tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14264265556924964682024-03-13T09:51:33.842-07:00Swimming Up Chaos River(Notes from an Odd Toad in a Toxic Lake.)Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-74486241085706647352020-09-30T13:49:00.002-07:002020-09-30T17:15:09.065-07:00The Post-2020 Prospect ...<span style="font-family: georgia;">Salutem vobis qui legerent -<br />
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I don't post much here in the oh-so-crowded vacuum of cyberspace anymore. The shadows are loud, and the halls echo with resentment and bile. <br />
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Why do people blog and post? Often it is frustration, too often it is rancor. Sometimes to seek sympathetic correspondents who will endorse their opinions. Modern communications result in opinion puddles, echo chambers for bitterness and fury. <br />
<br />As we advance to election time, I find myself frustrated and gloomy -- fearing the effective discipline and hard-assed rancor of the so-called "Republican" Party on the one hand, and on the other both the relative ineptitude of the Democratic Party and -- worse -- the misandry of the American Left. If the Republican ticket prevails in 2020 and saddles us with another four years of the same Presidential goon and a Congress of malefactors like Mitch McConnell, whose regressivist bullshit we have come to know so well, THAT is sobering. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Think about this; What is a Republic? It is a <b>society of antagonists who nonetheless cooperate for the general good</b>. <br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who could have imagined that the Presidency of the United States would be reduced to the level of a burlesque show, a "reality show", scripted by and starring someone like Donald Trump? This week's first Presidential debate, however, brings it home: violence and vulgarity, anti-intellectualism and racism, are the oh-so-popular hallmarks of the so-called "Republicans". <br />
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This is a dire problem, for the current President is only the mouthpiece of this furious conservative groundswell, rather than its author. This groundswell may be fostered by corporate money, but it is a real, visceral, long-ingrained disposition that Left-ish politics and Revolutionary loudmouth-ism did much to create. The giddy cry of the Right is that "Now we are finally being heard!" None of this is new; it did not begin with Reagan or Goldwater or the John Birch Society or the KKK; and it seems only too similar to European politics of the inter-war years in Europe. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because of his name recognition, because he vocally despises the Liberal and Democratic agenda, and because he's rich (and therefore, in the vulgar eye, a "winner"), Donald Trump is a choice representative for many working people in the United States. This is a visceral thing, not a cognitive one. No one on the Left has such a similarly broad appeal, except perhaps Bernie Sanders, and he is out of the running. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Remember that in the 1900s the Democratic Party ITSELF was also an ardent protector of racist and exclusive social values that nowadays we associate with people like Donald Trump. If the forces of Democracy ever hope to regain momentum in the United States, they will have to stop, examine conservative complaints for their genesis, think about the nature of people, and get a grip on what Middle and Rural America and what money-minded Americans are objecting to. The Left, if it wishes to resume its dominant place in American politics, needs to understand what conservative resentment is all about, and it needs to champion NOT just the disenfranchised minorities, but also the middle-class and other groups that FEEL disenfranchised. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">How to do this, I cannot say. But beyond marketing, politics is a Coalition-Building. When the Democratic activists accept the fact that human beings are innately greedy, near-sighted, and corrupt; that White Males (among others) are not in fact misogynist devils all of the time (just as Black Males are not thugs all the time); and that we live in a Republic (a thing-of-ALL-the-people), THEN they may have an advantage over the more-ardent coalition of hysterical conservatives. America will not move ahead in terms of realizing its promise of freedom and democracy until the American Left can learn to live with people as they come, always more or less reprehensible, but fellow-citizens, nonetheless. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
If furiously partisan ideologies and a universal ethos of extremism remain the standards extolled on every side (Winnerism on the Right, Self-Indulgent-Equality-of-Outcome-ism on the Left; in other words, Ultra-Individualism both Right and Left), the Republic will fail. We need a New Center, tolerant but focused on ALL people. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Valete bene.</span></div><div>
<br /></div></div>Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-50327638833369024792020-01-05T18:46:00.004-08:002020-01-05T18:46:50.689-08:00Chaos vs. Cosmos<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Greek </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">khaos</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> meant a ‘vast chasm, void', and later came to mean 'formlessness, disorder'. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Greek </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i>kosmos</i> meant</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> 'the world' or 'nature' or </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">‘order'</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">, thus </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">also</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">both 'the natural world' </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and 'the physical Universe', </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and then in a nearer sense 'the human (social) world'. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">For the Ancient Greeks, Khaos and Kosmos were logically in opposition: <i>Khaos </i>was a kind of material nothingness, whereas <i>kosmos</i> was the more-or-less regular, observable world around us. Entrepreneur Lou Marinoff ("The Middle Way", 2007) </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">made this point for me </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">and it is a useful framing tool: On one side, the treacherous void - loneliness, poverty, death, </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">anomie </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">- and on the other side, the project of life - endless problems of self, people, pressures, work, and meaning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">My own mental salvation has been informed not only by my own conclusions (drawn from years of muddling about and wondering "Why?"), but especially from insights of </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stoicism (a philosophy worth investigating!)</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. In our time, when the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">American </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">kosmos </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">is reeling, rent by violent hubris and balkanization at every hand, it is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">important to realize that, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">historically and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">in fact, America </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">has</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">ALWAYS been splintered and internally antagonistic, from the beginning. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">George Washington's own administration was plagued by rebellion; Lincoln was assassinated by a political malcontent; later, William McKinley. Many cults have rejected matter-of-fact American life and tried to construct their own sub-cultures - the most successful, perhaps, being the Latter-Day Saints. The USA, born from the idealistic Liberalism of the 1700s, has had to deal with natural human schismaticism; the anthropoid predilection for clubs and gangs, and the individual zoological urge to dominance. And if the USA has been clique- and party-ridden from the start, at all levels, so has humanity, taken as a whole. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are always exploiters; there are always malcontents; there are always gang-wars between rich and poor, male and female, staid and wild, absolutist and mediator, and so on. Ideology and division and internecine resentment is the legacy of biology, psychology, and politics. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And a</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">nyone who is going to try to live in our 21st-century republic should recognize that. