Time Magazine celebrates Plato's Beast.
-
- Posts: 1510
- Joined: March 6th, 2011, 12:25 am
- Location: Dryden ON Canada
Re: Time Magazine celebrates Plato's Beast.
You have not found anyone else willing to put up with you?
Yes Sir I know that there are forces that try to dehumanize me.
The very obvious ones are big business, Wall street and politicians/government. To them I am a consumer or a voter, just a thing. non of these care or see me as a human.
And yes at our base we are herd creatures and what happens to other parts of the herd affect us.
There is also the social force of our empathy that may affect others.
There are many forces that may affect us in positive or negative ways.
However we can minimize them with loosing the "self" so that we do not form undue attachments.
Regards, John.
-
- Posts: 3364
- Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:45 pm
Re: Time Magazine celebrates Plato's Beast.
It's not that they try but that they do. Being attached to the Beast, we are not aware of what we lose until trying to be psychologically free. One of the first things a person experiences through efforts of self knowledge is the power of attachment. The fact that Time Magazine could have blind protest as its representative of Person of the Year just proves how little social force is understood. If it were understood for example, do you think that what we call "education" would be so lopsided and focused on the head? Of course not since acquiring the freedom to become a person instead of a thing requires the harmonious cooperation of mind, body, and spirit which is denied by secular progressive education. To accept it means that our "being" is relative and if being is relative, what is the highest quality of being? We're back to pondering the dreaded G word not as a personal God but as "Being," as a "source."Wooden shoe wrote:Hello Nick.
You have not found anyone else willing to put up with you?
Yes Sir I know that there are forces that try to dehumanize me.
The very obvious ones are big business, Wall street and politicians/government. To them I am a consumer or a voter, just a thing. non of these care or see me as a human.
And yes at our base we are herd creatures and what happens to other parts of the herd affect us.
There is also the social force of our empathy that may affect others.
There are many forces that may affect us in positive or negative ways.
However we can minimize them with loosing the "self" so that we do not form undue attachments.
Regards, John.
-
- Posts: 1510
- Joined: March 6th, 2011, 12:25 am
- Location: Dryden ON Canada
Re: Time Magazine celebrates Plato's Beast.
Of course not since acquiring the freedom to become a person instead of a thing requires the harmonious cooperation of mind, body, and spirit which is denied by secular progressive education. To accept it means that our "being" is relative and if being is relative, what is the highest quality of being? We're back to pondering the dreaded G word not as a personal God but as "Being," as a "source."
But this reasoning of the secular being a problem is just as true for the religious one. Just a different beast.
Having gone to a religious school and talking to others who have, when you try to be an individual in a religious school you find out in a hurry that it is a beast.
So religion is no solution to the problem, it is just another beast.
My solution is Buddhism, no deity, no laws to make you behave within certain boundaries, just gain self knowledge at your own pace, and start to work on minimizing the self.
Simple in concept, but not easily done, however I continue.
And it makes me free from having to judge the motives of others.
-
- Posts: 3364
- Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:45 pm
Re: Time Magazine celebrates Plato's Beast.
Hi JohnWooden shoe wrote:Hello Nick, you wrote:
Of course not since acquiring the freedom to become a person instead of a thing requires the harmonious cooperation of mind, body, and spirit which is denied by secular progressive education. To accept it means that our "being" is relative and if being is relative, what is the highest quality of being? We're back to pondering the dreaded G word not as a personal God but as "Being," as a "source."
But this reasoning of the secular being a problem is just as true for the religious one. Just a different beast.
Having gone to a religious school and talking to others who have, when you try to be an individual in a religious school you find out in a hurry that it is a beast.
So religion is no solution to the problem, it is just another beast.
My solution is Buddhism, no deity, no laws to make you behave within certain boundaries, just gain self knowledge at your own pace, and start to work on minimizing the self.
Simple in concept, but not easily done, however I continue.
And it makes me free from having to judge the motives of others.
I am not aserting the personal God of Christendom and Judaism but rather the source outside of time and space we can experience through grace.
The problem is the nature of human being. We exist as a plurality. Buddhism will agree. This condition puts us in Plato's cave since this plurality puts us into opposition with ourselves. It doesn't matter if people believe in Buddhism, Christianity, or Judaism for example . If it is a projection of cave life, its exponents just turn in cycles in response to external influences: (force.) Cave life denies the transforming force.
Esoteric Christianity acknowleges the necessity for the help of grace which permeates the universe and how to be open to it. That is its advantage expecially in the West where chaotic influences are so strong.
The Eightfold path sounds nice but who can follow it? It is through grace that our inner contradictions can be reconciled. Trying to follow the Law of Judaism or the Eightfold path in denial and through our own initiative will lead to the same results as Christendom when it manifests Jesus' teaching as the Spanish Inquisition.
Names are meaningless without acknowledging the human condition described in Buddhism through the Parable of the "Burning house"
Hostility takes its place in Plato's cave or the Burning House in response to forces. It is only a rare few that acknowledge the human condition who can make the necessary efforts to consciously transcend it and become human rather than reactive "things" subject to forces they do not understand.
-
- Posts: 1510
- Joined: March 6th, 2011, 12:25 am
- Location: Dryden ON Canada
Re: Time Magazine celebrates Plato's Beast.
There are only a few things I want to say.
You are the result of your conditioning by your environment just as I am of mine.
So you were receptive to ideas that I am not receptive to
This does not make either of us anything.
So on this issue we will just have to agree to disagree.
However I will agree with the thought that we as humanity can be a lot better than we are.
With that said I want to thank you for an interesting discussion, but with that I will bow out.
Regards and best wishes for this holiday season, John.
-
- Posts: 3364
- Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:45 pm
Re: Time Magazine celebrates Plato's Beast.
The difference is that I am willing to admit it and believe the being of Man has the potential for inner unity and worthy of the name "Man." Those that have acquired a higher level of being and are capable of being an awakening influence in society are IMO worthy of being called person of the year.Wooden shoe wrote:Hi Nick.
There are only a few things I want to say.
You are the result of your conditioning by your environment just as I am of mine.
So you were receptive to ideas that I am not receptive to
This does not make either of us anything.
So on this issue we will just have to agree to disagree.
However I will agree with the thought that we as humanity can be a lot better than we are.
With that said I want to thank you for an interesting discussion, but with that I will bow out.
Regards and best wishes for this holiday season, John.
I wish you the best as well. Now back to the egg nog.
-- Updated Thu Dec 29, 2011 11:06 am to add the following --
The experts are becoming more specific. Time supports the protestor, a blind representative of the Great Beast as person of the year. Now the BBC claims a panda as woman of the year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... -year.html
"The BBC has come in for ridicule after it included a giant panda called Sweetie alongside Pippa Middleton and Adele in its list of the 12 women of the year."
I shudder to think what another representative of postmodern education will come up with for "Man of the Year." What???? Shame on you for even thinking it.
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023