Alex Jacob wrote:I don't always agree with QRS but I do value the courage to try to take an objective look at 'woman' as a radically different entity from 'man' that requires a harsh definition, a bold definition. You have to be very careful in doing so, but it is worth it. My latest line of thinking is to propose that women would never, ever have created or be able to create all that man's culture has created. Almost the whole world as we know it is a man's creation---it is a pretty challenging and sobering thought.
The "whole world" may be a man's creation--belief being masculine--but nature is "woman's" creation, or is "woman" itself ("herself", on earth). This QRS would never admit. "Woman" is basically all the characteristics of nature that do not fit with the sterile view of the universe they hold to. It is other people who keep reminding them of "woman;" why won't they all just STOP!!
divine focus wrote:The "whole world" may be a man's creation--belief being masculine--
I would say that conscious, or "active" belief is masculine, in constrast to unconscious, or passive belief, which is feminine.
But nature is "woman's" creation, or is "woman" itself ("herself", on earth). This QRS would never admit.
I do in fact speak of "Mother Nature" as a recognition of Nature's fundamental, unconscious, feminine nature. Femininity is the starting point out of which masculinity arises.
divine focus wrote:The "whole world" may be a man's creation--belief being masculine--
I would say that conscious, or "active" belief is masculine, in constrast to unconscious, or passive belief, which is feminine.
All belief is "passive" when your attention is elsewhere, but they are also active since they continue to structure your perception, regardless. You can't attend to everything at once. That's what the absolute is for (awareness).
But nature is "woman's" creation, or is "woman" itself ("herself", on earth). This QRS would never admit.
I do in fact speak of "Mother Nature" as a recognition of Nature's fundamental, unconscious, feminine nature. Femininity is the starting point out of which masculinity arises.
Here I cannot disagree, even though I want to.
How can masculinity be better than femininity if the feminine begot the masculine? It seems like the crux of our difference is that you see the feminine as unconscious, while I see it as aware without an object of awareness. This means that I see it as not dead but alive. If I am alive irrefutably and the absolute is all that I can know, the absolute must be alive. I guess that's another part of the difference: the absolute Self as unconsciously existent vs. alive.
Would you say you are unconsciously existent at your core? If so, how can you be conscious of anything if not first conscious of existence? You can't be conscious if you are not first alive.
[Avant-propos: I have said a few semi-aggressive thing in this post, don't take it seriously, it is more than anything a part of a shtick I have developed for myself].
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Mikiel wrote:
"So "discussion" is a euphemism for doctrine/dogma... buy in or ship out."
You have a rather reactionary style, Mr Mikiel. It is tiresome, if you asked me. You don't agree with them on so many different levels and yet you are here. Many of us take issue with aspects of their philosophy and yet we are here. The way I see things is I admire anyone who takes a stance in pro of what they believe and explains and defends what they believe. And though Ideas are very important to me and I try to be sincere toward Ideas, there is also an aspect of 'sport' in communicating ideas. Some people play sports, I like to play in the field with ideas. I think we all do otherwise we wouldn't make this investment.
"So, man's inherent superiority over woman is a "hard won" realization of truth, as espoused/preached by the women-hating originators of this forum in righteous defiance of the merely "'standard PC formulations" of those of us who have found a peaceful and loving co-existence with these emotionally contaminated inferior beings."
You should note you are interpreting and embellishing what I wrote and, of course, putting a different spin on it. It is reactionary and demeans you and the person you are talking with. I didn't use the term 'superiority' I was really just trying to state a fact; a fact as I understand it, as I see it. It is not a fixed conclusion but is rather an idea and a view that I am working with. Also, I am not sure if I would use the term 'woman-hating' for the Originators. It is bad argumentation on your part to enforce that spin.
