Note: The following is a stream-of-consciousness free write. I make some (personally) valuable conclusions, but I don't contend that they are historical "truth." For example, I greatly simplified man's transition from a purely experiential existence to our current abstracted existence, attributing the shift to Classical Greece when in actuality it likely was not any single event and took many thousands of years.
Do I have anything to write? Do I ever have anything to write? I shall never be able to tell my story, because I can never step away from it. I am immersed—fully immersed in a way I am only beginning to understand. Maybe I am not as logical and methodical as I imagined. Maybe I am led by my heart, truly. Am I the only one who shudders in a sort of rapture at moments in life? At these moments an ecstasy flows through me. I want to cry but my rational mind does all it can to suppress what would otherwise be a social embarrassment. It is socially unacceptable to cry at your sister's soccer game, or during the wrong scene in a movie. But I don't want to cry when the hero dies, I cry in his moments of beauty. So why do I suppress this? Why is it so important that it isn't socially allowable? What could the reason be that my rational self tries to suppress that feeling, that raw emotion so strongly? It is a mystery to me, but one that having made myself aware of, my conscious self will try and make this suppression conscious and then quell it. Maybe I am one who follows heart and not rationality at my core. It's funny—to feel this battle between my cartesian and non cartesian self, and to see the sides so clearly! Maybe I am meant to lead this charge for balance between the mind and heart. Ah but if this is so then I must always follow my own heart...or must I have balance too? Two steps back to take three steps forward? Or is it nothing at all? Is all of it nothing and this all just a silly exercise? Am I just inventing all of this machinery, this system that has battles to be fought? Isn't it amazing? My mind is asking itself questions in order to identify what it needs to do? It's eliminating possibilities and finding solutions as if it were a computer. But which is me and which is the other? There really is a voice asking questions that my mind would know. Is it external to me? Why would my brain ask itself a question that it had the answer to? Then what the hell is it asking the questions? Is it just some algorithm that I must follow in order to process information or is it something else altogether?
Why do I think to myself in questions? Even while performing actions I ask myself—wow I just had a slight vision where I actually saw the struggle between the part of me that experiences things directly and the part of me asking the questions and I realized that they are both me, but that I am a sort of schizophrenic person, split into two. But while I prefer the non-rational part of myself, by choosing one or the other I am ensuring that harmony cannot be possible. Either extreme cannot exist without its other half but in choosing one or the other, you are ensuring imbalance. And a superposition of the two? That just seems like rubbish, not just to my rational self but intuitively too. The battle between my conscious and subconscious self cannot be won. All that can possibly exist is a balance between the two. Once a dichotomy is identified, it cannot go back to being singular—that is impossible, isn't it? That is why in Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. the “good” never completely triumphs over evil, there can never be all good. And evil always fails because it seeks total victory over good. It can only fail at this. But the good side always seems to be on the non-Cartesian side of the battle, but perhaps that is only because we live in a Cartesian world. What if, for instance, we lived in a world that revered the subconscious self? Would Luke Skywalker be on the side of the masculine, rational self?
Orphic vs the Promethean... Not always in battle for not always have they been mutually exclusive. Before the dichotomization occurred the two existed not only in harmony, but they were not two but one. And then the fabrication of a barrier between the two created an actual barrier, and now they will always be locked in eternal conflict with only God, Buddha, Brahma, the Tao, Quetzalcoatl, Yahweh charged with holding the balance between the two. But what court is it the gods play in? Ah the mystery of life is a veil draped before our eyes. If only we could but lift the veil and take a peak! What wonders would we see? Ah but this mystery IS our subconscious, always just out of view.
Why do I love the Orphic so much more? Really it must be because I live in a Promethean world. If I had my wish and Orphic conquered over Promethean, humanity would lose its ability to survive. How else could we keep 7 billion people alive? Could we have invented language and technology if we were completely Orphic, with no ability to step back and observe the situation, for the Orphic experience of the world is a direct, unfiltered, unprocessed experience of the world. No—there must always be balance. If I lived in an Orphic world I would yearn for the Promethean. But my world is Promethean, so I yearn for the Orphic, I romanticize its history and dream of its future. Yet this world will never come—nor should it. This earth, this world, my life really is a battlefield between the two. Will I help bring the balance? What will my roll be?
