Tag: philosophy

Climbing willingly into Procrustus’ bed

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I have a friend ….. or rather, an acquaintance …. who has led an interesting life. And then about two years ago it took a more interesting turn. And IMHO he has not dealt well with it. Novelist James Lane Allen allegedly said “Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.” My acquaintance has faced the adversity and what has been revealed has not been good.

To paraphrase someone ELSE who famously said things (as passed through my father and now paraphrased by me) “If you don’t learn from other’s mistakes you’ll have to make them all yourself.” And this is where my acquaintance finds himself. Ignorant of history and refusing to learn from it. He admits the only thing he really reads are headlines he agrees with. Anything that happened before he was born is useless. So he finds himself making a LOT of mistakes. And still not learning much from them.

He HAS time on his hands. He COULD use it to learn something – ANYTHING. History. Geography. Philosophy. Linguistics. He’s inquisitive enough. He jumps RIGHT on his Googlebox when faced with a question. But he usually settles for the first answer presented and goes no further. The spark of innate curiosity seems extinguished by the first result. This DOES have the advantage of never sending him down a rabbit hole but the decided disadvantage of never providing any real information beyond the superficial.

It’s been exasperating. I’d like to be a candle in the darkness here but he keeps snuffing me out – to continue an already tortured metaphor. I can’t POSSIBLY have anything to contribute because 1) I’m old, 2) the googlebox says otherwise and 3) I’m going against a headline he read a few days back and agreed with. Rational conversation has been rendered impossible. Meaningless case in point? He believes the NFL uses deep fakes to alter in-game instant replays to control the outcome of games. This doesn’t even rise to a red/blue, vax/anti discussion. It’s reality (“that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” – Philip K Dick) vs make-believe.

I’ll close with a quote from some he’d HATE if he was intellectually curious enough to be aware of her existence: Ayn Rand – You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” He’s going to have a bumpy ride. For how long? No idea. I just hope those riding along don’t suffer too much.

Activated {Women}

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found this over at Ann Althouse and instead of linking thought I’d clip. It’s a lengthy quote from Jurgen Moltmann.

Here’s what he had to say on ineffective activism in his book on the Holy Spirit:

If we compare the two ways of knowing, it is easy to see that modern men and women need at least a balance between the vita activa and the vita contemplative, the active and the contemplative life, if they are not to atrophy spiritually. The pragmatic way of grasping things has very obvious limits, and beyond these limits the destruction of life begins. This does not apply only to our dealings with other people. It is true of our dealings with the natural environment too.

But the meditative way of understanding seems to be even more important when it is applied to our dealings with our own selves. People take flight into relationships, into social action and into political praxis, because they cannot endure what they themselves are.

They have ‘fallen out’ with themselves. So they cannot stand being alone. To be alone is torture. Silence is unendurable. Solitude is felt to be ‘social death’. Every disappointment becomes a torment which has to be avoided at all costs.

But the people who throw themselves into practical life because they cannot come to terms with themselves simply become a burden for other people. Social praxis and political involvement are not a remedy for the weakness of our own personalities.

Men and women who want to act on behalf of other people without having deepened their own understanding of themselves, without having built up their own capacity for sensitive loving, and without having found freedom towards themselves, will find nothing in themselves that they can give to anyone else.

Even presupposing good will and the lack of evil intentions, all they will be able to pass on is the infection of their own egoism, the aggression generated by their own anxieties, and the prejudices of their own ideology. Anyone who wants to fill up his own hollowness by helping other people will simply spread the same hollowness.

Why? Because people are far less influenced by what another person says and does than the activist would like to believe. They are much more influenced by what the other is, and his way of speaking and behaving.

Only the person who has found his own self can give himself. What else can he give? It is only the person who knows that he is accepted who can accept others without dominating them. The person who has become free in himself can liberate others and share their suffering.

Jürgen Moltmann, Spirit of Life

Dude’s 95 and still writing!

You’re a Genius (another dumb sports analogy)

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Your team has the ball, 3rd and 6 from their own 40. You know the PERFECT play to run to pick up the first down. And you’re a genius. Here’s why.

Either the coach CALLS your play or he doesn’t. Assume he does. Either it works, or it doesn’t. If it works, you’re a genius. If it DOESN’T it’s because it was poorly executed and you’re STILL a genius. Let’s assume the coach DOESN’T call your play. If the play he calls works, yours would’ve worked better, so you’re a genius. And if the play he called DOESN’T work, yours obviously would’ve, and you’re a genius.

Virtually every political decision made on the planet on a personal, partisan or bi-partisan level fits the same mold. And you’re a genius.

From the Delphic Oracle, to Shakespeare to Peterson

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The best advice, it appears, is timeless, tried and true.

The saying “know thyself” is commonly attributed to Ancient Greece as one of the Delphic maxims and was inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek writer Pausanias. So let’s start there. Pretty important stuff. But then there’s Goethe who allegedly said “Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.”

Sadly of course we can’t run away from ourselves … for long … successfully. Which bring us to Shakespeare via Polonius in Hamlet (Act 1. scene 3) “This above all: to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man.”. So perhaps we don’t need to know ourselves but merely be true. Difficult, especially without knowing. But a better track.

And that brings us to the recently reviled Dr. Peterson. I’m gonna pull Rules 2, and 3 from his recent best seller.

Rule 2 Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping. Of course ya gotta know who you’re taking care of AND be true to them.

Rule 3 Make friends with people who want the best for you. This one just keeps getting better. It’s MUCH easier to take advice from peoppe who want the best for YOU as opposed to wanting the best of YOU for themselves.