tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post2021460776186340653..comments2024-03-27T11:16:36.951-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: The Metamorphosis: Just Say No to Bugs!Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-67681416421759723612013-02-11T09:38:03.778-08:002013-02-11T09:38:03.778-08:00As always, the anglo-germanic strain of the Europe...As always, the anglo-germanic strain of the European cultural milieu is the most reliable of all of them.<br /><br />@Chris<br /><br />There are a number of unpacked potentialities and ironies here, I think, vis a vis the Enlightenment and Classical Liberalism. <br /><br />Firstly, the great violence and spiritual suicide of Europe was both distinctly philosemetic and antisemetic at the same time; you could call it the result of the self-loving self-hating Jew if you will - the radical progressive movements were nearly 100% bohemians of Europe and self-hating Jews. The actual division of these folks varied. But to think of it is a Jewish thing would incorrect, since Judaism, or the culture of the Jew or Hebrew is as old as dirt, it has within it nearly fully expressed opposite potentialities, to the point that Maimonides and Jesus and Marx are all Jewish and come out of a potentiality within that tradition, but are also so different that to point to Jewishness as the root cause is like pointing to humanness as the root cause of murder.<br /><br />You can take the same tack with Christianity and point out that Scholasticism and the Enlightenment as well as Liberal Modernism as we have it are all a species of Christian thought, or the child of one of the seeds of its philosophy. But this doesn't hold water ultimately because of two problems: <br /><br />1. Many rejected and destroyed heresies arose not out of something else, but usually out of an exaggeration of a potential within the faith yet fully elucidated. (Take Sabellianism; without a clear explication that the persons of the Godhead are actually distinct persons and not some tricky play of masks one could be misled into this opinion.) so Communism, Marxism, Episcopaleanism and so forth could simply be considered Christian heresies - in such a case we're only to blame for not putting them down with the sword or at least with proper exile.<br /><br />2. Christianity has and does absorb all philosophies and religions into itself and digests them. There is a movie called 'Zeitgeist' which sees this but doesn't understand it; Christianity - make no mistake - has elements of all of the religious yearnings of man in it - but they are put into balance and changed and baptized. 'All things which are lovely...' as the Apostle put it. This means that more or less, Christianity takes on all of the nascent possibility of error of everything; and indeed creates, almost automatically, brand new possibilities of error in this process. <br /><br />But when you read the clarity of mind of the various saints in their myriad virtues, you can tell the danger is all worth it.Ephrem Antony Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00032465992619034619noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-33749347050097850842013-02-10T20:58:07.927-08:002013-02-10T20:58:07.927-08:00Julie said "Feminist Physics? Isn't that ...Julie said "Feminist Physics? Isn't that like admitting Barbie was right?"<br /><br />At the very least, it seems as if something doesn't add up, doesn't it? Poor Barbie.<br /><br />I've been digging into the history of math education, and it's interesting how it is often flat-out lied about... whether by commission or omission or each by turns, in most supposed histories of it. Some even come out and say that math education began in the 1820's, from scratch, with 'drill & kill', at the behest of business leaders(Rockefeller's & the like to were sooo behind the growth of proRegressivism), because there was no one to learn it from. <br /><br />One thing that's interesting is that it, as it was newly discovered to be taught, became Central to all education plans.<br /><br />I've got a number of my Grandpa's textbooks, printed late 1800's, early 1900's, and over the years I've been in the habit of picking up old textbooks & guides for grammar, history & math, from 1800's up through 1950's, and I've noticed something odd in the math books, particularly in the Algebra texts.<br /><br />The early ones, late 1800's, early 1900's, enter directly into the matter, with little or no preliminaries. Gradually, as you move into the 20's, 30's, 50's and beyond, there is more and more and tediously more, jabbering about the meaning of this and that, and why such and such is important to your life, yada, yada, hey.<br /><br />What strikes me as interesting is that the more our Education in general has been stripped of the imaginative, and grammar has been slighted, the more explanation has been felt to be needed for mathematics - and the worse our comprehension of it has steadily become.