of this?
Can Virtue be taught?
Can Virtue be taught? This was Socrates’ burning question, and he (and Plato) thought that his dialectic could discover Truth & Virtue, and having once discovered the Good, a mind wouldn't turn away from it and do what was not Good - but for all of his dialogs questioning, I don't think even he was satisfied with his answers. Aristotle thought that Virtue was the result of an habituation towards virtuous actions, and could not directly be taught, only guided towards developing those habituations.
But in a related area, that of an audience viewing a play, a Tragedy, he also thought that Tragedy imparted a beneficial cathartic effect upon the audience - and just what that cathartic effect was, has had people puzzled for 2,500 years. What was the cathartic effect, and was it useful for more than purging the audience of pent up emotions?
Personally, I think these questions are closely related. As I've mentioned before, I think our brains are integrating machines, driven by our minds in order to discover truth, and rewarded with variously charged 'Aha!' experiences along the way. When we learn, integrate new information, we get a little 'aha!', bigger ones with conclusions, larger still with larger issues - we even get that charge, like a lab rat getting it's cheese for completing the maze, when we experience laughter - the unexpected integration of ideas and events, logical only in light of an unusual situation. The more unexpected, the broader and more sudden the integration of the punch line, the more our bellies roll or ache with the LAHA!ughter.
When we see a tragedy, a drama, a comedy, a neighbor conduct himself towards some end - positive or negative, our minds operate similarly, and though perhaps not with pleasant results, we get the cheese (stinky brie possibly) all the same. We see, record, connect and integrate the details good or bad, registering their completion with laughter, satisfaction or pain.
A play affords us the opportunity to see in an immediately graspable span of time, how one thing, one action, one thought can lead to others and spawn events, leading to success or devastation - and we are able to conclude, to tie together those, with a sensation similar to answering a riddle - a completion, a finishing integration, that is both pleasurable, and educative. The more principles they touch upon, the more significant they are, the deeper the connections made or reinforced.
But such spectatorship reaches only so deep, and is only wound so tight.
The lesson, the integration experienced at a distance, is only surface deep. It takes applying that lesson, in as many of it's many shades as possible, to other areas of your life, takes putting it into action in words, discussion, and physical deeds, to reach deeper, and wind them together wider and tighter.
Repetition being key. An habituation towards virtuous actions, in thought, manner and deed.
Do Textbooks accomplish any of this? Does anyone think they do? Bubble tests? Consciousness raising lab projects?
Can Virtue be taught? I think that the recognition of Virtue can be taught. An intellectual understanding of Virtue can be taught. A real world map of Virtue super imposed upon the landscape of life can be taught and passed to a student - but for it to be of Value, of difference to the life of that student, it must be applied, followed in fact - on foot, not just by tracing the path upon paper - it must be lived, and lived consciously in manners and chores, in deeds done together with thought, in order to be sufficiently Learned.
Students like the hapless Rafael Ramon, might have had a better chance, if they were told that the facts and figures they were learning weren't the purpose of learning them, but only a useful means towards learning larger lessons. Skills resulting from self development - not end goals in themselves. Of course that might be more likely to happen, if their teachers understood it. What Virtue applies to 2+2=4? A Good Teacher (a Marva Collins, perhaps), would teach that Virtues, such as dilligence, fortitude, temperance and their benefits, derived from working to develop an understanding of mathematics, or of Grammar, or Football - they are means to an end, because the End cannot CAN NOT be realized, except through the actions of worthy means. These are the lessons that should be emphasized while teaching the stadard lessons to those kids - that the work that they are doing is producing Virtue in them, then and there - the mathematics or other course is a process for that, if they but grasp it.
If the teachers but grasped it. If the teacher grasped it, and made the student aware of it, and the student chose to accept, give weight to, and seek to apply these lessons in and to their lives. If... if they chose one way and not another, the beneficial road, not the easy road... if...if they knew the importance of choosing.
And in the end, it does always come down to freewill - and the choice to exercise it - or not.
Can Vice be Taught?
I think Yes. And easier still. And worse, it can be learned. But more of this later.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Things to Think Upon
Time to think has been sparse lately... I've a couple of posts in mind, but haven't found the time to sit and write them out.
In the meantime, and somewhat related to what I intend to post on, I found an online lecture that I strongly recommend "Higher Education: What Makes it 'Higher'?" by Daniel Robinson, at Lectures at ISI, and it is available in Video (streaming) or audio MP3(downloadable).
An absolute delight. Not just the typical railing against the state of Higher Education from someone who is within it, Robinson manages to impart a bit of the Higher Education he's discussing, in the process.
Daniel Robinson is my favorite Prof at the Teaching Company(Daniel Robinson's bio at the Teaching Co.), I have all his lectures sets and highly recommend them (you might want to get them when on sale though), not just for their content, though that too, but for the perspective they give and as direction for pursuing points in more depth on your own.
A Flavorful quote from the lecture, he's talking about responding to his 13 year old grand daughter's email:
A couple links to items discussed in the lecture, and which I also strongly recommend reading and thinking upon What Is a University? by John Henry Newman
Literature and Science by Matthew Arnold (1882) which was the reply to an address by one of the better agitators for our now flattened world - I'm sure Huxley didn't see it coming (difficult to see beyond the horizon while looking at the ground with a microscope) "Science And Culture," by Thomas Henry Huxley
Sigh - late for work, back soon.
In the meantime, and somewhat related to what I intend to post on, I found an online lecture that I strongly recommend "Higher Education: What Makes it 'Higher'?" by Daniel Robinson, at Lectures at ISI, and it is available in Video (streaming) or audio MP3(downloadable).
An absolute delight. Not just the typical railing against the state of Higher Education from someone who is within it, Robinson manages to impart a bit of the Higher Education he's discussing, in the process.
Daniel Robinson is my favorite Prof at the Teaching Company(Daniel Robinson's bio at the Teaching Co.), I have all his lectures sets and highly recommend them (you might want to get them when on sale though), not just for their content, though that too, but for the perspective they give and as direction for pursuing points in more depth on your own.
A Flavorful quote from the lecture, he's talking about responding to his 13 year old grand daughter's email:
"Dear Poppa, we're doing the theory of Evolution, do you believe in Design?"
My dear, dear, dear girl, what a good question, do I believe in design. I said a friend of mine with whom I went to school, who died in 322 B.C., Aristotle by name, once wrote this, 'If the art of shipbuilding were in the wood, we would have ships by Nature'. Yes, of course I believe in design, but you want to know, my dearest girl, whether I believe in a designer.
I do. love Poppa.
A couple links to items discussed in the lecture, and which I also strongly recommend reading and thinking upon What Is a University? by John Henry Newman
Literature and Science by Matthew Arnold (1882) which was the reply to an address by one of the better agitators for our now flattened world - I'm sure Huxley didn't see it coming (difficult to see beyond the horizon while looking at the ground with a microscope) "Science And Culture," by Thomas Henry Huxley
Sigh - late for work, back soon.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Sometimes life lives you. Forgiveness, Love, Habits and other Timbers (revised and updated)
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.
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.
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.
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