Musings, Critiques.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The 'issue' only becomes 'absolute' when it is placed in an 'absolute philosophy'. It is a 'special, new organization of certain concepts, dolled-up by new theoreticians', and this is what is being critiqued, principally.

But you have a hard time demonstrating that there is such an organization in the first place. You appear to see artificial orchestrated structures where there are at most some haphazard arrangements. Or asked in another way: in which form would you rather have these concepts being organized on-line?

[Alex Jacob]

You seem to have difficultly with that and take issue with that usage.

I take issue with the way David uses it: My understanding of an 'Absolute'...against the whole world! I do not mind any usage, per se, and these conversations are productive attempts to forge wider understanding. That is my view in them and my role, whether you declare it as such or not!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

...that modernity as well as postmodernity contains evolved, superior types of understanding. It lacks any context.

No, it lacks the content that you value. But postmodern perspectives do indeed open up the possibility of comparing established sets of belief, canons, attitudes, assumptions, and such. It certainly has a productive and 'creative' side. And that CAN become part of 'superior understanding'.

No, I meant your statement about evolution lacked context. Has it even to do with understanding in a spiritual sense or is it about mapping the universe?

[Alex Jacob]

But you have a hard time demonstrating that there is such an organization in the first place. You appear to see artificial orchestrated structures where there are at most some haphazard arrangements. Or asked in another way: in which form would you rather have these concepts being organized on-line?

No, you have a hard time recognizing that a special and tendentious organization has been made. I suggest a problem lies there, not in me.

What is the difference between 'artificial orchestrated structures [or] at most some haphazard arrangements'?

I am not sure what you mean by 'in which form would you rather have these concepts being organized on-line?'

(Or have I lost track of what your subject is in the above? Can you clarify?)

[Alex Jacob]

No, I meant your statement about evolution lacked context. Has it even to do with understanding in a spiritual sense or is it about mapping the universe?

Could be both, I suppose. I am not sure what 'understanding in a spiritual sense' IS, and y'all have shown me, in strong terms, why we need to continue to work on our definitions!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

No, I meant your statement about evolution lacked context. Has it even to do with understanding in a spiritual sense or is it about mapping the universe?

I am not sure what 'understanding in a spiritual sense' IS, and y'all have shown me, in strong terms, why we need to continue to work on our definitions!

Spiritual in the sense that it's not about the map or the mapping but about the universe. Whichever way language or culture evolves, how could the extending, morphing maps change anything fundamentally?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But you have a hard time demonstrating that there is such an organization in the first place. You appear to see artificial orchestrated structures where there are at most some haphazard arrangements. Or asked in another way: in which form would you rather have these concepts being organized on-line?

What is the difference between 'artificial orchestrated structures [or] at most some haphazard arrangements'? Or have I lost track of what your subject is in the above?

You were talking about an "absolute philosophy" as some "special, new organization of certain concepts, dolled-up by new theoreticians". But concepts are always organized in some manner, this doesn't make it: a. some unique philosophy, b. absolute in form and wording, c. theoretical.

But it's not just some specific collection of "Zen" ideas you have been disagreeing with (which in itself would be fine and educational). You have been interpreting it so that the actual words and phrases, the haphazard and practical arrangements themselves would have been lifted to absolute law, something "perfect". That all of the utterances your are critiquing would have been elevated to being non-contestable and perfect. This is what you actually believe the other is doing? But to hold something as "absolutely true" is something completely different, way more asymptotic. There's no way to convey all this but through talking asymptomatically. It all starts sounding the same that way, I guess.

You behave at times like a real-estate agent walking into a convention of economists who are discussing the particular expansions and contractions of housing bubbles. The agent takes the stand and then introduces to the audience new perspectives on opportunities for timesharing at Porto Rico or the housing boom in Turkey. "New opportunities, broader your horizons, you professor-types who live in basements, student rooms and bad neighborhoods". Wouldn't that be a strange sight? But this is exactly what you look like doing here, Alex. You're not wrong in general but you're just applying your knowledge fantastically wrong. Missed opportunities indeed!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

we need to continue to work on our definitions!

That's a more spiritual and philosophical endeavor than you might think!

[Alex Jacob]

The last two paragraphs of the second to the last post above, to my ears, were not as cogent as they might have been. My steps in the direction I am moving are tentative but not altogether uncertain. My presentation may not be as tight as it could be but I am within the realm of reason.

But this is exactly what you look like doing here, Alex. You're not wrong in general but you're just applying your knowledge fantastically wrong. Missed opportunities indeed!

If it is 'not wrong in general' then I have, in some sense, achieved my goal, if only in relation to you. If I am applying my knowledge 'fantastically wrong', I think you are going to have to attempt to fill that out a little more.

At the same time I might also say 'Sez you!' I am very happy with all my posts up to this point.

That's a more spiritual and philosophical endeavor than you might think!

