Easy does it there Diebert. My participation on this forum, and my enjoyment of it, and my gain from it, is mostly a result of seeing how nutty and strange you-all have allowed yourselves to become in pursuit of what is largely unintelligible. You have no idea at all what 'truth' is, and you have no idea what 'enlightenment' is, and the fact that you use these meaningless terms - to me - indicates how far you have drifted. In your drift, you have drifted through large masses of *information* and, despite the fact that you use this term for me you are, in your unique way, a spouting encyclopedia. It might be some arcana of Indian metaphysics, or some odd detail of bee-keeping, or some philosophical sci-fi anecdote, but you are never silent and really you are a chatter-box of the first order. One *encounters* you and your personality as a sort of Force and you demand to be reckoned with. One does not step over Diebert (you can't 'out-Diebert Diebert') or out wise-crack him. Should you do this the fully Diebertian power rises in defense of himself, his position, his self-ordained status.
But what I began to notice at a certain point is that you don't really have a discourse, and you don't really have a position, and this seems to be because you are *empty* of any such thing: a core, a motive, a reason. Now, I don't know if there is a final definition of the postmodern. I rather think that there isn't because in its strange way the postmodern is the end of definition (or something). But when it comes right down to it, and if I had to choose someone I know as 'the perfect postmodern subject', I think it might be you.
If this is so, it means a certain amount for this platform (the platform of GF) given that you are the Master of Ceremonies. You stuck it out. You came, you set down a tap-root, and you won the whole space as a sort of prize.
But the thing is you are really rather empty of content, for all the 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 billion words of intricate prose. What in the heck do you represent? I have no idea.
It is true that I don't desire to let that type of thinking get inside me. I do not want to become infected by it (postmodern ideas), or rather I wish to disinfect from it since, obviously, we are in the postmodern age. But I would really like to examine 'reactionary out-dated analysis of culture'. Why not? What should I have to fear? But I would prefer to be given the right to offer my own definition of my travail. But I have already defined it so many times: I am struggling against what I perceive as disease-of-sorts, this 'enlightenment' recklessness that I find here. For me - I admit this freely though perhaps I should be embarrassed - it is a long, slow slog. I mean, one has to get clear about so much in order to 'answer' the compelling nuttery of the Absolute Enlightened.
Charming as that might be, if he wants to become all intellectual on us, he better show he has the actual balls, the actual fire power to deliver. Not because such intellectual endeavour would bring anyone closer to enlightenment, but because in his case it might help him to get rid of some silly attachments and prejudices. That's all really.
Here, I think you reveal something unintended. The 'intellectual endeavor', according to you, is an empty one since 'enlightenment' is for you something
real (it is
not for me and I know too it is not for you either, not
really, and the use of the word I always take as a sickness-sign, a delusion, a self-deception)(and thus I reverse your preferred categories of meaning). But it is not 'all intellectual' that I wish to get but rather to become invested in real substance, the stuff of worth and meaning. (That which
does not exist for you because, I have gathered, that whole bubble burst when your Christian faith went up in acrid smoke: a likely axial event for you). To be 'intellectual' is to gain some skill in expression but obviously intellectualism for its own sake is empty. But the way you phrase your undermining statements is to cause to live in another what has been caused to live in you. You stumble over your own intended insult and, I think, it backfires.
My researches have led me to a fairly sound and solid ground: genetics and the structures of civilization is where I place my focus. The power of definition. These are my 'silly attachments and prejudices' and I own them. On that base I desire to gather around me the best of 'our traditions' and to help to preserve those. Honestly, I can see no higher nor more 'sacred' or more meanigful object. One must, according to me, turn away from hallucinations to be able to see and define 'value'.
The object is to give energy to those who are capable of really carrying 'the light' but I define this is far more tangible terms. (And I thank you batty fools for really bringing this home to me). Out of that, or as a result of that, I recognize that
illumination is possible, but as I say enlightenment as it is bandied around here is - and I am quite serious about this - immoral and unethical. It is philosophically untenable. I guess this is a sort of new development, a new understanding.