<br /><br />Have you ever looked into what used to be taught in the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Quadrivium-Classical-Liberal-Geometry-Cosmology/dp/0802778135" rel="nofollow">Quadrivium?</a> <br /><br />It's tough to find a treatment of it today that's isn't dripping with newage, but it was the study of, and the inter-relatedness, of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, with a focus on the beauty, proportions and shear imagination stimulating - aka mindblowingness - of how geometry, music, biology, astronomy are fused through the study of numbers.<br /><br />If you ever wondered why math has been taught as such a stultifying, Mr. Spockishly cold, unimaginative, or at best sets of 'cool' tricks, it shouldn't be a surprise to realize that it is conceived of entirely inside out by modern education - and that began in earnest, began to be clubbed to death in textbooks as a means of 'progress', at the same time the assault upon Homer, Virgil, the Bible and all the rest got underway, in the early 1800's.<br />Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-64272890712255638582013-02-10T16:33:18.070-08:002013-02-10T16:33:18.070-08:00"SAFETY DRILL DISASTER:
5 Dead After Lifeboat..."SAFETY DRILL DISASTER:<br />5 Dead After Lifeboat<br />Falls Off Cruise Ship"<br /><br />=Death By Lifeboat...gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-25651245920738840902013-02-10T15:37:04.898-08:002013-02-10T15:37:04.898-08:00I always had the feeling that Algebra was totally ...I always had the feeling that Algebra was totally sexist.Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06708393262849661076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-53698602672494568412013-02-10T15:21:03.857-08:002013-02-10T15:21:03.857-08:00never knew this unusual Italian Renaissance work b...never knew this unusual Italian Renaissance work before<br /><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Piero_della_Francesca_042_Flagellation.jpg" rel="nofollow">The Flagellation of Christ</a>gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-29118183155105473832013-02-10T14:23:13.446-08:002013-02-10T14:23:13.446-08:00Feminist Physics? Isn't that like admitting Ba...Feminist Physics? Isn't that like admitting <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO0cvqT1tAE" rel="nofollow">Barbie</a> was right?juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-84974829042716329772013-02-10T13:28:30.148-08:002013-02-10T13:28:30.148-08:0040 years ago i took a newly-offered course on femi...40 years ago i took a newly-offered course on feminist literature at college--the only dude in the class as i rather hoped, and doubtless my presence rather pooped the party for some who may have wished to male-bash unreservedly. I recall just that we studied Zelda Fitzgerald's writings, a theorist named Shulamaith Firestone that seemed pretty hip, and G Stein...<br />-What? No George Eliot?? :)gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72685760748179027752013-02-10T11:30:00.598-08:002013-02-10T11:30:00.598-08:00Believe it or not, there are even courses in "...Believe it or not, there are even courses in "feminist physics." Which actually makes sense, since feminists live in an alternate universe.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16116699605876595502013-02-10T11:10:12.934-08:002013-02-10T11:10:12.934-08:00Maybe the feminists would demand a "logic&quo...Maybe the feminists would demand a "logic" a little something like this:<br /><br />PHALLOCENTRISM OR PHALLOGOCENTRISM: The privileging of the masculine (the phallus) in understanding meaning or social relations. This term evolved from deconstructionists who questioned the "logocentrism" of Western literature and thought, i.e. <b>the belief in the centrality of logos, understood as cosmic reason</b> (affirmed in ancient Greek philosophy as the source of world order and intelligibility) or, in the Christian version, the self-revealing thought and will of God. <br /><br />Feminists illustrate how all Western languages, in all their features, are utterly and irredeemably male-engendered, male-constituted, and male-dominated. Discourse is "phallogocentric" because it is centered and organized throughout by implicit recourse to the phallus both as its supposed ground (or logos) and as its prime signifier and power source; and not only in its vocabulary and syntax, <b>but also in its rigorous rules of logic</b>, its proclivity for fixed classifications and oppositions, and its criteria for what we take to be valid evidence and objective knowledge.<br /><br />From: <br />http://www.cla.purdue.edu/English/theory/genderandsex/terms/phallocentrism.htmlJackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06708393262849661076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-18817525340790132822013-02-10T10:40:55.578-08:002013-02-10T10:40:55.578-08:00Gagdad said "Imagine if, in order to graduate...Gagdad said "Imagine if, in order to graduate high school, students had to take and pass a course in logic. That would pretty much spell the end of the left."