I always have the sense from you, and it seems quite arrogant to me, that you 'define' spirituality, that you know better than me or others what 'it' is. QRS does this too. I don't think you do, but this does not mean I am not interested in knowing what you think. Myself and many others have lived 'spiritual lives', meaning we have a spiritual life. Although in general QRS dismiss all other spiritual lives as 'ignorant' and God knows what else, it has always occurred to me that this is just boyish bluster. To discern inner, subtle meanings in things is often such a personal question. One finds 'wisdom' in unlikely places, I have found. It tends to humble one a little bit.

But this is exactly what we MIGHT talk about: what 'real wisdom' is, what it is composed of.

In the Epistle of James---and this is just an example---it says:

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

What if it turned out that, in the end, it were about really simple and basic things? Just arriving at being a fairly decent person? That is in truth a HUGE attainment, and all this advanced metaphysic, soaring theorization, cutting off body parts to live 'spiritually'...might be mere boyish childishness.

It is just a suggestion, I am not advocating for this alone. Still, in my own spiritual processes, I have come face to face with such 'simple messages' delivered to an inner ear, and so I am certain have many others.

[Beingof1]

It really is that simple. It is so simple, it is hard to understand, because it is so very simple.

1) Love the Lord thy God with all your mind, soul, heart and strength.

2) Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is enlightenment.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

It really is that simple. It is so simple, it is hard to understand, because it is so very simple.

1) Love the Lord thy God with all your mind, soul, heart and strength.

2) Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is enlightenment.

Once it's realized who and where God is and who and where your neighbour resides. And knowing yourself. Three natures to realize before any love flows. That is enlightenment,

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I always have the sense from you, and it seems quite arrogant to me, that you 'define' spirituality, that you know better than me or others what 'it' is.

It's a never ending attempt to express it, naturally. There is no single useful definition lying around. But looking for ways and roads to give expression to it, and not only within philosophical discussions, is what spirituality is about. You cannot, never ever, distill anything from the words, theories or stories. You find something yourself and give expression to it. That's the direction which can look arrogant, since it's not about something coming in, but something flowing out. Actually you are writing in the same manner. It all flows out of you in one direction but for some reason you insist you're trying to learn something here! Perhaps about psychology....

[David Quinn]

Esteemed Seer David!

The issue of postmodernism in the context of this forum, these discussion, me and you and all others, is interesting. Although you seem only to seek to reapply a label to me, which in your mind will undermine my view of you and your 'project' (you ALWAYS do this and to everyone over the years who disagrees with you), you once again engage in a form of binary thinking, and this thinking can be critiqued.

Generic. Your thinking is equally binary in all of this, and you are just as liberal with your labeling.

For example, you are judging me to be a "fundamentalist" in thinking that I have understood the truth, which is a binary label (as all labels are, in the end).

When Pye stated that your postmodernism comes from focusing on form rather than content, it prompted you to reject this by saying that you do indeed focus on content. I can understand why you think this because it is probably true that you do focus on content most of the time. But, and this is the significant point, you only focus on content when the issue of truth is completely out of the picture. When it is absent, you are able to read and explore all the content you want. But as soon as the issue of truth looms on the horizon, you instinctively slip into postmodernist mode and your focus shifts from content to form. This enables you to reduce the truthful person to the status of a fundamentalist, and to reduce truth itself to just another perspective.

It could be said that there are three different types of individual: the fundamentalist (who sticks resolutely to a particular perspective), the postmodernist (who dismisses fundamentalism) and the sage (who dismisses both fundamentalism and postmodernism). The postmodernist represents a broadening of the mind away from the fundamentalist, and the sage in turn represents a further broadening away from the postmodernist. The postmodernist, however, only sees two types of individual (the fundamentalist and the postmodernist), and indeed, his very identity as a thinker is formed in contrast to the fundamentalist. So when he comes face to face with a sage, and he sees that the sage is not a postmodernist, he automatically categorizes him as a fundamentalist. And in doing so, he turns his back on truth.

Now, you know that I do not feel that what you offer as a synthesis of such an absolute truth, for all people and all times, as the end of all questioning and dialectic, is sufficient, if that is the right word. In truth, you hold up the possibility of the existence of Absolute Truth as an abstract, philosophical platform or realization, if we were to be really honest about it.

No, as I have said many times before, it isn't abstract. This is your postmodernist conditioning kicking in. By painting realization of the Infinite as an abstract thing it allows you to reduce it to an act of fundamentalism and to dismiss it.

In reality, realization of the Infinite is the very antithesis of all abstraction. I know this because I have realized it.

You cannot yourself claim having achieved some 'absolute state',

I don't claim to have achieved some kind of "absolute state".

It is no wonder to me that you can begin to equate yourself with so-called divine figures! But I do recognize that you do not consider Jesus a 'divine' figure, nor the Buddha, but just men who have realized the truths that you expound. But still, according to your own definitions, your realization is a realization of something essential and fundamental to our Cosmos. It is the one, basic, bottomline 'Truth', and it will therefor necessarily HAVE TO BECOME an absolute system through which the human being acts in this world.