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">So it's important to stop screaming for a minute and take a look at our Kosmos, forever full of schism and Khaos, of activism, daily living, and despair. Life is not black and white, all or nothing, Good versus Bad; it's much more complex and murky. Our understanding of life should take this into account; it should take all the nasty, antagonistic features of human variation into account: the frictions and the crimes. They are nothing new - they are simply the flip side of a Kosmos. In our time, they are especially amplified by our over-abundance of media, particularly now </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the Internet, and by our </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">native impatience and our native vitality. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The "Culture Wars" that we are promoting and suffering </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">are a fact. B</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ut in another sense, I propose that they are also an illusion - they are really not new. And the ideological stances by which they're promoted are based just as much on fantasy as on real experiences. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The "Culture Wars" are something to be reckoned with, but are not in fact something to be "solved". </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact, they are just regular parts of life, natural frictions, concomitants of the human situation in history. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no Final Solution. Anyone who claims that there is - that there is a "Key to happiness" - is selling something. People are various, and their passions and follies are as well. It's that simple. Difference and other-ness are just parts of us being individuals - of each of us having perception, a brain, and innate limitations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What underlies the culture wars are Expectations: each faction expects that life SHOULD be a certain way; and each faction finds someone to blame in an OTHER faction. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is in the
general nature of people to expect success in living; this is part of our nature, part
of the package, as it were. Even despite external adversities and internal failings, we retain certain implicit Egocentric Expectations, in particular:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(1) that I am good,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(2) that I deserve well, and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(3) that “life should work”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are natural enough to have - they are universal among people. But they are feelings, not facts. If you take them as a given, then you have misled yourself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arising from these Expectations is a contradiction: how we FEEL the universe SHOULD be, on the one hand, and how it ACTUALLY turns out to be, on the other. The feeling and the facts never gibe. This translates into an opinion that life is broken, or that society is broken, or - still worse - that Other People are malevolently breaking it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This last conclusion - </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">that Other People are malevolently ruining life -</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is generally false; people do what seems good to them; self-interest, intelligent or foolish, is universal. Never entertain a motive of Pure Maliciousness as an initial premise in living - it is a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> self-serving assertion, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">an excuse to blame others for our problems, a lie and a cowardice. Still worse, it </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is historically the seed of fascism and genocide. It is, in a word, a singularly villainous error. Nazis blamed the Jews; Bolsheviks blamed the capitalists; Jews blamed the Arabs; et cetera. Ideologies of absolutism are always an excuse for Theft and Murder. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And yet these Expectations that translate into so much frustration and hysteria are universal, a part of the human operating system, as it were. They may even be a mainspring of human life, something that we can't do without. But they bring their own contradictions and problems with them. How can we reconcile these feelings with the <i>de facto</i> nature of being human? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is a central principle in Stoicism sometimes called, simply, "the Rule", a measure to use in remaining rational: that while a few things are actually up to us to control - what we choose to do, basically - most things are simply <i>not up to us</i>. Health, wealth, obstructions, errors, disease, sex, pregnancy, poverty, bad luck, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">bosses,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fashions, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">storms, car accidents, earthquakes, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">wars - such things are <i>not up to us</i>. Some things we can have a bit of influence on - we can avoid wasting our health or our wealth; we can try to keep our friends and loved ones; we can exercise discretion and possibly make our situation better, but all the other things are thrust upon us: evils small or great that we must face, but which we have no control over</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, what is up to each individual? Reason, </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">intent, </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">humility. We can calculate, feel, weigh, and judge; we can cultivate an objective view of life to use as a reference, and we can avoid, reject, or </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">minimize </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> passions that urge us to blame, hate, and kill - which is to say, avoid fury and violence and mania. We can observe what really happens, put ourselves in others' shoes, reflect on how things happen - all instead of just fuming about why we didn't get what we wanted. We can think twice, re-examine, and try to be factors of good in an antagonistic world. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">We can step back when all the rest of the crowd is lusting after a leader with a Final Solution. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">None of this requires a God; it is the exercise of the God-like part that we all have within us - limited and unequally distributed, yes, but </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">nonetheless</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <i>universal</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. And it is up to each of us to rein in our e</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">gocentric expectations, to </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">exercise Reason, and to practice the Golden Rule - all with an eye to doing justice to others and to ourselves. We all share a very imperfect world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Let's start with humility. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dump "excellence" as an absolute requirement you make of self and others; allow that we are all both beast and intellect. Life is not "All or nothing!" or "Black or white!" all the time. Things are <i>here </i>dark, <i>there </i>light, and </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">variously</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">lit in shifting grays. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do not let 'Perfect' become the enemy of 'Good'. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The point is NOT to "Win, win, win!", but to win enough to live well, and to do so as a good guy and not as a villain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Blaming others and seeking to Have it All - this is a delusional approach to being human; it is a step out of <i>Kosmos</i> into <i>Khaos</i>. As people, we are meant to make do with the <i>Kosmos</i>, with the natural world - both conventional and unpredictable; to make do with the inevitable problems and people in our lives; and to countenance the big world as well as the nearer one of self and family. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15.75px;"><br /></span>Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-21102433495848321852018-08-20T13:14:00.002-07:002018-08-20T13:14:38.800-07:00<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Salvete eis qui legant - </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Stoicism is coherent, I would say. It accords with how life is. It is a project, not a belief system. Its doctrines have survived in a paucity of reporting and original texts, and stand or fail in our application of them and in our consciences. To live according to Nature is a project, a quest, a continuous goal. In that regard, it parallels religious orientations, but it is not a religion; rather, an attitude and an empiricism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Valete. </span></div>
Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-65825998653783247802018-05-10T17:21:00.000-07:002018-06-06T12:31:58.167-07:00Wow. Trump. What a Villain, and What a Shame for the USA.(May 05, 2018.) <br />
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The other day, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement. And now I read that Israel has launched strikes on the Iranian military installations in ruined, embattled Syria - something just short of an out-and-out attack on Iran itself. Both actions are assaults on international peace and security, on Western credibility, and on human decency. Both events are scurrilous blows to all the diplomats, leaders and activists who toiled for years to forge an anti-nuclear agreement with Iran, one that mitigated a great international threat without the firing of a single shot. Both events simply hasten World War III, in my opinion, accelerating the current world-wide descent into barbarism, resulting in the suffering of further millions.<br />
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No statesman would have done this, in effect putting Iran back on the road to a nuclear confrontation and certainly setting back Iran's entrance into the civilized world of diplomacy; no decent individual would have gone back on America's word, backed out of our own promise, unilaterally tore up the contract; only an arrogant, giddy villain like Trump, dastardly, violent, and provocative, would have done this. It is easier to understand Netanyahu's policy of endless violence - Israel lives under a shadow of Muslim and Arabic race and religious hatred - but Trump has no excuse.<br />
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But then, he didn't need one. Because the Republican Party's answer to everything is always war and more war. He and his adherents already despised the Deal, ignoring that it had succeeded in restraining Iran from direct development of nuclear weapons. They and Trump all harbor a primary contempt for diplomacy and a primary hunger for war. And - of course - their obsession with destroying any of President Obama's substantial accomplishments.<br />
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This decision will alienate European allies; it will morally empower Iran to begin once more to develop nuclear weapons. And, plainly, it served as a red flag to Netanyahu's Israel, signalling them to go ahead and begin undeclared war in Syria. And so the USA joins not only the company of backward warlord-states like Russia, but also joins Al-Qaeda and such supra-national terrorist bands, all dedicated to a future of barbarism and carnage.<br />
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Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-54738524979120453052018-04-04T11:15:00.002-07:002018-04-04T11:15:58.104-07:00Jordan Peterson of Toronto, Humorous InterludeHere's a good one - the joke's on me -<br />
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I bought the kindle edition of Professor Peterson's "12 Rules" (I thought) and then was dumbfounded to find a scraggly set of notes full of nonsequiturs and rather sloppy writing. I was nonplussed - How could Random House publish this un-proofed mess? It was absurd.<br />
<br />
Hah-hah! (as Nelson would say). I had picked up someone's own notes on Peterson, sold as an ebook! No wonder it was relatively inexpensive. <br />
<br />
So - I have as yet to actually READ Professor Peterson's well-received book. I will double-check the offerings on Amazon a little better next time....<br />
<br />
Valete.Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-41244734980391732932018-03-30T18:08:00.000-07:002019-02-21T13:28:36.672-08:00Jordan Peterson of Toronto<i>Salvete, qui legantes sint - </i><br />
<br />
My sons have been talking of this "new feller", Professor Jordan Peterson, and the HUGE splash he has been making in the cyber-world. From what I have gaathered so far, he's made of equal parts Joseph Campbell, Karl Jung, and Dr. Laura Schlesinger. I have yet to read his materials.<br />
<br />
But the online response to his teaching and exhortations has been, as I said, HUGE. He's become an overnight Absurdity cure, apparently. So tonight I will begin his book, "12 Rules: an Antidote to Chaos". If indeed it's aimed at the problem of life in the modern world, it is <i>ipso facto</i> of interest.<br />
<br />
Controversy surrounds him - so I make no pronouncements yet. Would it matter if I did so, prematurely? Not to the world, but to me - yes! Defective as I am, I still need to <b><i>try </i></b>to be fair and accurate.<br />
<br />
I have read a critique of him published recently by another author I need to read - one Pankaj Mishra, author of "Age of Anger", his book about the general return to authoritarianism and violent nationalism and so on world-wide. Mishra's topic seems critical to me, watching from the sidelines as the world's bedbugs - Neo-Nazis, Tea Party-ists, and others of dubious intent - have come to the fore over the last decade or so.<br />
<br />
More to come. <i>Valete</i>.Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-72788894144617303412018-01-30T13:26:00.001-08:002018-01-30T13:27:16.776-08:00Literary Gems: Education of Henry Adams<p dir="ltr">For someone who is literate, I've really read very little in my life. And read a lot of it late, to boot. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The other night, passing a book store's dollar-rack, I perused it and picked up 'The Education of Henry Adams', and am enjoying it. I hasten to add that I have but begun it; as usual, I have about five different books in play; but I carry it with me daily. </p>
<p dir="ltr">His encounters and discoveries mirror mine in a significant way, in that he finds himself ever erroneous in his expectations, and finds all his education in astonishments, reversals, and dismay. To that degree, I am continually heartened as he relates the twists and turns of his 19th century upper-crust career. </p>
<p dir="ltr">(More later.)</p>
Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-67206529981377753982017-10-24T11:23:00.000-07:002017-11-15T08:52:47.940-08:00Thick, the CloudsBene --<br />
<br />
Coming back from depression. Again.<br />
<br />
It's always a question of "How" for me - some people may well have a facility of pluck or discipline or grit that allows them to throw a stern, guiding hand over their individual selves and steer this way or that, independent of their emotions - and despite having tried feebly over the years to nurture such a facility in my Self - I lack such a power. I only encounter something like it in the depths of depression, something that says, "No, all the rhymes and platitudes of others fail; I have the choice, to try to live or to take myself away." And thereafter I only arise from those depths by accepting my weaknesses and nursing myself with positives - I live, I breathe, I am not among the worst off, I grow old but am still able to get by, I enjoy little but can still enjoy nonetheless. So the first is somewhat on the order of the Existential, but the second is decidedly Epicurean! And then, in my silly & superficial profession, I style myself Stoic: taking as a base that there is ultimately one universe, that some to-us-more-or-less-magical basis informs it, that causation exists and eliminates mere chaos, that the order of things cares not a fig for human lives or frailties, and so on.<br />
<br />
Reason, if at the base of things, is something we discover and apply, as best we can. But being human, it is not the Reason of the Cosmos that I cultivate, but that of a human being -- social, individual, and imperfect like all palpable things.<br />
<br />
Valete.Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-30357083846356129332017-06-26T10:33:00.001-07:002017-11-15T08:58:41.423-08:00Getting Past the 'Question' - Getting On With It<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Salvete. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is - at least for some - a bafflement or a wonder, first that life should be upsetting and hard, and then later, that there should even be anything recognizable at all, given that chaos and hardship apparently have dominion in the Earth. Do the wretched exist simply to allow the existance of the <i>felicēs</i>? The answer would be a resolution to the question of God, among other things; it would inform us of the meaning of life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But it is an answer not forthcoming. Its question cannot be resolved by human beings; our self-interest precludes objectivity; our mortal and physical limitations preclude full understanding. We can only draw lessons from what we see and what we can reason out.