<br /><br />It truly would. But... then it would depend upon whether they were taught Logic, or ilLogic. <br /><br />Coonincidentaly, I cracked open Kant's "Introduction to Logic" this morning... and I almost drained the red ink from my pen in the first chapter. It's only 100 pages long, but most of that is entirely unnecessary, within the first three pages his goals are accomplished - you are neatly separated from, and barred from ever returning to, reality. <br /><br />It is remarkable how smoothly and enticingly deceptive he manages to frame his world around you; substituting the 'how' for the 'what', and discrete rules for integrated principles, all is soon inverted as the 'Rules' of reality become what reality must live up to; equivocation in the hands of a master is a truly lethal (or Lethe-all) art. <br /><br />And 'Logic', separated from, and given power over Reality... is such a fearsomely destructive weapon. Which of course is what leads to,<br /><br />"... next thing you know, activists would be demanding equal time for "feminist logic" or "black logic.""<br /><br />Ugh!Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-83531846670858362432013-02-10T10:07:10.600-08:002013-02-10T10:07:10.600-08:00Van: Imagine if, in order to graduate high school...Van: Imagine if, in order to graduate high school, students had to take and pass a course in logic. That would pretty much spell the end of the left.<br /><br />Of course, next thing you know, activists would be demanding equal time for "feminist logic" or "black logic." Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72396458930981706472013-02-10T08:38:06.571-08:002013-02-10T08:38:06.571-08:00"...and generally do a good job at getting to...<i>"...and generally do a good job at getting to the heart of the ____ (Maciavelli, Descartes, Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Marx, Sarte) misosophy."</i><br /><br />Well said. I couldn't agree more. Despite the bad puns.<br /><br />Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06708393262849661076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-42031883906089523382013-02-10T08:15:49.548-08:002013-02-10T08:15:49.548-08:00Gagdad Bob said "This book Summa Philosophica...Gagdad Bob said "This book Summa Philosophica is extremely enjoyable so far. What a fine mental disinfectant! The perfect thing to arm a child with before attending college."<br /><br />I've also enjoyed the heck out of Kreeft's "Socrates meets _____" books. They are fun to read, humorous, packed with bad puns and generally do a good job at getting to the heart of the ____ (Maciavelli, Descartes, Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Marx, Sarte) misosophy.<br /><br />Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40904481583047301742013-02-10T07:59:09.763-08:002013-02-10T07:59:09.763-08:00"Schall makes a passing remark about the forc..."Schall makes a passing remark about the forced materialism of the Soviet state, and about how this compulsory misosophy "is a sign of imprisonment in this world not only by a coercive regime but by modern thought itself" (emphasis mine)."<br /><br />Oh ho... emphasis is sooo mine too. The modern thought has totalitari preceded the modernarian education and the modernarian state, and made them possible by removing the habit of real thought from the modernarian mind. <i>That</i> is Totalitarianism. The avowedly totalitarian state, is simply a state where its people recognize that they no longer recognize the need to be restrained by reality. <br /><br />It is a brave new 1984 where we can welcome our insect overlords, and hope they will eat us last.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40824977207033919982013-02-10T03:19:18.732-08:002013-02-10T03:19:18.732-08:00Mysterious Disease Leaving Philadelphia Women '...Mysterious Disease Leaving Philadelphia Women 'Possessed,' Catatonic... [Drudge}<br /><br />-Chronic cretinoid Obamanosis?gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-78022492734668252592013-02-09T20:35:02.426-08:002013-02-09T20:35:02.426-08:00Evolution in action. Evolution in action. Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-46798587591793214412013-02-09T19:34:49.992-08:002013-02-09T19:34:49.992-08:00I never sensed any rudeness. Besides, this blog ha...I never sensed any rudeness. Besides, this blog has thickened my skin over the years. :)tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-45192078258057438472013-02-09T18:58:08.504-08:002013-02-09T18:58:08.504-08:00Thanks for clarifying. I hope I wasn't being t...Thanks for clarifying. I hope I wasn't being too rude in asking.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-11081815234960067922013-02-09T17:53:12.302-08:002013-02-09T17:53:12.302-08:00Yes Julie, all good points and I am in agreement. ...Yes Julie, all good points and I am in agreement. We need to go beyond the feel-good intentions that the left is prone to, and understand all the unintended consequences we bring about with those intentions. Being more conscious means being awake to the whole and the part.tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-78101194741722802782013-02-09T17:38:58.107-08:002013-02-09T17:38:58.107-08:00ted,