I don't know what you mean by "system". There is no system. The truth can be talked about in all sorts of different ways, utilizing all sorts of different concepts, ranging from the complex Christain thought-processes of a Kierkegaard to the streamlined bullet-like missives of a Huang Po. Becoming conscious of the Infinite is like becoming conscious that one is alive. Both involve unwavering facts that can be talked about in endless ways.

Taking it further, one imagines (as in ancient China and in Japan) an elite of 'enlightened' Seers of Truth who guide the State, develop its educational institutions, have responsibility for creating the Kingdom of the Enlightened Buddha in this plane of existence.

Now, is this 'bad' in itself? That is not really the word. For in fact we (our Occidental culture, and the very 'selves' constructed through that project), are coming out of a Mediaeval World View that mirrors the Buddhist-Orientalist vision in many ways. Five or six hundred years ago all of us would have held to a similar Absolutist view of the Cosmos, of Government by Divine Kings with established links and relationships to God Himself, and human society oriented around service...to this constructed view of reality!

All of us? I think Meister Eckhart would have something to say about that.

Postmodernism is, in this sense, a natural and inevitable evolution in thinking!

That's true in a sense. Postmodernism represents a broadening of the mind, which is a good thing. It only becomes a problem when people stop within postmodernism and set up their homes in it. It then becomes a form of fundamentalism.

Anyway, this will be my last post here for a while, as I want to work on my next blog. I trust, Alex, that you will remain true to your word and not slip back into generically denigrating the group as a whole. I will be watching....

[Dennis Mahar]

Diebert,

It's a never ending attempt to express it, naturally. There is no single useful definition lying around. But looking for ways and roads to give expression to it, and not only within philosophical discussions, is what spirituality is about. You cannot, never ever, distill anything from the words, theories or stories. You find something yourself and give expression to it. That's the direction which can look arrogant, since it's not about something coming in, but something flowing out. Actually you are writing in the same manner. It all flows out of you in one direction but for some reason you insist you're trying to learn something here! Perhaps about psychology....

It's OK to have a love of writng,
but when the words aren't understood it amounts to the chirping of a cricket.

As Heidegger successfully argues a word has its own being, is a referrent to an aspect of being of human being.
His plea to 'get' language falls on deaf ears.
His plea to look at what language does falls on deaf ears.
His plea to think about thinking falls on deaf ears.

When the ancients put together language they were putting in place signs that identified a human action that was repeatedly seen with the eyes.
the words represented activities.
they wanted to differentiate one action from another by locking it away in its own sign.
the sign is only about representing a differentiated activity.
when the sign was spoken and heard, the speaker and hearer 'got' the activity.

for instance love represented desiring,
the language builders saw with their own eyes this activity of a human attaching to or insisting on being in as close a proximity as possible to someone or something else.
love also was grokked as a sickness because of the witnessing of a plethora of crestfallen suitors unsuccessful in their desire to attach.
love also meant the action of being 'swept away' and 'losing one's head'.
falling out of love was a common event.
fall is an action.
He fell out of love and came to his senses was a witnessed event.

love as a noun is a confusion.

The actual meaning of God was not a noun,
the language builders saw with their own eyes a human activity of 'invoking, imploring, calling upon'.

God means that action.

It's a massive confusion to have God in place as a noun.

adjectives and adverbs are seriously doubtful.

[Beingof1]

It really is that simple. It is so simple, it is hard to understand, because it is so very simple.

1) Love the Lord thy God with all your mind, soul, heart and strength.

2) Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is enlightenment.

Once it's realized who and where God is and who and where your neighbour resides. And knowing yourself. Three natures to realize before any love flows. That is enlightenment,

Thank you Diebert. You solved the koan of all koans in the New Testament. Namaste and maranatha.

These three that you mention become One. Once these three become One, the One disappears and becomes nothing. The One then reappears in a form of resurrection of transcendence by choice.

Agape then flows without impediment.

Appreciate this that you shared.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

What if it turned out that, in the end, it were about really simple and basic things? Just arriving at being a fairly decent person? That is in truth a huge attainment, and all this advanced metaphysic, soaring theorization, cutting off body parts to live 'spiritually'...might be mere boyish childishness. ... It is just a suggestion

This is something to work with. First we would have to establish what "decency" would be. Not that long ago a person born in Africa or in slavery wasn't considered decent simply because of being different and being less cultured. It was not a question of them being aggressive or thieves. And somehow I suspect you are not suggesting a return to being a gentle, in-tune-with-the-forest, tribesman of some kind. It seems you are introducing a lot with that word "decency", something like "conformity to recognized standards of propriety or morality" (dictionary) with some added cultural adjustments perhaps. So you are suggesting that either spirituality actually means conformity to ruling ethics, or that current ethical standards are universally valid and a golden standard, the result of thousands of years of spiritual efforts to civilize and culture mankind? Of course I'm just trying to interpret you here.