Thus the general question -- "Why? - "Why this, why not something better, or something even worse? Why anything at all?" -- while it frequently poses itself to our pattern-seeking, answer-seeking species, it is not one that should be asked too earnestly, for it admits of no reliable answer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In light of this, the proper question becomes, </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">instead, </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">"How?". "How shall we live? How </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">should </i><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">we live? How can we make the best of an unfortunate situation?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Valete. </span><br />
<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-9603147019851863522016-08-22T18:07:00.000-07:002016-10-20T13:34:52.488-07:00Avete - <br />
<br />
Et nunc brevissime - <br />
<br />
Among my blog-subscriptions is one that often shows old photos of Betty Page, in various states of attire. A signal female model in a signal position in our recent cultural twists and turns, and yet another "pretty face". In the un-simple confusion of biological life, being male involves being moved by "pretty faces" of various sorts. There is so much connected with that: how to sort it out? <br />
<br />
One way is this, to remember that "a pretty face" is a-dime-a-dozen in itself; that there is no "pretty" without some desire, some weakness on the part of the viewer; that more <em>real</em> than the impression that an image makes is the person (unknown for the most part) embodied within the source of the impression; that underneath said vision is a being, whether your superior or inferior or your more-or-less-peer, but certainly a creature with its own agenda; that we are morally bound to treat people well (if at all possible), and so to defer to her (or him or whatever); and, after all, that said creature is in the end just a messy-mixed-up-wonder of mucus, stomach acid, bacteria, noxious filth, and God knows what else! <br />
<br />
Such thoughts can push the superfluity of sexual excitement back a bit towards the proper indifference that we, as rational folks, should show towards strangers. <br />
<br />
Valete. Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-2197431960181981122016-08-18T11:37:00.002-07:002017-11-15T09:07:50.757-08:00Not-so-Amazing, and Amazing, then Humbling... <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Salve atque salvete! <br />
<br />
As a POST-post-scriptum to yesterday's dreary recital of self-pity and weary old dismay, let me say that it's remarkable and instructive what a difference food, fluoxetine and caffeine, and getting some work done, does for one's mood and outlook. Reality doesn't change, but our readiness and attitude to engagement with it, our state, does. <br />
<br />
And, in a conciliatory aside to the Christianos (<em>qui tam plures sunt his in Civitatibus Unitiis</em>), of which faith I have at times counted myself a provisional member, I expect that my petite and limited experience of mood-change is very similar to the long-term effect of being 'born again', a letting go of fear and helplessness and re-embarking on life, while trusting to God's control. And this parallels what we gain from Stoicism - recognizing sad but necessary mortality, recognizing an underlying Universality in life and death all around us, and realizing that freedom is ultimately a humble thing, something that BELONGS to us in a simple and timeless way, and rarely a matter of what we would wish. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Christianity is not a problem: Christians are good people, generally. But <em>fanatical</em> Christianity is another story. However, I'll let that be, at that point. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Recently I took up Goodman and Soni's book, "Rome's Last Citizen: Legacy of Cato the Younger", and heartily recommend it. And I jotted this down in my notebook, from Lucan's <u>Pharsalia</u> (they don't identify the translation), speaking of oracles and other miracles: </span> </span><br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"Bound are we to the Gods; no voice we need; </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They live in all our acts, although the shrines </span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Be silent...." </span></span></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And from People magazine, of all things, I recorded a very good trans-belief-system quote from Muhammad Ali: </span><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"Everything I do, I say to myself, 'Will God accept this?' Sleep is a rehearsal for death. One day you wake up and it's Judgment Day. So you do good deeds." </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
In a nutshell. <br />
<br />
And then, also in that People magazine, an amazing and humbling story - there are so many! - about Aimee Copeland, this young woman who lost legs and hands to disease, and has been reborn and re-equipped, in heart and in prosthetics! It took me by surprise; horrible and then amazing. A happy ending, by God! <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.people.com/people/package/article/0,,21011736_21011374,00.html">http://www.people.com/people/package/article/0,,21011736_21011374,00.html</a><br />
<br />
And: <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/aimee-copeland-new-hi-tech-prosthetic-hands-article-1.1347774">http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/aimee-copeland-new-hi-tech-prosthetic-hands-article-1.1347774</a><br />
<br />
Worth pondering. Valete. </span><br />
<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-64645968421979674192016-08-17T10:30:00.003-07:002017-01-09T16:47:16.248-08:00Feet Slipping on the RocksSalvete, qui legant - <br />
<br />
How many of us recall being in water up to our necks and trying to find toe-purchase atop slimy, mossy lake stones? That seems an apt metaphor for my mental and moral state just now. Trying to get a grip, as it were. <br />
<br />
My life is not that of a gung-ho hot-shot nor even that of a giddy, myopic gas-bag. My firmament in life is a slippery rock of absurdity - being myself too-much-that and not-enough-this, and so on. The world of youthful competition and 24/7 performance-merit passed me by long ago, and it is one part of human nature with which I've never identified, except in fantasy. I've worked in my life - mostly for attorneys and their ilk, piddly stuff, but for people who DO live in the 24/7 giddiness - and seen them from a distance, occasionally felt the breeze of accomplishment myself.<br />
<br />
But it's not me; that stuff is not forthcoming. I remain out-of-it, strange, aside, "oddly conventional", and so on. I balance atop the rock, liquid mossy, but that's as much as I can manage, it seems. <br />
<br />
So it is from this perpetual perspective of <em>anomy</em> that I face society's daily push-and-shove, and in particular these days the lightning and thunder spectacle of a Presidential election. A decade ago I stopped asking "Why?" and accepted that people have their bestial norms and must act according to them: a need to find enemies, a need to blame others, an inability to understand strangers, and (for oh-so-many) those very plain internal maps to winning, exploitation, and abuse of the "other". This is nature; this is sadness for me, gaiety for them. <br />
<br />
There are a few lights in the dreariness: the Symbolic Sun (Invictus so far, if not truly immortal), friends, material fortune (to have a job, income, a home), and especially the boon of simple love, of wife and kids at home. <br />
<br />
So I'm still here. Still trying to breathe and balance near the banks of Chaos River. <br />
<br />
Valete. <br />
<br />
P.S. Yeah, post-commute-blues, feeling sorry for myself. But this did help re-center me, and - as Jackie Gleason used to say - "Awaaay we go!" Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-43280801404052944052016-08-09T19:21:00.002-07:002016-08-09T19:31:21.546-07:00Earthly Reality...Salvete, qui hoc in loco advenietis.<br />
<br />
My son texted me a question - only rhetorical, really; but I thought I'd post my reply. We were discussing Frank Miller, celebrated hard-ass of comicsdom. My son texted:<br />
<br />
"Why are people like Frank Miller so cranky?"<br />
<br />
And I replied:<br />
<br />
"They have a superiority complex, you might say; they despise the quiescent, the average, the sinful, the foolish. Their condition and outlook is biological; it's winnerism; it's Nature. As inevitable as Al-Qaeda or viruses...."<br />
<br />
The un-said part was this: "And, as it is with viruses or Al-Qaeda, or with people like Frank Miller or Friedrich Nietzche or David Duke, it's the simple duty of decent people to resist them, see past them, and to say yes to life, instead of hatred." <br />