Was Ancient Greece overly Orphic? And therefore the source of the Promethean uprising? How did that dichotomy occur? Things went from being just one, to all of a sudden dichotomous. After the dichotomy the world could be seen to be clearly much more feminine than masculine—maybe Heraclitus was the Emporer and Socrates was Luke. We now (we being the balancers of the Force!) demonize Socrates, Plato, and in particular, Aristotle as the inventors of the Promethean, masculine side, but perhaps they were the Rebellion? They were the heroes of their day, not the villains? Or perhaps they were the ones who invented the dichotomy in the first place and THAT is why they were villainized? In either case, that period proved pivotal because it marked humanity's separation from the rest of the world. That's the difference, that's where human rationality was born and it is that, the ability to step back and consider a situation, which truly separates us from animals. The invention of the dichotomy is indeed the banishment of man from eden (singularity), prior to then there was no battle and man was at rest. Man was forever forced to a life of unrest as long as their was not balance between masculine and feminine, his whole being always in conflict to bring back the balance. So the advent of agriculture was not evil on its own, but because it necessarily led to the invention of the dichotomy. Man now had material matters to contemplate of an abstract nature—surplus, future yields—and could think on a higher level than before.
But what if this banishment from Eden is not a curse after all, but is a necessary evil for our future growth. Perhaps Eden was the womb which we have been ejected from and mankind, in it's infancy, is going through growing pains? Maybe the dichotomy is necessary in order for us to meet our destiny. Maybe balance can be achieved and the two can become one again as humanity evolves. What if we aren't the thorn in nature's side but her golden child after all??
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Hi, I am from Australia.
Please check out these references by a modern day Orpheus who has thoroughly and fearlessly investigated the underworld--all of it.
And who also done everything that ALL of the great heroes of the long distant past did, and to the ultimate degree---that is he really cracked The Code of Experience (which is the title of a talk He gave which is available both on CD and DVD)
And was also a Living Buddha--The Ruchira Buddha.
www.mummerybook.org
www.adidamla.org/newsletters/toc-february2004.html
http://global.adidam.org/books/ancient-teachings.html
www.adidabiennale.org/curation/index.htm
www.adidaupclose.org/FAQs/postmodernism2.html
...in a way everything can seem to have some kind of purpose.
I am often deepy annoyed and upset when we see on the news some kind who has had an awful disease and has lost limbs, etc, and/or some young person who has lost limbs in military action, and 99.999 out of 100 the presenter will say 'wow what a trooper!' meaning aren't they great, and heroic. They aren't a wreck.
I mean...FUCK. what does it take for someone to be able to lose it??
OBVIOUSLY they are 'going on', as the only alternative is them to NOT go on.
I see this in relation to the bigger picture. IF we all blow ourselves up, and all the trees, animals, etc are gone--some dumbfuck News presenter is gonna say, 'maybe this was MEANT to happen'
This is not to have a go at you. becase I Am aware of the polarity of the negative and positivwe. But i would SOONER NOT go after the negative if that means misery for all.
Thanks for the post.
To be honest, I don't follow you 100%. Allow me to try and restate what you have said, as I am interpreting it and then comment.
Everything that happens can be seen to have a purpose because it has happened (as opposed to not having happened). Then, reading into things a little more, everything that has happened does so for a "reason" and that reason being a sort of summation of past events leading to said event happening. Saying that everything happens for a reason is a way of saying that past events have led to this point and in a sense, you reap what you sew.
So as I see it, you are saying that the idea of purpose is at least a little bit absurd?
You certainly seem to be arguing for a less abstract morality, at least, that's how I'm reading your post. You desire to call things "good" or "bad" and to lay all of this relativism aside.