...we better become more aware of how we can ...ted,<br /><i>...we better become more aware of how we can make more conscious value-laden choices.</i><br /><br />Just for clarity, what do you mean by this? What set of values would you have dictate people's choices, and how conscious would you have them be?<br /><br />I only ask because a lot of people <i>believe</i> they are making conscious, value-laden choices, when quite often what they do is the very opposite of what they thought they were doing. Thus "free" healthcare for all, and particularly for the most vulnerable - which sounds on the surface like a fantastic idea, how nice for those poor people who can't afford care - becomes in fact a guarantor that the most vulnerable will be the first to be cut off from care and brought to death, often by some of the most inhumane means. <br /><br />Or for another example, banning plastic grocery sacks in the name of "reducing waste," which again sounds like a fine notion to people so inclined to worry about such things, but results in a whole host of serious problems, not least of which being the increase in cases of food poisoning (which can in fact be fatal).<br /><br />Personally, I have found that so long as the choices I make are (as much as possible for an assoul like me) based generally in the ten and more specifically in the one, I can't go wrong. But it doesn't seem very fashionable to make choices that way, these days.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-73839140054682448932013-02-09T14:27:39.860-08:002013-02-09T14:27:39.860-08:00Of course this quickly becomes incoherent by point...<i>Of course this quickly becomes incoherent by pointing out that simply because we *choose* something e.g. abortion, narcissism, Obama etc in no way makes it of "higher" value. This is almost the definition of leftist error.</i><br /><br />True Jack. But since we are always making choices, and those choices are consequentially more complex (in the techno/cultural/social systems that we reside within), then we better become more aware of how we can make more conscious value-laden choices. They may not always be "higher," but what choice do we have? (no pun :). tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-91779447098675396592013-02-09T12:20:45.914-08:002013-02-09T12:20:45.914-08:00and:
"The answer of the theory of natural la...and:<br /><br />"The answer of the theory of natural law is indicated by the word <i>completion</i> in our formula. If existence is deprived what it requires for its completion, evil arises."<br /><br />Natural law is therefore inherently dynamic and directional rather than tendentious and ultimately random.<br /><br />My guess is that Wilber wants to include Kant's notion of moral autonomy in his view of "evolution". That is, that *we* choose the direction of our so-called higher developmont.<br /><br />Of course this quickly becomes incoherent by pointing out that simply because we *choose* something e.g. abortion, narcissism, Obama etc in no way makes it of "higher" value. This is almost the definition of leftist error. Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06708393262849661076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-69467914097692363272013-02-09T12:13:40.028-08:002013-02-09T12:13:40.028-08:00RE: Evolutionism vs. Absolutism.
I have been read...RE: Evolutionism vs. Absolutism.<br /><br />I have been reading "Plato's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law" by John Wild. A book off of one of Schall's reading lists.<br /><br />To quote:<br /><br />"By natural law, or moral law, I mean: <i>a universal pattern of action, applicable for all men everywhere, required by human nature itself for its completion</i>."Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06708393262849661076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-59540601214654764182013-02-09T11:35:09.484-08:002013-02-09T11:35:09.484-08:00BTW, I think Guenon suffered from frank paranoia, ...BTW, I think Guenon suffered from frank paranoia, for what it's worth. Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1676301584801254442013-02-09T11:33:55.059-08:002013-02-09T11:33:55.059-08:00Chris:
I think the main problem with the so-calle...Chris:<br /><br />I think the main problem with the so-called Traditionalist view vis-a-vis modernity is that they hold an a priori metaphysical principle that says that time is necessarily decaying as it travels further and further from the "origin." This is certainly no part of Christianity or Judaism. It is essentially a pagan belief, so I suppose it's traditional in that reagard. But so too is human sacrifice, so antiquity confers no necessary inoculation from goofiness. Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.com