<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-91353575476992166402016-07-16T20:48:00.002-07:002016-07-16T20:48:33.828-07:00A Referral regarding a Name in the News<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Salvete, quicumque legant -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of my favorite Bloggers, </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://theblogofciceronianus.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ciceronianus, </a> </b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">posted something good recently that I thought I'd feature here. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I, like probably a lot of people, am still trying to wrap my head around the spate of cop-on-black-civilian and other killings going on domestically. One of the forces in this whole controversy is the "Black Lives Matter Movement" and Ciceronianus's article deals with recent abuse of that name. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://theblogofciceronianus.blogspot.com/2016/07/how-not-to-do-things-with-words-black.html">ciceronianus.blogspot.com/2016/07/how-not-to-do-things-with-words</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You'll notice he reserves judgment and analysis on the whole controversy for later. So do I. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Valete, et audete sapere. </span>Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-51989377868966499862016-06-27T17:47:00.001-07:002016-06-27T17:51:10.179-07:00Standing Up ... <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The topic in "Standing Up..." here is Islam and what we can understand of it in the world today. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">More specifically, this topic began as the problem of the superficially "missing" <em>moderate</em> Muslims. It's a common American prejudice nowadays that no one can be Muslim AND be a decent person at the same time; that the religious primacy of God and the Quran universally subverts Reason in Muslims and converts them all into passive or active supporters of Radical Muslim terror. This isn't true, <em>per se</em>, but there have been more than enough murders committed <em>in the name of Islam</em> by fanatics and punks that the notion keeps presenting itself. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But it behooves us to get "relative" about it. (Yes, one can "get relative" without becoming a moron. But if you're a dyed-in-the-wool absolutist anti-relativist for whom the world is always morally black and white, where only "we" are good and all others are bad, then you can just ignore what follows.) While an exception may disprove the absoluteness of a rule, the exception is NOT the rule: the real world is infinitely complex and composed of endless Individuals. Only bigots accept and apply pejorative "rules" to the exclusion of facts. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">My little investigation into the topic of moderate Muslims seems to show me (so far) four political and religious classes of Muslims: </span></div>
<ul>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Atheists who are, technically, 'Muslim' (like the many technical Christians and Jews and so on); </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Moral Believers, people who are Muslim but judge others as people and not by labels; </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Overly Devout folks who are extra-religious or even fundamentalist Muslims who are, nonetheless, horrified and saddened by Radical Islamic terror; and - </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">of course - the Radical (Fundamentalist) Muslims who either support or perform acts of terror. </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I expect the same sorts of division apply to any group of a collective religious or political identity. My point is that American and other reactionaries fail to appreciate the variance in Muslim attitudes and conditions, and instead lump every Muslim in the same trash bin with the Radical Muslims. (The American Left makes the same mistake with Republicans and Christians and so on.) They justify this by the murderous extent of Radical Islam's terror-movement, and its inhuman proclamations. But the excesses of a few are still not the customs of the many. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">There are lots of modern Muslims who, in their own lives, can integrate God, the Quran, AND human decency, just as there are such people in any religious group. We can pin a violent past (or present) on any of these other groups as well, whether Puritanical Christians, Communists, CEO's and "working men", Populists, <em>et cetera</em>; but that doesn't automatically make all the members of such groups murderers and rapists. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I want to mention one author who speaks to the whole question of the "missing" moderates: <u>Ranya Tabari Idliby</u>, author of two books: </span></div>
<ul>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang=""><em>The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew - Three Women Search for Understanding</em> (ISBN 978-0743290487)</span> </span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="" style="font-size: large;"><em>Burqas, Baseball, and Apple Pie: Being Muslim in America</em> (ISBN 978-0-230-34184-5) </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="" style="font-size: large;">I am reading the second of these. Ranya is decidedly Muslim; but she is also decidedly American. She is heroic enough to condemn the murderers and criminals who slaughter and claim it as a service to God; and she is reasoning enough to have a commitment to Freedom and Goodwill - which makes her like a lot of un-sung decent Muslim folk who have not been interviewed or printed or otherwise published. I hope to get back and sum up more of what I get from her book later. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">So, again, for people who think they're People of Good Will, don't condemn all Muslims for the actions of a few angry, crazy macho-types; but do read Ranya's book - very timely reading for all of us non-Muslims (Stoic, Baptist, Atheist, Catholic, Buddhist, whatever). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span> </div>
Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-19374599237412444092016-06-22T13:51:00.002-07:002016-06-22T16:38:58.239-07:00February Thunder(This is an old entry I never actually published. Found it today and - some five months or so late - decided to put it up.) <br />
<br />
========================<br />
<br />
<br />
Salvete, qui legentes - <br />
<br />
Which at this point probably just means ME! <br />
<br />
So is this a blog or a diary? Nescio quid, sed Deo gratias quod hoc in loco nil Flammarum Belli pati debeo! Quod sive totus mundus blogum meum frequentarent, nec mihi grave. <br />
<br />
Februarius is with us, and last night gave us some REAL WEATHER: thunderstorms, rain-drops big as marbles, a near-horizontal wind up to I-don't-know-how-many miles per hour. It was a full-blown bluster, a soaker of a storm! And it renewed itself again come midnight or so; the thunder was so continuous, extended and crescent; it mounted and mounted in volume -- I thought an airliner was crashing on our house. <br />
<br />
Actual thunder. Still something of a novelty for us in the Eastern San Francisco Bay Area. <br />
<br />
Valete. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-64730875700359124402016-03-15T15:25:00.000-07:002016-06-22T17:19:05.365-07:00Some More about God and Men <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">From an earlier note, a week or so ago, that I made to myself. Why I need to try to figure out all these metaphysical maybe's is attributable to Human Nature, and to the subject matter of my studies this term.</span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Epicurus* asked:</span><br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><em>Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not all-powerful.