If I'm reading you correctly, and perhaps I'm not, I think you are touching on a point that is quite central to the problem of how one should live their own life. Is, as Dostoevsky would put it, "everything permitted" and thus, morality is at best relative and at worst an artificial, empty construct? This question seems to be a problem without end and in my own searching, reason alone cannot find a solution. A certain degree of relativity does seem to be inherent in and even necessary for morality; for instance right and wrong and good and evil can vary quite broadly from culture to culture. Take for instance, the abortion of a fetus. In some cultures, infanticide is practiced as a means of population control. These people may place stronger emphasis on societal well being versus individual well being, and the abortions are performed in order to not tax the limited resources of their environment. This particular example is paralleled by China's One Child Policy, which can be seen by some as brutally inhumane, and by others as responsible and highly moral. But can't at some point we say something is categorically evil or wrong?
Though I find a certain appeal in the intellectual position of radical relativism, I find its lack of utility problematic and am deterred by the company it keeps (chiefly, nihilism). But most of the conventional measuring sticks for morality merely feign completeness and are instead, products of their cultural context even as they attempt to be seek universalization. So rather than try and draw a line between good and evil, I instead prefer to embrace the duality and look toward balance as my ultimate measurement of morality (hence, my position in my "Random Musing" post where I hypothesize that if things were the other way around--Orphic dominating as opposed to Promethean--I might be lamenting the limitations of an Orphic cultural paradigm and seek the ascendance of the Promethean).
In this sense, I do not view evil as problematic, rather I view it as necessary for the existence of good. If all is truly one, then the distinction really is arbitrary anyway and the ontological status of good and evil is that of a perturbation from the One. If the existence of evil then, is essential for the existence of good, then the question becomes one of preference: which do you prefer, a sort of moral homeostasis, or this; a world of pain and suffering, of joy and love?
I am not attempting to argue that the pain and suffering and perceived evils themselves are arbitrary (nor by counterpoint are joy and love), rather that they are what is relative. Can't what is good for one be bad for another? Could this even be necessarily so?
Put it this way~~if you are having evil done to *you*, then I dont think you will think that is really justified because it is 'good' for someone else
Not justified, no not at all. But there is a certain balance to it. Don't you think?
I dopnt think you can look at that way because if you do you tend to become apathetic about evils being done because you argue it is 'balance'
That becomes your comfortable myth. If your one of the ones in comfort that is!
I understand what you are saying and don't disagree with you. The subjective experience of good and evil is very real and tangible to me. I was just trying to make a point about the relativity of morality; how one man's good can be another man's evil. I used China's One Child Policy as an example; to some, it is an evil decision denying individuals the ability to choose something as fundamental as bringing life into the world, to others, it is an ethical and responsible decision that benefits both the natural world and the rest of the human population.
Who is right? I contend that for the Chinese individual, it might indeed be evil while for you and I and the birds and the bees, it is almost certainly a good thing. This however, doesn't make it any less real for any of the parties involved as the experience of good and evil, right and wrong, is still completely subjective. It was not my intention to lessen that experience in any way, rather I am just trying to do away with the notion of any sort of universal morality or moral high ground. In my eyes, morality CAN be talked about absolutely but only with respect to a unit, whether it be the individual, community, society, humanity, or even, the planet.
I would in no way CALL that example you give 'evil' and would challenge anyone who did.
It was common in indigenous cultures to regulate their population so as not to overbear the land, and other species.
I have just read about a young gang member set his pitbull dog on a young teen, and then stab him 7 times and kick his head several times like a football. Of course the 16 year old boy is dead. The reason for this evil act? The murderer say it was because he'd been 'stepping on his turf'. Now THAt to me is evil, and should be to everyone. Sadistic dehumanized and evil. Of the same ilk as what the nazi evil doers did, and the neo nazis in Russia etc who target 'immigrants' and seriously attack them, disabling and murdering them.
Some moths ago at Youtube in my recommended videos section for some reason this video about this evil was recommended for me. I foolishly watched this video of a beheading by one of these vile evil demented killers.
It took me a long time to get over seeing this, and even now I get flashbacks.
It may feel comforting to claim there is no real morality, but i think there is. In fact it goes very deep. For example have you heard of Near Death Experience reports? People claim to have the experience where they see their lifetimes reviewed, and even the most subtle hurts they may have caused another is felt---they also actually BECOME the other person so they directly feel what feelings they went through due to some hurt.