"but i'm often quick and sloppy with spelling"
Everything about your presentation is 'quick and sloppy'. The way you write, your sloppiness, and your bad spelling all conspire to detract from the quality of your posts, if you were to ask me. As to spelling, you can download the Google Toolbar which has a tip-top spell checker, that is if you care. If I were to describe what I interpret of your character from the style and content of your posts I would say "spaced-out old hippy, radically informed by PC ideas and completely wedded to them, with a grandiose complex about 'enlightenment' and a suspect need to brag about it that, if 'real', is never expressed with any philosophical, thoughtful or even emotional clarity". It's tedious to read your posts and tedious to try to talk to you, oh Enlightened One. ;-)
I certainly did not say that I deny that thoughtful or intelligent women exist, and I also know women from many different walks of life. You are taking a very rhetorical approach to defending whatever your views are, but you are not at all certain of what mine are. What I did say was one, specific thing: the entire cultural world that we inhabit, from art to high science, is a man's creation. It is a world discovered and invented by men. Women, it seems to me, have been brought into that world, or have been allowed in, but it is not a world, if you will, original to them. Also, I am not at all convinced that they have the interest or the internal power to 1) have done such a thing even if they had the chance and 2) could continue to push the boundaries of this cultural creation. Whether what I am saying is 'true' I am not completely certain. I don't think there is a way to test it or prove it.
The important point is that women are allowed in to this man-created world, and their power in that world is not real power as we normally understand it (and at the base of 'real power' is, of course, core violence, that is just a political and existential truth), but is secured by grants of power that are upheld by law. It is a peculiar state of affairs, but if I say that it does not mean, necessarily, that I want to change anything. The first lesson of history is that it is often the most unexpected thing, even an undesired thing, that produces a completely unrelated and desirable end!
You may or may not have read Pye's recent contribution on a thread started by Diebert, but it was in response to some of what she presented (that now women can choose who to be with, they can make their own money, and they can decide to be with a man only if he is pleasing to them, if he fits into her trip whatever it may be, etc.) that caused me to opine that, yes all that is true, but all of that is a contrivance, if you will. Power to do that and so much more has been given, and as a given thing it can be taken away. True, those who have read me have heard a note of chauvinism and even a sort of contempt for the present state of affairs which seem to operate against men's interests, and I have openly said, without mincing words, that I think women have way too much power and should be taken down a number of notches, AND I have said that a great deal of this has come about because marketeers and marketing/PR psychologists have located in women a market group of ideal 'substance' and material for their machinations, and they have championed the emergence of the 'modern woman'. A very peculiar state of affairs. (I came across 2 titles on this exact subject in the marketing section of a bookstore the other day).
What would be an 'authentic woman' without interference from the and mass-psychology propaganda experts, I am not quite sure. Some hippy-chick from Eugene, perhaps? (I have known a few BTW). By the same token I think an authentic man is also a desirable thing, but I don't exactly know where to find him...
"Are you duped by the alpha male syndrome here..."
You do see that there is no way to answer that question, right? That it is a set-up?
I guess I believe that to focus on embodying 'alpha' characteristic is the most desirable goal I can think of, as a man. I wish sincerely that I would have clarified this 20 years ago. I would teach those values to my kids if I had them (kids that is...). Better to focus on alpha characteristics (as I define them) than beta-minus characteristics and a buckling-under to women's values. I believe that hippy-dippy culture has completely muddied the idea of what it is to be a man, and what men turn into are sort of womanish men, and the women into mannish women. I've seen it and been through it, and am opposed to it categorically.
(And I am sorry to go off topic but, really, who cares?) ;-)
PS: Maybe the Google spellchecker ain't so hot; it wants to turn the word 'hippy', which is not in its data-base, into 'happy' or 'hippo'...
[edited for spelling and sloppiness] ;-)
Last edited by Anonymous on Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
I do in fact speak of "Mother Nature" as a recognition of Nature's fundamental, unconscious, feminine nature. Femininity is the starting point out of which masculinity arises.
How can masculinity be better than femininity if the feminine begot the masculine?
Masculinity is not inherently better than femininity. It is only better with regard to the performing of certain tasks — like reasoning, art, science, and philosophy.
It seems like the crux of our difference is that you see the feminine as unconscious, while I see it as aware without an object of awareness.
Conscious awareness must have an object. There is the experience "I am aware". This is in contrast to the passive awareness of, say, a fish. The latter is of course feminine — to the degree it is unconscious.
This means that I see it as not dead but alive.
Fish are certainly alive and not dead, although they are unconscious. Even things like rocks are fairly dynamic, and not really "dead", as such.
I am very much in favour of speaking of the natural world in terms of "spirits" etc. This is very much the way I experience the world.
Would you say you are unconsciously existent at your core?