</em></span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? </span></em></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">God exists as something real – the micro-, macro- and astro-scopic Universe itself – huge, infinitely complex, beyond men’s ability to control or comprehend. This is "the Creation", whether it was something created or remains perpetual or whatever its ultimate nature may prove to be. This God can be seen, analyzed, and learned from. Whether it is, as the Stoics claimed, a"providential" one depends on your definition of 'providential', and then upon your experience and your bent in life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">God also exists – subsists, perhaps? – as a feeling, as the experiences of thinking and of conscience – whether these come from the otherwise fanciful <i>pneuma</i> deduced by the Stoics, or from some sort of organic neural feedback, or from whatever. We (at least most of us) carry these and participate in them, and we get the feeling that – well – there's something going on that’s not just material. We can call it soul, <i>pneuma</i>, Daimon, Guardian Angel, Christ-in-us, Reason, moral sense, or even <i>numina</i> that lace the land about us. This God cannot be seen, cannot be proven to be material, remains both hard to pin down but also remains self-evident to us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Whether you claim a Single God (combining all divine attributes), or Two Gods (as I have crudely laid out above), or Three Gods (as in the Christian Trinity, united as One), or a full Pantheon (as in the many and endlessly various Pagan traditions), what we do know is that we are, for the most part, dealing with an Idea whose manifestation is both our whole physical world – the "works" of God – and also our own inner selves. But there’s no other hard evidence, just "hearsay", as Thomas Paine put it. And this evidence that we do have available – that we and the world ARE -- does not have a simple, intelligible signature that quiets all controversy. It is much more complex than that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The only honest notion about God or the Gods, I am convinced, is the Agnostic One – as in, "I don’t know, but I think … !" The actions of worship (on one hand) and reasoning (on the other) are both indications of God, in us, at work. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">===========================</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">* The only authority for this being Epicurus's argument is Lactantius, the only ancient source to quote it. He may have been wrong about having Epicure as the author; in fact, Epicurus's notions of the Gods seem to run counter to the notions inherent in the quote. </span><br />
Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-59973357364665488272016-03-15T14:26:00.000-07:002016-03-15T14:27:43.071-07:00Writer Os GuinnessSalvete, qui legentes - <br />
<br />
(My Latin is so much bullshit! I'm enamoured of it but am so ill-studied. But that is quite beside the point today....) <br />
<br />
I want to mention a very good author, one whom I hold in respect -- while also, at times, arguing with in my lonesome journal: <strong>Os Guinness</strong>, a man of reason and responsibility, a Christian writer who can bridge the gap (at least for me) between what is decent in the moral (and so, intellectual and political) stances of the American Left and Right. It probably helps that he's not from around these parts to begin with. <br />
<br />
Amazon's bio of him lists this: <br />
<ul>OS GUINNESS (DPhil, Oxford University) is an author and social critic. Born in China, he was educated in England at the Universities of London and Oxford. He moved to the United States in 1984.... </ul>
Whether he likes it or not, I count him a proper Humanist, concerned for both real people as well as traditions of wisdom, and keen to penetrate partisan dishonesty. I've read only two of his many books and recommend them both. <br />
<br />
First, <br />
<ul>
<li><strong>The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It</strong></li>
</ul>
but especially this one, <br />
<ul>
<li><strong>Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror</strong> . </li>
</ul>
Need more folk like him. <br />
<br />
Valete. <br />
<ul>
</ul>
<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-24983288453529813932016-03-15T13:53:00.001-07:002016-05-10T13:25:30.919-07:00Metaphysics from IohannesSalve, si aliquis has legit ! <br />
<br />
I am, as affiliations go, a Stoic -- at least, these days. Have been since 2006, a decade or so. I'm currently taking a course from the College of Stoic Philosophers (not accredited, I don't believe) whose classes are done over the Internet, are affordable, and are not bound up in the toils of professional academia. Professional philosophers may sniff at this College (collection of colleagues) but it fulfills a purpose that the unaffordable and scholarly-professional schools do not address -- common people living their lives. <br />
<br />
Enough about the College. I'm grateful they've been around. But I'm currently finishing up a quarter in which we've read on Stoic Physics, which -- for the Stoics -- was also Stoic Theology. We're at the last section, and the subject is Piety. <br />
<br />
Looking over Erik the Scholarch's summation for this quarter, I find myself agreeing with most everything. The one area where I can't agree with Erik and my mentor, Chris, is that of the Stoic God's Providence. The Stoics had an interesting idea of God and of Providence: They argued that while most of the universe is a system of causes (not a chain, not a domino effect), men are set apart, a section in them reserved for a minor sort of divine intelligence (all the universe being infused to greater or lesser degrees with a Cosmic Intelligence that orders things and creates movement and animation and consciousness). What this does is set men (ie, people, humans, of both genders) apart as having a say-so in their own fates. Fate rules all, and yet not finally, because men generally have the power to think and choose. (Rather like Christianity, isn't it? I'm sure there are endless parallels in other religions, too.) <br />
<br />
Where I part with Erik's and Chris's theistic notions is largely in this notion of Providence. What does it mean? I agree that God (as Universal Nature and as the divine Pneuma that pervades it) has provided for men and their survival as a species. But I argue that that is about as far as it goes. Erik and Chris might agree, but we part on the definition of Providence. If the Stoic God (the divine Intelligence innate in the cosmos) were fully provident, we humans would have had a better nature to begin with; we would not be such a miserable, splintered, hostile, dissatisfied and ape-like species. Erik's Providence goes only so far -- which is fine, actually, for Stoicism quite properly looks askance at most notions of Absolute Purity and Infinite this-and-that. We have no Types, no Perfect God, no Perfect Other World; there is only what was, what is, and what comes to be. <br />
<br />
But then Erik quotes this, from our old drill instructor, Epictetus: <br />
<br />
"For if we had any understanding, ought we not, both in public and in private, incessantly to sing and praise the Deity, and rehearse his benefits?" <br />
<br />
Well, yes and no. We might, because we are small and insignificant, and incapable of the kind and degree of creation that Epictetus would have us thank God for. But a question arises: What's the purpose of this incessant praise? Wasn't God doing what he is supposed to, that is, providing? Moreover, isn't that Providence limited? Yes, he's given us a bit for each, in terms of Intelligence, with which to affect Fate on our own; he's sort of 'deputized' us as Junior Gods, you might say. But again, isn't that now our job, to be intelligent, to be good, to be so at the same time that we're being the particular kind of beasts that we (quite demonstrably) are? God does his bit, and we do ours -- and that's the ticket. God deserves praise only insofar as the entire World deserves praise, and most of the world is, to the Stoic, necessarily a thing Indifferent -- a world "not up to us" to control. Moreover, indifference is the Stoic God's personal relation with us -- he's absent, except (again) as Universal Nature and as Our Individual Natures. <br />
<br />
Is this a big deal? No, except that I can't join the Chorus of Theistic Stoics singing, "Praise God for this wonderful life!" when, no, it's not wonderful, but mixed and problematic. Men and Women, Democrats and Republicans, Christians and Muslims? War, serial killers, torture, disease, tooth-and-claw? This may be a providence, a gift of animation, but it cannot be called "a wonderful life". <br />
<br />
"Thank you for the loan, God; I'll try to take care of it as I ought to, this Life, before you get it back from me." I think that sums up the relationship quite well, "incessant praise" aside. If you want God, read Thomas Paine and Camus and you will have a good beginning. Stoicism is to be praised, I think, for putting all that -- earthly experience -- into perspective without resorting to either inflation of the Human Ego past its proper degree, or erecting Idols and demanding sacrificial victims, or simply sugar-coating the whole mess and ignoring evil. Tie your shoelaces and save the drowning, as Thoreau advised; there's no need to get absurd in response to reality's absurdities. <br />
<br />
Vale, et aude sapere. Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-79049999002144683902016-01-29T11:05:00.000-08:002016-01-29T11:05:38.237-08:00Friday Blues: Not Too UnusualSalvete qui legentes êstis - <br />
<br />
