Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 12:04 am
The cure is going to be far worse than the disease ever would have been. On our behalf our government has promised to repay debts which seem to exceed our worth and their printing (virtual) money fast enough give it away, 0% interest rates indeed. Our President is promoting a “2nd Bill of Rights” which, calling them rights, is insanity. Entitlements aren’t rights. The “right to recreation?” I’m speechless.
Rome fell. Northern Europe and much else fell to pre-Iron age levels of technology. Nonsense like we’re seeing these days might bring us down too. If it does happen there is a problem. For … an essential problem lies between here and there. How many people do you think live at today’s population densities today? And how many can subsist at bronze age subsistence. Between here and there lie a lot of pain and suffering.
Things might not get that bad. But I do think our freedom from government intrusion in our lives is about to increase by orders of magnitude. Loss of freedoms like this have always been accompanied by violence and bloodshed. How will the American gulag manifest itself? We shall see.
Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 1:00 am
I’ve been recently pondering whether older notions of demons and modern notions of ideology, meme, and the like are not unrelated. Along those lines, this brings in questions regarding the detecting of intelligence. How can we locate and find (non-human) intelligence among us? Assume for a moment that intelligence other than us is at work in our local sphere, i.e., the earth, how might we locate it? How might we detect it?
Another analogy might be to consider these intelligences (or our intelligence) might be actually something akin to second order forces, like the relationship between the internal electrical forces holding atoms together and Van der Waals forces between atoms. This could go in either of two ways. That is inspiration, flashes of genius, might be really “from outside of us” … or the other way, that humans collectively form social networks which themselves might exhibit intelligence independent of individuals. Consider an ant colony. Imagine an ant colony that collectively as a colony exhibits intelligence. Now consider that those ant’s are us … individually intelligent and having exhibiting some number of colonial intelligences at a macro level. Why not?
On that note … does any reader have any suggestions further reading on either identifying intelligence or a modern theology of demons?
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Well, I just started reading Mr Rawl’s Political Liberalism … just starting to break into the introduction. And so far, I’m unimpressed. His writing is sloppy and careless, not that I really should complain, but this is a book by an Academic philosopher who should be more careful than an amateur blogger. However, of interest (for tonight) is this following excerpt quoted as the beliefs belonging to “comprehensive” as opposed to “political” liberalism. Three tenents are given, the second of each is the “liberal” tenet.
Is the knowledge or awareness of how we are to act directly accessible only to some, or to a few (the clergy, say), or is it accessible to every person who is normally reasonable and conscientious?
Again, it the moral order required of us derived from an external source, say from an order of values in God’s intellect, or does it arise in some way from human nature itself (either from reason or feeling or from a union of both), together with the requirements of our living together in society?
Finally, must we be persuaded or compelled to bring ourselves in line with the requirements of our duties and obligations by some external motivation, say by divine sanctions or by those of the state; or are we to constituted that we have in our nature sufficient motives to lead us to act as we ought without the need of external threats inducements?
It seems, I am not a “comprehensive” liberal because I view the latter in all of cases as fatally flawed. Let’s consider this case by case.
- Is the upper floor of a house available to all or only to those who climb the stairs. Knowledge and awareness on a more than passing level is only available to those who practice and engage in self-examination and introspective thought on ethics and morals. That is not easy. It is not available to everyone for it is not reasonable to expect any more than a distinct minority to be conscientious. Thinking otherwise is hopelessly Utopian.
- Well, my answer to this is a little more confused. Our moral sense and the “moral order required of us” is derived from external source (God), but alas, God (and our connection to Him, e.g., “made in His image”) is in fact human nature.
- Well, as avidly and emphatically demonstrated by Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age, one of the major pushes by Church, State, and Academia for the last 500 years has been to civilize and make polite society. 500 years ago, the medieval Emily Posts of the Europe were encouraging the masses not to take a dump in the living room. We’ve come a long way, baby … but it hasn’t been easy or a fast road. The idea that politeness and reasonableness is “in our nature” is to deny and ignore so so so much of our history (ancient and modern) it isn’t funny.
Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Which movies and which individuals do I have in mind? I offer Roger Rabbit and Wall-E as a comparison and constrast between a secular and sacred (specifically Christian) Saints. I use the term ‘saint’ with a capitalized “S” normally to indicate a hero of the Christian tradition and faith. Roger Rabbit strike me for some odd reason as more a secular saint than secular hero, after all Roger represents virtues very much unlike those of Achilles, a more traditional hero. For reference, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a 1988 movie mixing 24-frame animation directed by Roger Zemeckis featuring Bob Hoskins and a zany (a term of art) Roger Rabbit in a mystery story featuring murder, possibly adultery and of course intrigue. Wall-E is a computer animated PIXAR film which is less easily classifiable. I commend both as wonderful examples of some of the best of animated cinema.
Back in the day, in the 90s and when WFRR came out, I became convinced that Roger was saint, and at that time I was pretty much a secular fellow so it might be considered at that point that perhaps Roger is a secular not sacred version of the saint. Why did I consider Roger to be a saint. It is one of his lines in the movie, “I just want to make people laugh.” And that is indeed his (and perhaps all of “toontown’s”) mission in the movie. Bob Hoskin’s character is quite the sourpuss. Underlying the entire narrative is the “want to make people laugh” as a them. Spreading joy and enjoyment is the highest virtue, the highest calling from Roger’s (and the Toon communities) point of view. And for this, I considered Roger a candidate as a, secular, saint.
Wall-E too is a saint, but in a very different way. He is a hero of circumstance as well, but that just confuses matters. That is to say that while he is the person (or more accurately the intelligence) that is in the right place at the right time, making the right decisions which turns the human race around and saves the species. However that is not what makes him a saint in a Christian sense. What, for me, makes me consider Wall-E a portrayal of a saint is that seems to me connects more with some of the real Christian Saints. Wall-E is filled, seemingly ontologically, of a transforming grace. Characters in this movie, and while its been a while since I’ve seen it but I think this includes all of them except perhaps our villain(s), are transformed by Wall-E. You can identify (and likely they would be able as well) the change in them catalyzed by Wall-E. You can identify their character development with a watermark, identified by a ‘before-I-met Wall-E” person vs the “after-I-met Wall-E” person. An example of this might be the incendental contact he makes with one of the ship dwellers in passing who shortly thereafter finds himself noticing and interacting differently with his neighbor.
And this I think is a identifying difference between my perception of this sort of secular and sacred saint. The secular saint by effort and calling effects change in people in a conscious fashion. This particular sacred saint on the other hand, unintentionally awakens a fullness (or perhaps in a lest loaded “Eastern Christian term, a turning to their teleos or purpose) in those he contacts.