It's interesting that you suggest here to declare all notions of "advanced metaphysics", soaring theory, celibacy or monastery life to be, possibly, "boyish childishness". Oh boy, even Quinn and Solway salvage at least some elements from a couple of traditions. You seem to flush baby and bathwater together in one mighty drain! Talking about abrasiveness and corroding tactics: you just proposed to dissolve a lof of human effort and sacrifice with even more powerful agents than any "poisons for the hearts"!

[Alex Jacob]

You missed the point, naturally. And it is not a bad one, and it is certainly in harmony with much Orientalist gobbledegook. Sometimes the most profound revelations have to do with the simplest truths. Someone recently made a reference to 'narcissistic intellection' or something to that effect in a private message. That would refer to a narcissistic relationship to 'soaring' mental constructs, etc. Sometimes we just LOVE the structure and the image over the content. And the content might be very simple. When I speak to 'boyishness' in relation to narcissistic intellection, I am naturally making allusions about such a tendency.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Sometimes we just LOVE the structure and the image over the content. And the content might be very simple. When I speak to 'boyishness' in relation to narcissistic intellection, I am naturally making allusions about such a tendency.

Very good! But this of course is just as well a neat summary of a few years or criticism of at least a dozen posters against much of your writing. Perhaps, maybe, you could reach a temporary platform where you could work with these notions of "the content being very simple" and the dangers of loving structure, image and "intellection" (intellectualness?). Then again, this very forum has been in my view always an attempt to create such platform. Perhaps you can start improving it further then? To try to describe the simplicity of the content and breaking down any structure which might stand in the way.

[Alex Jacob]

Nice try, Diebert. But my main interest over the last few years, once I captured the nature of the project here (as distinct from the possibilities of the project of religious conversion), has been to critique the thinking system, which though it is not recognized nor appreciated is 'constructive work'. To express why the System is flawed is an hermeneutical work, and also an uphill battle since, as I said in my opening post in this thread, there is a near complete lack of criitical thought vis-a-vis the Cores. It is not a simple System and the work of examining it is not a simple project.

Deciphering all such knotted complexity in the culture surrounding us is similarly a fraught undertaking, and I think this especially is where intellection serves us. But all this brings us back to hermeneutics and also perhaps to Hermes both as trickster and deception as well as the tools to unfasten ourselves from 'traps'.

The most formidable resistance to my writing and it's content usually comes from those with the greatest investment in the questionable tenets of the 'thinking system' and, as you give evidence, will stoop at nothing to discredit the 'investigative effort'.

This is in essence 'what I am doing here' and, most curiously, I must deal with the Bulldog who guards the Temple whose role is to defend both the entrance and the Inner Sanctum.

;-)

But I am certainly not complaining!

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well Alex, you can certainly try and you have for a long time now. Good grieve! But I don't think there's an actual "thinking system" to critique for you. And I suspect you're building one from straw, containing elements of your own issues, to be able to still do it. And yet it's still interesting at times to read and ponder. You are noticing a "complete lack" of critical thought but I am noticing a lack of thinking system altogether. If I am right then your project will certainly be an uphill battle, a lost battle, since there's no hill to climb but your own. Then again, if you can convincingly outline the systematic elements, you could have another type of conversation here. But so far it's all very sketchy and suggestive to me.

I don't think your paranoia type of thinking about "formidable resistance" is justified. It sounds like some Christians would talk: the greater the resistance, of course from the Devil, the more evidence we have we're doing God's work! Not a very honest attitude but I've grown up with people like that. I can smell the desperate type of thought from miles!

The reason I'm acting like a Bulldog in your eyes is a bit more complex and not only because I grew up with one as a pet! I'm interested in ideas and contrast. Since I do not recognize much or any of the "structure" in the ideas at this forum, I can only debate the structures present in the critiques. As long as it's coherently written and somewhat responsive, I engage in the discussion, when I have the time of course. You are like the fourth or fifth visitor over the years whom I discussed with a bit more extensively . Mostly because you are returning and regurgitating the same things again and again which is causing me to find different ways to react to it (although I did skip a few times). You appear like an alien species which I love to study. You are not thinking like the people I know from working, living, loving, hating and writing in my life so far. Do you have any idea how unusual you are in the unequivocal and tendentious way you are presenting critique? It's almost overshadowing all the content which can be remarkably good - don't get me wrong!

[Alex Jacob]

In my case, to arrive at cogent descriptions of what I see 'operating' in the QRS structure of ideas, requires a great deal of study. I think you can verify this yourself since a few years ago the subject of Christianity was a cipher for me personally. When I started looking into it my ideas began to shift on many levels. I needed to gain this understanding because the Quinnian take on it is so blatantly wrong, and because so very few anymore have enough background to really be able to understand what they are jettisoning. Basically a whole culture is doing this. This is serious stuff and it all has implications that extend far beyond the fishbowl of GF. I have attempted to talk about some of that in my posts and at the very least have satisfied myself.