I'm not sure what to think of as my "core", but suffice to say that masculinity (consciousness) is an extremely rare and fragile substance. The average human lives most of his life like an unconscious animal, "thinking" only of food, shelter, and sex. We sleep about a third of our lives, during which time we are almost completely unconscious. And the vast majority of people sleep and dream their way through waking life as well. The drugs of alcohol, dope, music, love, sex, etc, are all tools we use to plunge back into the unconscious womb where we feel most secure. So, at core, you could say that we are unconscious.
If so, how can you be conscious of anything if not first conscious of existence? You can't be conscious if you are not first alive.
We can think of all things as being alive, but few are conscious.
Conscious awareness must have an object. There is the experience "I am aware".
Franklin Merrell-Wolff wrote, "The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object."
Mikiel has written, in many different ways, "I am consciousness, not the content or objects in/of awareness." I am *awareness* transcending what I am aware of.
Consciousness is Source transcending all manifestation, "Light" itself, independent of what it shines on.
Samadhi and nirvana are states of awareness without attachment to content of any sort, sometimes free of any content, "Light" itself, as above.
mikiel
I do in fact speak of "Mother Nature" as a recognition of Nature's fundamental, unconscious, feminine nature. Femininity is the starting point out of which masculinity arises.
How can masculinity be better than femininity if the feminine begot the masculine?
Masculinity is not inherently better than femininity. It is only better with regard to the performing of certain tasks — like reasoning, art, science, and philosophy.
Huh.
I would say the masculine needs the feminine for any of those tasks, and of course, vice versa. At least, to do any of them "well."
It seems like the crux of our difference is that you see the feminine as unconscious, while I see it as aware without an object of awareness.
Conscious awareness must have an object. There is the experience "I am aware". This is in contrast to the passive awareness of, say, a fish. The latter is of course feminine — to the degree it is unconscious.
What is the object in "I am aware"? "Am" is only a linking verb. "Aware" is a quality of "I."
If so, how can you be conscious of anything if not first conscious of existence? You can't be conscious if you are not first alive.
We can think of all things as being alive, but few are conscious.
OK, but to be alive you must be at least conscious of existence, yes? This is what I am trying to say. The "unconscious" is at least aware that it exists.
Alex,
As to long winded rambling, which I'm good at myself, you win the prize.
I can apreciate your opening disclaimer:
"[Avant-propos: I have said a few semi-aggressive thing in this post, don't take it seriously, it is more than anything a part of a shtick I have developed for myself]."
I will you my repertoire as "rude boy sage" to add to your bag of shticks.
You have a rather reactionary style, Mr Mikiel. It is tiresome, if you asked me.
Everything about your presentation is 'quick and sloppy'. The way you write, your sloppiness, and your bad spelling all conspire to detract from the quality of your posts, if you were to ask me.
Well, I didn't ask, but duly noted and filed with the many others here who don't like my style. I don't like yours either, btw, but it seems petty to whine about it rather than focus on the substance of the subject at hand, whatever it may be. Same goes for spelling. I have a "Word Perfect" program in my computer, and if I gave a bit more of a shit about spelling, I'd compose in this excellent mode...
but, alas the quality of my posts will continue to suffer until I somehow acquire that extra little bit of give-a-shit.
Maybe you can coach me on the "PC" way to passionately disagree (like with the anti-feminine bigotry/ masculine superiority here) without being labeled "reactionary." This is simply a negative personal judgement against my "style" and has no real weight at all relevant to the debate.
Anyway, I really don't think your windy essay is worth digging into and debating in depth. Seems quite shallow to me.
Seems we are about even in mutual disrespect. I'll leave it at that for now.
mikiel
"Maybe you can coach me on the "PC" way to passionately disagree (like with the anti-feminine bigotry/ masculine superiority here) without being labeled "reactionary." This is simply a negative personal judgement against my "style" and has no real weight at all relevant to the debate."
[My minimum for any coaching is US$5,000.00, paid in advance. I can help you rebuild and will even, at that price, go shamanically into the underworld to try to help you get some of those wires uncrossed].
You are wrong there, Mr Enlightenment. I admit to getting irritated with people who don't compose their posts nicely, nevertheless I still read yours. But you seem to pretend to want to discuss things, and yet you don't really do that. You may think that what I have written is too long or 'windy' (you wouldn't be the first) but there is in it a whole bunch of things that could be discussed.