Sometimes Friday is graced, not with Venus or Friya or Frigg, but with the proximity of freedom. Not true freedom, for that is rare and has to do more with ability and virtue than with a lack of fetters, but the relative freedom of the coming weekend, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, closing in a kind of eclipse on Sunday evening. <br />
<br />
But sometimes Friday is simply Fatigue-Day, Down-Day, Out-of-It-Day. So today for me. I am in a down cycle, emotionally, and trying to find fresh sources of oxygen (as it were). What is to hand? <br />
<br />
First - Only what is "up to me", what I can do and control or affect. This includes my mood, but not all of it, not my body or my neurology or my complement of good sleep. Those things I can affect, but not command. Even my state of mind, available to suggestion and even command from the "ruling faculty", can be an obstacle and a pitfall. <br />
<br />
But here memory is important, and an internal vigilance: <br />
<ol>
<li>To recall that your emotions and mood are susceptible to your Reason, that Reason is our gift from the Gods or from the Creation, that Great Source of Turmoil, with which to deal with its debris on earth. </li>
<li>I can keep a mental eye open for the self-defeating, the undeservedly-self-castigating, the either-or-despairing, and other fallacious tricks of the mind that -- quite automatically, in my case -- cripple my little self and urge it to self-destruction. </li>
<li>I can patch up what I can in the outside world -- whether at work, with my co-workers, with my family, with my friends and acquaintances, with problems financial -- patch things up with whatever I have of good humor and sensitivity and diligence. </li>
<li>I can above all watch out for Fear, for the Habit of Dread that infects me and my family, and recognize its imprimatur on my thoughts, on my disposition, on my judgments, and pull myself back when I lean too far into it, or reverse my opinion when I see its fell influence on an opinion. </li>
<li>I can look to the 'Engine Room' -- fuel supply, body status, metabolism -- and, quite literally, feed myself with an eye to decent fueling, decent material and nutritional input. I can even improve the 'Guest Quarters' upstairs with a bit of fun food or a glass of wine, some luxury for the weary fool. </li>
<li>And, in terms of what's up to me, I can cut myself a little slack, remember that I'm just a beastie trying to emulate the Gods, a mortal, "only human" as Robocop once said, a multicelled macro-animal gifted with Reason, and that the world is -- above all -- IM-perfect, not made okay, not made safe or good or complete or glorious, but rather dirty and dangerous, uncaring and paltry: as a termite with some Divinity in him, I can rebel against defeat and decline and dismay. </li>
</ol>
There! I'm better already! Improved thanks to Lore, Thought, Reason, thyroxine, caffeine, Ensure© and some sandwich from Subway©, and neither should I forget the affable conversation and amusement afforded us by my boss. Now to the rest of the day, and on to the weekend. <br />
<br />
Omnibus, valete bene. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-18384378686971277162015-12-23T17:38:00.000-08:002015-12-23T17:42:19.045-08:00Standing Up ... Salvete, qui legentes -- <br />
<br />
Another story from the front lines of the global war, the terrorists-against-everyone war. It's a sad enough story (all the terrorism stories are sad, of course) but it's also very, very heartening! I hope this tale of Kenyan heroism in the face of gun-crazy bullies is accurate, and - honest to God - I don't see why it should not be! Here's the link: <br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/12/22/muslims-protected-christians-from-extremists-in-kenya-bus-attack-reports-say/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/12/22/muslims-protected-christians-from-extremists-in-kenya-bus-attack-reports-say/</a><br />
<br />
Valete. Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-47560526338649991792015-12-10T17:53:00.001-08:002015-12-10T17:55:41.345-08:00Some Movement (re prior blog entry, 'Stereotypes') <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Salvete, qui legentes -- </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just after I'd posted the blog entry 'Stereotypes' the other day, the news came out that the attack in San Bernardino was indeed politically and religiously motivated -- although strangely targeted. It's apparently the same old Wahhabist anti-Western violence, this time on a more modest suburban scale. (Guns furnished, gladly, by the membership of the NRA. That's another and potentially salutary group, apparently currently composed of nincompoops, that needs to wake up -- but that'll be a different story.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The news-worthier part of the story is this: that American Muslims are raising money to give help the families of the victims of that attack. Here's a link to the article: </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-muslim-fundraise-20151208-story.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-muslim-fundraise-20151208-story.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> , and to the organization: </span><a href="http://www.celebratemercy.com/"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">http://www.celebratemercy.com/</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> . The fund itself is called "Muslims United for San Bernardino"; they acknowledge that donations of money will not correct the evil done or ameliorate the suffering of the survivors, "but we do hope to lessen their burden in some way." God knows, there <em>will</em> be funeral expenses and more such petty miseries. But what is news-worthy is this: American Muslims are human, and despite their particulars many of them have simple human sympathy for the victims and their devastated friends and families. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Since 9/11, we’ve felt we need to come out of our cocoons,” said Shaykh Mohammed Faqih of the Islamic Institute of Orange County [ </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/m.ibnfaqih/info/?tab=page_info"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">https://www.facebook.com/m.ibnfaqih/info/?tab=page_info</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ]. “We’re as American as anyone else … but if society is not feeling it, it means I’m not doing enough.” Again, Sheik Faqih is of a younger and American-grown generation of Muslims, but by God! he's got the right attitude. He is connected with a religious organization called the AlMaghrib Institute [ </span><a href="http://almaghrib.org/"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">http://almaghrib.org/</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ]. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dr. Faisal Qazi, the Southern Californian neurosurgeon who initiated the fund for the families, has several interesting things to say. "The American Muslim community has had extensive and intense conversations in the last decade about our role in society. What you’re seeing is the coming of a new generation of American Muslims being emotionally and physically invested in whatever transpires in society.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some Muslims do speak out against the violence, despite those voices sounding weak. But they are there, nonetheless. For example, see </span><a href="http://www.m-a-t.org/"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">www.m-a-t.org/</span></u></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> , a Canadian Muslim organization that speaks against it, albeit with a conservatively religious voice. Across the pond in the UK, there is a yearly "UK Arbaeen Procession" which is a Muslim-organized multi-faith march for "unity and friendship between people of all ages and cultures" [ </span><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hundreds-muslims-marching-against-terrorism-6977099"><u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span lang="">http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hundreds-muslims-marching-against-terrorism-6977099</span></span></span></u></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ]. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Better still, to me, is </span><a href="http://www.freemuslims.org/"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">www.freemuslims.org</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> , a group proud to be an American-Muslim organization "willing to attack extremism and terrorism unambiguously." They acknowledge that too many Muslim-American authority figures are not so willing and some are indeed sympathetic to terrorist aims. This adds a note of realism to their stance, that they admit that people in Muslim-American communities have divergent opinions on the crisis. "Free Muslims will challenge these beliefs and target the sympathetic support given to terrorists by Muslims", says their 'About Us' blurb on their website (above). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">All in all, this gives me hope. American Muslims may finally be waking up, especially the younger of them. Now, could some of these sympathetic organizations actually be concealing terrorist supporters? Sure, it's possible. But in what part of human history has there not been angry people? The Republican Party is made of little else, it sometimes seems. There have been more peaceful times, certainly. But think about it: the USA and her republic have survived the Depression, World War II's Nazi Bund, urban riots in the 60's, and (of course) the September 11 attack. Even if -- okay, when -- there is more terrorist bloodshed here at home, still the republic, the American way of life, will survive. It's too good to be thrown away. And I think a lot of American Muslims would say the same. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Bene valete. </span>Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-17979478791920463472015-12-07T18:09:00.002-08:002015-12-07T18:14:40.358-08:00(When I was 58 ...)[An old draft entry that I just checked for errors and then inadvertently published for the very first time. 58 would make this ca. 2013 or so. So view it as something 'historical'.]<br />