But just so you and I understand each other a little better: the whole notion and the fact of 'jettisoning' cultural---what is the word?---attainments and accomplishments? all that is a sort of basic cultural capital, is an on-going phenomenon almost everywhere. One aspect of postmodernism as a serious problem is that it is fractured thinking by fractured people. The postmodern problem, in my view, is the postmodern person who can no longer think. But let's not get hung up in that wretched word. What I note here principally is akin to an invasion of Vandals who arrive in the cultural center drunk on their own passion, who are unable to distinguish those things of value from other, glittering things and chimerical things. They have none of the required background nor even the interest to offer measured, careful critiques (of the present) and they 'cobble together' a radical program which they then set up as the be all and end all of spiritual and philosophical possibilities! Correct them at your peril, thou postmodernistic dog!

I have tried to work that angle a few times: uneducated dolts, assertive peasants, destructive know-nothings (to borrow Harold Bloom's apt phrase). I know that this must sound very, very harsh to some people who consider themselves intelligent even if they have no possible claim to literacy, but when one encounters this LEVEL of arrogance and presumptuousness here---for example in David Quinn (though it hurts me to say this on some level), but in many others who have or do post here---it is a necessary and even a humane response! (Like shooting a maimed horse is humane...)

You are not allowed to tromp over such an array of cultural achievements and treasures with impunity. But you see to SAY that, to them, has no effect: they have not the slightest idea what you are talking about!

All I can tell you is that, from my angle, I have dealt with a sort of vehement anger and 'violent contempt' by certain true-believer figures here. You wouldn't necessarily feel it unless you had been on the other side of it. I have asked myself, after I recovered from the surprise: What is here that is being defended with such energy? When one brings forward critiques, why is it so necessary to shoot them down? What is that 'structure' within a thinking system that must be so furiously defended? What is to be lost? If you think I am the only one who has noticed this, Diebert, I really think you owe it to examine a little more in depth.

The nature of the GF program is structured in a violent opposition...to the present. It gains a good deal of its fuel through opposition. There is a great deal that can be said about that, and when one digs under the surface one begins to encounter and to isolate the sources of opposition (to the present). On one level, your 'greater resistance...greater evidence of doing God's work' argument has some validity. And you know that I base much of my opposition to the general program to its vehement denial of 'the human' and the humanistic. You know that I see and isolate an 'acid' that is thrown on one's own self.

And you probably suspect that even though I share to some degree a good percentage of the QRS resistance to the feminization processes of men, that I am deeply suspicious of their cutting themselves off from women and the feminine. That is a whole area that can be reexamined. And you know that I feel I have good reasons to throw up a red flag at the evident 'thralldom' to Buddhistic and Zennish 'strategies' of interpreting reality, our selves, and that I think the intercourse between the East and the West in our own cultural milieu has numerous suspect elements (and I am certainly not the only one to voice these concerns) especially when it leads to destructive impulses against our own accomplishments.

And you know that it seems to me that the QRS 'reasoning' emphasis and self-assertion is not fully earned, and at least as far as Quinn goes, it is absurd because he is a mystagogue of the first order who absurdly uses reasoning skills to define an absurd mystical platform which people drink down, glug, glug, without examination.

These are men who are deeply uncomfortable with their masculinity, in fact, and that is another area where many questions can be asked. But if you ask these and other questions, you will be shot down in no time, attacked, etc. For reasons I do not understand you have a strange blindness to some of the dynamics that show up here repeatedly.

Since I do not recognize much or any of the "structure" in the ideas at this forum, I can only debate the structures present in the critiques.

The 'structure' of ideas I am talking about has to do with non-participation in the world. I think that is really the main element of it. Deep dissatisfaction with 'the world', with the people in it, with the doings of the world. There is much that can and has been said about this and certainly not just me who has said it. Part of your problem is you do not really have much of a sense of what this 'idea structure' is and how it compares with others that are more inclusive.

You are like the fourth of fifth visitor over the years whom I discussed with a bit more extensively . Mostly because you are returning and regurgitating the same things again and again which is causing me to find different ways to react to it (although I did skip a few times). You appear like an alien species which I love to study. You are not thinking like the people I know from working, living, loving, hating and writing in my life so far. Do you have any idea how unusual you are in the way you are presenting your ideas? It almost overshadows all the content which can be remarkably good - don't get me wrong!

I think you are perhaps thinking of the Talking Ass©? Now he WAS an interesting fellow, and his methods were, to say the very least, unconventional. You have no idea how much fun it was to create this antithesis of QRStian (skewed) idealism, a literal dumb ass, someone whose only concern was his priapic organ and his barnyard philosophy. And then all the historical and Biblical associations, the Pagan associations, that no one could even pick up on because of their core illiteracy! His sentimentalism! His kindliness! But also his profound self-knowledge reminding us of HH in Nabokov's Lolita! What must have it been like for a group of asses to have to 'talk' with a Talking Ass! But no one here ever captured just how easy it was to mirror their absurdities since they did not at all see themselves as absurd! No Diebert, that was not mere parody---that was Art!