Who might consider this action evil you ask? The infant child that is killed once the parents find out it isn't a boy. The parents who kill their child and live with that, or who always wanted a boy or a girl or a larger family and can't because their government will punish them for it. I have read of Near Death Experiences (Jeffrey Long's study), don't you think the father crushing his newborn babies head might be tormented by that action during his life AND at the moment of his death?
For the record, just so you don't attack this as your main problem with my ideas, I'm not opposed to infanticide or abortion. I too, like you I assume, am aware of the gravity of our world population. I'm just trying to point out that its not a clear good/evil situation.
And yes, I know indigenous cultures practice infanticide, in a previous comment I referenced this.
I have a serious question for you, putting aside our differences on the universality of morality:
What makes the murder of a newborn infant any less evil than that of a teen stepping on someone else's turf?
Could it be the brutality of the murder? I don't think so, infants are usually just left to die--which can take time and must be excruciating. Or sometimes they have their heads crushed--nearly the identical situation to that of the murdered teen you referenced.
Maybe it is the age of the murdered? I don't think this is a good point either, an infant murdered is a pure innocent. They surely feel as would a teenager. And in terms of innocence, this teenager I imagine was a gang member from a rival gang, what "evil" deeds might he have committed? And besides any of that, does the age of a victim matter in terms of the evilness of an action?
Motive? One is a turf war--absurd, I agree. But the parents killing their newborn daughter want a boy--is that a good enough motive?
You "challenged" anyone who might call something like the one child policy evil. I think I have at least begun to answer that challenge and welcome further discussion. I hope you are not taking offense to our disagreement--for me it helps me develop my ideas and allows me to see them from an alternate viewpoint and possibly--modify how I think about things.
I wasn't holding Chinese birth control up as an example. I think China is very brutal and oppressive. It doesn't even allow free Internet.
I saw a programme once which was broadcast before the Olympic Games which were held in China, and it was in China. You saw the BBC journalist being followed around by the government henchmen making sure the people did not say bad things against the regime, even if they were true.
One guy who was in a wheelchair having lost his legs when protesting for freedom in Tianamen Square was asked questions about what happened, and even he was not allowed to speak freely. So it does not surprise me they crush kids heads there, and yes I am saying that IS evil.
I once saw a very chocking picture in the paper. It was taken in a city in China and you saw a baby of about 1 year old just flung into the gutter to die, and you saw people walking by as though it was nothing!
So I am not supporting that. I was rather talking about Indigenous ways of controlling population. IF that would mean abortion then yes I am for that.
I admit, that IF you say to a person 'you are evil'--where can we go with that? because if a person thinks that s/he is evil and there is no hope then they might as well wallow in evil.
So it is really important we try and understand what we mean by that term. For example, if you were to believe like Christians have that there is an evil that cannot be saved and must go to hell everlastingly is that what I mean? No. I don't believe there is everalasting anything. Everything is forever changing
Our world seems to function either fundamentally or in a relativist kind of way.
An example, the 'Right' are draconian '3 strikes and your out' type of thing, and the 'Left' are the more relativist.
In the UK some years back there was the most evil murder that happened to a little boy. Two boys, about 10 and 11 had secretly taken the little boy while his mum was busy. As they took him away on a three mile journey to his (James Bulger) torture and death, and he was crying for his mum they were discussing the ways they were going to butcher him.
They were rel;eased from prison a short while ago and it is all over the media that one of them had been returned to prison for a 'very serious offense' which even James' mum wasn't told what it was. It leaked that he had been caught with child porn.
This woman who is in a senior position was quoted saying that she believed the killers of james shouldn't have been tried in an adult court though she realizes it was a 'very unpleasant death'. Very unpleasant! of course his mum was horrified that this childless woman would describe such a murder of her little boy 'unpleasant' and wanted her sacked. But that is am example of the Leftist approach.
They BOTH are false because the roots OF this evil is never addressed. Both ways never really FACE evil and thus their systems perpetuate it!
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