On Civilization & the Necessity of defining AnarchismAccording to Rousseau, civilization corrupts, and for Hobbes, without civilization, life would be nasty, brutish and short.
They are both right and wrong. Some forms of civilization when awry have a corrupting influence, such as runaway capitalism, with libertarian undertones, and no social awareness.
Such a civilization is as nasty and brutish as no civilization at all. However, as Hobbes noted, no civilization at all would be without direction and fully an individually self-satisfying adventure limited to personal end results to the exclusion of the need for recognition of other in any meaningful way. Does that sound familiar?
we talk about the quality of life as though we know what life or quality really are. is it the ability to amass great mountains of goods, money, or some other such items to surround ourselves, bury ourselves?
to give ourselves some distinction in our own eyes and impress our egos with our prowess as the great white hunters of a modern age? cyber souls of a lost generation, twittering our lives away in fruitless pursuits for the greater glory of self?
Doors of Perception
Heaven and Hell
Aldous Huxley
ISBN: 0060900075
Literary or scientific, liberal or specialist, all our education is predominantly verbal and therefore fails to accomplish what it is supposed to do. Instead of transforming children into fully developed adults, it turns out students of the natural sciences who are completely unaware of nature as the primary fact of experience, it inflicts upon the world students of the humanities who know nothing of humanity, their own or anyone else's.
In a world where education is predominantly verbal, highly educated people find it all but imposible to pay serious atttention to anything but words and notions. There is always money for and always doctorates in the learned foolery of research, into what for scholars, is the all important problem; Who influenced whom to say what when.
When it comes to the serious matter of true perception, no highly regarded intellectual at any university, and no leader of any main stream denominational faith will do anything about pursuing such perceptions, or to prompt anyone to pursue it. The resultant void is taken up by those individuals on whom such gifts are rightly bestowed, though without the proper credentials necessary in the eyes of authoritative figures, truth is left at the bottom of the pit.
There is a necessity of certain courses being taught in a classroom environment. I think it highly unlikely that a truly broad picture can be obtained while sitting in front of a computer; as a friend noted one day, you're always right when you're always alone. It isn't possible to test your ideas unless there is someone to converse with, and knowledge can't be a private thing in many areas of thought, metaphysics aside. I do see that certain basic information can be gained in areas such as are offered in a core curriculum, but not the more specialized, or socially oriented courses, and certainly not a full degree. Education needs to be more readily accessible though not to the point of dilution.
On the other hand, I shudder at Paolo Friere's portrayal of education under the banking concept of learning; deposit information into the student, and make a withdrawal at test time. So I guess I believe in a consistent and prolonged interactive education; there is however the ever-present problem of 30 silent faces in the classroom.
Nature, by virtue of the definition is neither good nor evil, only natural. Things rise to existence and fall away to nothing, only to return in a different form. As trees that die to feed a horde of insects, and rise again to the sky when others take root in the remains.
Is man basically good or basically evil? If good, then an evil man is formed by external influences and tabula rasa is correct. If evil, then a good man is formed by the same forces. Unless his goodness is the result of extreme ego, wishing to be viewed as God, according to Sartre. Pour Soi, En Soi. An ultimate form of honor to God or the ultimate blasphemy against God.
A world ruled by law is not virtuous. Law then becomes its own God, passing judgement over the masses by determining who shall live and in what form, and who shall die and for what reason, by whose hand. Therefore the command of the law is divine fiat secularized. A false justice.
If it is proper to say yes to all things involved in existence, then it is to grant a blessing to the stronger of the opposites. In the moral sense regarding good and evil, which ever wins out at any given time would be the stronger and therefore recieve our blessing; i.e., become the good. In which case there must always be a struggle that good will win out. However, with that there must also be a validation for the virtue, by divine command or by the law.
We march onward always suspecting something great round the next bend and yet, what waits for us there is death. We can't hope for more without giving up the few precious moments of peace, joy and love we may obtain from this world in the presence of our fellows. The legacy of religion takes away those brief moments and leaves us to cringe in fear lest we rouse the wrath of its non existent Gods. Gods who we have created in our madness and insane fear of the inevitable end of us each and all.
Belief in God and immortality are based on hope and fear; we hope our fears of the permanence of death aren't correct. To this end we force ourselves to do without the very things which will grant us the some of our greatest joys in order that we may prove we are worthy of what we can't possibly be sure of. The very concept of faith is based on uncertainty.
Beyond the obvious advantages of working as a short order cook; a free meal and all the soda you can drink; it never fails to intrigue me as to how customers are referred.
There's half an understanding of our animal side in the wait staff reference, "they'll eat soup anytime", just as there is such a thing as, half an order of fries. You may not see it on the menu but you can still get it; we refer to our animal natures without admitting to it.
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