In any case, I hope to get around to talking about 'conversion' from an historical angle. Conversion and the way it functions is fundamental to Occidental culture. Pretty interesting stuff. The QRS program is a program of Conversion with a strong prophetic disquietude (hence the deep dissatisfaction with and rebellion against the present).

I will stay obediently here on my recalcitrant little thread and so will pose no threat to anyone.

;-)

[Trevor Salyzyn]

You read too much. Go out into the world and figure out what each o those words means. Try the psychiatric system. They will bleed you dry. They try me, but I'm an overflowing goblet.

[Jamesh]

Alex wrote a few days ago:

It could be argued, though, that the koan-method, included in an aggressive system of mental reform which is quite coercive, represents a breaking down of the reasoning mind, in a way similar to Chinese 'thought-reform' which is socially-engineered and deeply, intentionally coercive, and designed to force the individual to surrender.

To look at the coercive base in monastic Zen (it requires a review of the historical circumstances), and to compare the outcomes of that therapeutic method, or thought-reform method, and to compare it with 'our own' Occidental methods of mentation and the outcomes of our mentation, is what interests me here.

Yeah, it is horse for courses, we know that.

At the same time nobody achieves anything great without having suffered in some form. Brainwashing by causing certain habitual behaviour shouldn’t be needed in today’s wealthier world where there is opportunity for all to access philosophical content - except of course, animal level brainwashing is that basically all that we actually see “out there”.

As the numbers tide is against you here you are probably just feeling a little sensitive.

Do we dissolve and 'destroy' our 'ego' or do we work on and improve our 'ego' to act creatively in our world? There is something to be said about two distinct methods and, as you imply, 'outcomes' (endgames).

Well I see it more as realigning the ego so that many of its inappropriately constructed Execute This Action subroutines cease to require the addition of emotional feedback to determine the best actions that should be taken.

Does this process, this Will To Revalue Learnt Value System Variables As Zero, leave some floundering – why sure.

I don’t feel responsible for the minds or difficulties of other selves though. Their life is theirs. It is not my place to make any insistence on what they should. Why is it yours? A miracle of altruistic love perhaps.

For some or many of those who become more delusional in trying to reach the impossible dream, well I can’t help thinking that was likely to happen in some form in any case, or, perhaps more likely they would endure other forms of suffering in seeking relief for their mental pains.

Although I did not originally feel this way, I no longer believe that the QRS should feel any responsibility for being a causal factor in some people finding their own madness. Were the QRS “tamer” then they’d just be priests giving false comforts. They give sufficient warning IMO.

I just feel that something more instinctually artistic has an opportunity to develop and blossom after that confused and/or nihilistic stage. The artistry is the full use of ones perceptive capabilities, and thus is the full utilisation of one’s human-ness. It is not simply the skill of how well one fits in and aids other humans as one might do by focusing the ego towards valuing that subset of reality, but by broadening the ego so that everything is valued equally.

It is a sense of seeing things as they really are, which we all feel at times when we create our truths in the moment, but in some, through their consistently graceful tone and manner and output, it can be seen as being more pure - not an action, but a nature. It is more than the gracefulness of wise amicable old men or women or those who’ve made significant achievements in some endeavour through difficult circumstances.

I suggest too that the impulse to succumb to a process of 'thought-reform' is not as wholesome as it is supposed. Indeed, you make this 'wholesomeness' argument in your post, and compare a koan-method (which you deplore) with the Gospel thralldom to 'miracles'. While it is true that Zen ideation, if put on the table to discuss rationally, might result in any number of different interpretations and conclusions about thinking, seeing or believing, it is wise to understand that Zen and all the forms of Buddhism in actual practice were completely submerged in 'magical' and 'miraculous' ways of seeing and being in reality. Indeed, the Taoist precursor and even the Zen anchorite at that time was seen as a hyper-potent figure; one with access to magical abilities. The point here is how ideas, practices and methods in our quest to 'understand ourselves and reality' have evolved from certain bases. One can trace these things, look at them, and make judgments.

Other than in relation to myself and the entertainment of making judgments concerning worldly matters, I care very little about what occurred in the past or what specific situational causes lead to false thinking. Dead ends as they are impossible to properly weight competing issues and confirm hypothesis.

That disinterest, and my general disinterest in academic detail, is probably mainly caused by a poor memory in relation to detail. I have preference for generalisations. Lists of precise differences are important only in a ego-competition sense – that’s only when difference counts. I use differences in worldly matters, such as to explain my rejection of the Islamic religion due to its effects on the personalities of its followers. For me, for my philosophy, it is the opposite – what counts is what is the same, it is the consistencies that count.