<br />
Salvete, qui legunt - <br />
<br />
I am 58 years old at this point. Compared to many, I've never had a life - but that's to be judged from <em>which point of view</em>? My default (or automatic) point of view is that I've had a simply defective life; that others have had the laurels, the striving, the "bling" of it all. Why do I even reflect on that? <i>I</i> am not the <i>others</i>; I am not "normal". If I am polite, it comes of fear - the need to manage people to avoid negative face - blame, shame and anger. If I read, it is because I search for some Bling of Knowledge that will validate what I am and save me the expense of hardship and self-discipline. Or I read for pleasure, to escape work, work, work.... <br />
<br />
From a more reflective point of view, I've simply had MY life - personal, inconsiderable, and more or less unique. In these later years, I'm still trying to come to terms with my own ignorance, and with my own tendency (seen above) to wallow in facile self-criticism. <br />
<br />
Valete.<br />
<br />
<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-53667011747605756712015-12-04T17:00:00.002-08:002016-07-16T19:11:09.618-07:00StereotypesSalvete, qui legentes -- <br />
<br />
The stereotype of the Muslim Terrorist is omnipresent, and, of course, all the more so now after the November attacks in Paris. <br />
<br />
But I myself would like to know more about the people who <em>de facto</em> share the supposed traits of such a Terrorist and yet are NOT themselves supporters of terrorism. This is because of my desire to answer a question: Why is there no appreciable voice coming out of the more-or-less Islamic world generally that repudiates or better yet denounces Muslim absolutism? Are there people of a Mid-Eastern background, a Muslim background, an Arab background, and so on, who can or will solidly denounce Islamic Terror? If there are, they appear to be invisible or at best, timid. <br />
<br />
I see multiple possible reasons for the silence. <br />
(a) News is made by violence and extremism, and not by being reasonable. Tales of terrorism and its horrors sell more commercial spots than reason or decency would. <br />
(b) The voices might be there, but have simply been ignored by the media as not news-worthy! <br />
(c) The voices might be there, but the speakers lacking mutual knowledge, organization or motivation by which to amplify their arguments. <br />
(d) People who are not maniacs are often absorbed by living their lives, rather than debating foreign policy or inviting trouble. <br />
(e) Where poverty and testosterone are prevalent, they strongly inform popular opinion. This leads to manias and brutally simplistic -- even "Final" -- solutions. This "legitimizes" violence for a lot of people. <br />
(f) In popular opinion in all cultures, blame is assigned first to foreigners (e.g., "Mexicans are thieves", etc.) or to fellow-citizens of an opposite political bent (e.g., "Liberals are traitors", etc.). Detachment and reason are not to be expected in popular culture, and blame will automatically be assigned to "the usual suspects", "THOSE people". Many people, in other words, don't know any better. <br />
(g) In the modern cultural environment of the Middle East and quite probably in the world diaspora of Middle-Easterners, the anti-Western terrorists are often seen as heroes: to decry them would invite not only verbal retribution against the speaker but also physical assault and murder. In a word, popular repression silences those who might speak up.<br />
(h) As in most cultures, "If you're not <em>with</em> us, then you're <em>against</em> us!" is very likely the political rule-of-thumb of many in Middle Eastern and Islamic communities. This amplifies (e), (f) and (g) above; see also (i), following. <br />
(i) Any criticism of Arab or Muslim extremism will, following the fallacy in (h) above, be received popularly as <i>support for Israel</i>, and as disloyalty to the <i>Palestinian </i>cause. This could be a problem not only of outward coercion, but of inward conscience as well. <br />
(j) In Islamic culture generally, there has perhaps never been much of a dividing line between God, religion and the state. As a basic and popular idea, then, law may mean religion more than society, and when push-comes-to-shove in debate, religion becomes (mentally, automatically) the constitutional foundation. As a result, absolutism lies ever-ready in the mind, and God is already installed as the ultimate magistrate of things earthly. This is a strait-jacket on the mind and not limited to Islamic culture, by any means. <br />
(k) Tit-for-tat: It is believed that foreign soldiers and American drones are routinely killing the innocent along with the guilty all over the Middle East, and therefore that every massacre of Westerners (or even other Middle-Easterners) may be seen as justified on a kind of eye-for-an-eye basis. <br />
<br />
Given that some or all of this is accurate -- I do NOT know that it is, I hasten to say, but some of it seems most likely to an outsider like myself -- then it would be no wonder to me if Muslims tended to fall in line in silent support of terror, and to ignore their own consciences in favor of their over-zealous "heroes" out on the prowl, who have bagged yet more infidel victims. <br />
<br />
Vobis voluntatis bonae omnibus, bene valete. To you of goodwill, all, be ye well. <br />
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<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1426426555692496468.post-52061432545603159142015-11-20T12:15:00.004-08:002015-12-06T19:50:43.295-08:00Ah, Give Me the Cold War ...In the 1960s, poised beneath the uncertain nuclear stalemate between the USA and USSR, there continued to be hope for universal peace -- the hoped-for product of World War II. The First World War's "never again!" notion had gone to hell with the rise of Bolshevism, the world-wide Depression, and the subsequent rise of Fascism in various formats the world over. World War II made a monstrous desert of much of the earth and a pause ensued -- a hostile one, which began to be amended in the 60s and 70s.<br />
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At my age, I long for the age of nuclear standoff, when there was still a hope in Hell that Russians and Americans might figure out how to get along. I have to remind myself that to be fond of such a time is to be unfair to those who had suffered in the Gulag and otherwise behind the Iron Curtain. Still, what fond hopes. <br />
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But this is life, and friction governs. Universally, the molecules and animals are all itchy and will not be patient, fair or just. Reason goes far to make weapons, only a small way to create peace. Mao Tse-Tung (the fat old spider) ran China into the ground; Pol Pot arose in Cambodia to patriotically murder and destroy his own people; old Russian fascism (Bolshevism, Stalinism, etc.) got its comeuppance in Afghanistan (little did Americans supporting Muslim resistance realize <i>who</i> they were abetting in their covert operations). No, not freedom but new fascisms reveal themselves everywhere, and nowhere so well as in their various forms in the Middle East. Even Israel, child of Jews, a whole people homeless and abused for centuries, succumbed to the Rule of Brutality, and in defending itself became a conqueror and colonizer of others' lands, aping the success of their own Nazi persecutors and the bile and xenophobia of their racist Arab opponents. <br />
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What a world. <br />
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<br />Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14217775787638612600noreply@blogger.com0