Here on this forum thought-reform is a personal choice of people who actually think about things and context. You use complex polite arguments but the undertone is that we are like kids going to church because daddy wants us to.

It is possible to argue, that at the end of aggressive processes of Zen coercion through sleep dep, through the force of personality of an incontestable and absolute authority, and through the immersion in mind-bending and manipulative zennish practices, that 'satori' is, and I quote myself: 'The final, critical collapse under an accumulation of stress and conflict which is produced by intense and paradoxical pressure on the individual'. It is possible to suggest that this is, perhaps, not such a very good thing, and it is possible to suggest that it may not be a good thing for you or for me.

Therefore, 'crossing the road' may be a trip to avoid!

Do I give fuck. I fairly intensely disliking going to work and I am trapped by the need for some form of constant external entertainment. I don’t live sustainably. I will die young from not respecting my body. I've nothing to lose - other than sanity.

Still I already know myself, and David has referred to the difficulties of people like me crossing the road in his blog posts, that an attempt is unlikely to be successful.
I am not ready - Lol, I’ve been reading fantasy*/sci-fi novels over the last couple of years, in place of any philosophical discourse (other than bits and pieces posting to an online newspaper). In regards my loss of interest in philosophy, well I don’t think there are any more “explanations” I need to understand, they would just be academic entertainment, and as mentioned academia is not my forte. (*if anyone likes fantasy – try Patrick Rothfuss).

David and Kevin’s outcome is not for me. I’m more like Dan - a cynical cunt. David is too religious for me - I can’t stand earnestness (though if I do leave work, the tips in blog posts will be utilised). I don’t class myself as a natural thinker (which is a whole of life experience), I’m more of a natural pessimist, which only leads to thinking when caused to by external circumstances. Pessimism causes a lot of self-reflection as a result of negative feedback – the same as the degree of negative feedback you get for your pessimism in regards the philosophy/truths valued here. You seem to be a bit different as you DO NOT SELF-REFLECT, so I categorise you as a “Republican type”, a peculiar type of conservative, who found SELF via rebelling against the democratically inclined values of your parents by being an Atheist to Zen :)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I needed to gain this understanding because the Quinnian take on it is so blatantly wrong, and because so very few anymore have enough background to really be able to understand what they are jettisoning. Basically a whole culture is doing this.

So you need understanding because you already concluded it is so "wrong", and you concluded that already without that understanding? Amazing! And then you are suggesting some very high level is needed to perform the analysis and you finish with saying that this forum is just as wrong as "a whole culture". It just doesn't add up. It's very confusing and rhetorical. It doesn't mean anything, even less than a Zen koan. One post ago you suggested common decency might be the ideal of enlightenment and now our whole culture is wrong!

You're just blabbing now. It doesn't make sense, only to you!

One aspect of postmodernism as a serious problem is that it is fractured thinking by fractured people.

All thinking is fractured by definition. Don't you know this? Unless you know it you cannot address wholeness or promote any type of thinking whatsoever.

All I can tell you is that, from my angle, I have dealt with a sort of vehement anger and 'violent contempt' by certain true-believer figures here.

You are such a oversensitive type. Almost everyone has received contempt here from others, perhaps most of all your general audience. The problem is that you are noticing only your own problem. And then construct a persecution complex out of this or a wild theory that something is defended against you! Yes, you are the only one noticing it because it's the little drama you need to exist here. Perhaps that's also the reason why you have been criticized so much, people trying to pin the giant balloon of your rhetoric but it cannot be done. The balloon has to run its course. Life itself will pop it, not anyone here.

the general program to its vehement denial of 'the human' and the humanistic. You know that I see and isolate an 'acid' that is thrown on one's own self.

Religion, spirituality as well as human conscience always have struggled with being human, always bordering on all-out war, flesh against spirit, animal against god. You are sounding here dismissive of the whole project of striving for wisdom while tackling ignorance, hurting our own attachments with it. Since consciousness itself is life cutting into life, you could be said to be anti-consciousness. It's a block you erect out of fear. You don't want more consciousness of your predicament.

Deep dissatisfaction with 'the world', with the people in it, with the doings of the world.

Many functional, hard working people I know from all layers of society are still deeply dissatisfied with the world. They are only afraid of what that means. And I haven't seen evidence of any "disconnecting" of any regular members here. Not more than anywhere else.

But no one here ever captured just how easy it was to mirror their absurdities since they did not at all see themselves as absurd! No Diebert, that was not mere parody---that was Art!

Everyone knows it was just the same as your current character, hardly different in all the absurdity and pontification. You have only one mode but somehow need to backpedal from the things you wrote as him at the time . It shows you are a confused individual. Really, really confused! But to you it's all the other people who are confused and "culture" is sick, its thinking is "fractured" but it's never you. Remarkable!

I will stay obediently here on my recalcitrant little thread and so will pose no threat to anyone.

Whatever. Your last few posts demonstrate such a failure in remaining coherent, so much contradiction and confusion, that it's time for me to stop responding, since it's not doing you or the conversation here any good anymore. This forum acts perhaps as a large subconscious mirror for you which you are attracted to like some textbook narcissist. Until you deal with that, your often informed and amusing critique will remain meaningless and powerless, like a speed boat with a broker rudder.

[Alex Jacob]

Diebert wrote: So you need understanding because you already concluded it is so "wrong", and you concluded that already without that understanding? Amazing!

Ya think? You are capable of taking anything and twisting it to serve your purposes. I really think it might be a good time for you to take a break! ;-) To clarify: I knew ENOUGH, dear one, to understand that the Quinnian interpretation was way off. Essentially because it fails to understand what in the human is to be valued, loved, elevated. There is a current operating within 'our' culture othat is movement away from valuation of the human---the 'deep personalism' as core message in the Gospels and in Christian-Judaic (and also Greek) religious and philosophical systems. There are many forces that work in this direction, for many different purposes. I do not think there is, within our own traditions, a movement in thinking comparable to, say, Zen (as a dissolutive force). Or, the conclusions of Zen (as an example) are quite opposed to the conclusions (about man, about life) as one finds in Christian-Judaic understanding (which includes also Greek and Roman modes). Personally, I find a great deal of 'meaning' in the presence of this contrast, and I also find a great deal of 'meaning' in considering how it comes about that people can sacrifice a relationship with the 'real' for one with the 'unreal'. If no part of this blows your dress up, it just doesn't. What shall I say. To quote James: 'And I give a fuck?'

All thinking is fractured by definition. Don't you know this? Unless you know it you cannot address wholeness or promote any type of thinking whatsoever.

Yes, but let's be honest: you are being deliberately difficult right now because it suits your purpose. Interacting with 'average people', informed by a life in front of the tele, informed by little bits and pieces of imagery and idea, I sense a greater 'fracturing' of the thinking person than, say, in some bucolic setting in a simpler circumstance when the main influences on a person's thinking may have been a small family library, the Bible and Shakespeare perhaps, and some other meaty material. When one comes in contact with old-school people like this, one notices in communication with them a lack of 'fracturing'. Do I really, really have to slowly go over all this, Diebert?

Almost everyone has received contempt here from others, perhaps most of all your general audience. The problem is that you are noticing only your own problem.

One of your tactics is to tire out a given subject. You will go over and over and over it until, in the end, one has no more energy left. To mount another defense of a very simple observation becomes ridiculous. But, I resolve to do it in your case. Quinn is a prime example of this 'contempt', although he is really pretty polite overall in his delivery. The 'contempt' is expressed in a group of harsh judgments about a person, often with little relationship to 'reality', such as his recent use of the 'postmodernist' label respect to me. This same 'one-moving-part' defense pr 'attack', in the hands of others who over the years have posted here (TBs as I call them), is sometimes far more emotionally charged, and this is what I am referring to.

Religion, spirituality as well as human conscience always have struggled with being human, always bordering on all-out war, flesh against spirit, animal against god. You are sounding here dismissive of the whole project of striving for wisdom while tackling ignorance, hurting our own attachments with it. Since consciousness itself is life cutting into life, you could be said to be anti-consciousness. It's a block you erect out of fear. You don't want more consciousness of your predicament.

What I wrote was about:

• "...the general program [and] its vehement denial of 'the human' and the humanistic. You know that I see and isolate an 'acid' that is thrown on one's own self"

What I say is no one of you has any hedge on the definition of what is 'wisdom', if indeed 'you' use that word as Quinn, for example, always does. It is a foregone conclusion. So, what I am taking issue with is more a limited palette of information, a limited grasp of the human and 'human possibilities'. I am not dismissive of anything per se but am very interested in seeing that the conversation open...become more inclusive. Consciousness, as Nietzsche said and you have quoted, really is a 'cutting into life', but so much depends on how that cutting functions.

Can you talk about 'my predicament'? Do you mean me personally, or me as one of the possible voices in our day and age?

Many functional, hard working people I know from all layers of society are still deeply dissatisfied with the world.

I would include the issue or problem or perhaps 'tendency' to feel dissatisfied with the present, when in fact the present is really quite good and affords us all incomparable advantages as against other periods in history, as a good area for analysis. I am right now really interested the idea of 'conversion' (from one way of life to another) that is so fundamental to our cultures, as well as the prophetic-dynamic message that feeds off of or feeds into dissatisfaction (with the present). I just note that this is one of the main notes sounded by Quinn, Solway and Rowden, and it is very connected with their deep dissatisfaction as persons and as men. These things can be looked into.

Whatever. Your last few posts demonstrate such a failure in remaining coherent, so much contradiction and confusion, that it's time for me to stop responding, since it's not doing you or the conversation here any good anymore.

It seems to me you might have started here, not ended here! You have sought this sort of conclusion for a long time. It is just that you can't quite achieve it. I don't feel I have stepped at all out of coherency but, as you say: whatever!