Before you can 'passionately disagree' you'd have to 'cooly understand', and I don't think you understand what I am saying. I am not 'anti-feminine' and I am not necessarily speaking of male superiority. Men and women, as I see things at this moment, are very different. Their goals and aspirations and capabilities are distinct. To point at that or to stress that is not to put forward a 'male superiority' platform, not as it is traditionally understood. I think that some perhaps significant portion of feminist discourse (I have read alot of it) has actually steered us wrong, and we have to get out from under it, and redefine both ourselves and women. It is a very difficult territory to move through because all these issues are contentious, painful issues.
If you were to ask me---I think someone already pointed in this direction---this 'rude boy' you have retired is actually a part of your structure of thinking and acting. The implications of changing that are vaster it seems than you think.
[My minimum for any coaching is US$5,000.00, paid in advance. I can help you rebuild and will even, at that price, go shamanically into the underworld to try to help you get some of those wires uncrossed].
Kevin Solway wrote:Masculinity is not inherently better than femininity. It is only better with regard to the performing of certain tasks — like reasoning, art, science, and philosophy.
I would say the masculine needs the feminine for any of those tasks, and of course, vice versa. At least, to do any of them "well."
Intuition is at least largely unconscious, and therefore could be called "feminine". But it is given meaning, and teeth, by the masculine. The moment intuition enters consciousness it is no longer feminine.
Conscious awareness must have an object. There is the experience "I am aware". This is in contrast to the passive awareness of, say, a fish. The latter is of course feminine — to the degree it is unconscious.
What is the object in "I am aware"? "Am" is only a linking verb. "Aware" is a quality of "I."
The object is that which is not the self. There is the self, and there is other than the self.
We can think of all things as being alive, but few are conscious.
OK, but to be alive you must be at least conscious of existence, yes?
I would define "consciousness" as being aware of "self" and "other". A rock is not aware of this, so far as we know, and therefore is not conscious. A rock is not aware of anything, and the more unconscious a thing is, the less aware it is.
This is what I am trying to say. The "unconscious" is at least aware that it exists.
[My minimum for any coaching is US$5,000.00, paid in advance. I can help you rebuild and will even, at that price, go shamanically into the underworld to try to help you get some of those wires uncrossed].
I'll do that for you for $4K.
$3,500 and you'll get your chakras cleansed and I'll throw in an inflatable meditation cushion.
Carl G wrote:Kevin speculates about about rocks and shares his personal world view regarding masculine and feminine where intuition is concerned.
Yes. How could the rock know that it is going to be a pebble some 3 billion years from now? Poor little fella (sniff). Could've been a boulder some day... Instead, it has nothing to look forward to but being kicked around into some 98-pound weaklings' face. Shame!
Alex Jacob wrote:I don't at all think that scientism offers something comparable to what religion might offer. By the very nature of itself, it can't. In this sense what it offers is something rather dry, even empty. And my point is that though it 'penetrates' nature in an incredibly substantial way, it does not seem to offer a relationship to nature. That is, to the world, to the kosmos. The operative word is relationship and connection. If it is a religion (with poetry, etc.) the priest of that religion seems to me to be someone like Kevin. True, I may not fully grasp what he represents, but I will say, as I have said so often, that whatever it is, seems dead to me. Life and energy does not jump out of it. To be real to me, now, it has to have real life and real energy. It has to be acutely relevant.
Maybe it's easier and more fulfilling for most people to relate to spirits and similar anthropomorphized forces that seem prevalent in religions. Science gives explanations that are often quite alien to everyday conventional human life. Religions might say that the sun is a being, with similarities to a human, that it is born in the morning and dies at night, whereas science says the sun is a massive ball of hydrogen burning at 5000K. Religions say disease is an evil spirit attacking a person, science says disease is a series of complex microscopic chemical and biological interactions that most people can't pronounce let alone understand. Religion and primitive explanations and beliefs can spring more directly from inside human minds and thus they may more often and closely reflect common human life and psychology.
It seems a lot of nerdy and scientific types like fantasy fiction, I wonder if they are drawn to these stories because they fulfill a need that a scientific worldview cannot.
[Mikiel, you are getting a few low-ball offers to remake your fine self, and I can't deny that it looks like you'd get a better deal with the competition, that is you'd spend less hard cash. But what they cannot do for you and what I CAN do and WILL do, is voyage deep down into your spiritual innards, down into the very bowels where 'you' are produced, where 'you' originate, and I promise you I will uncross those wires sparking and shorting out and causing so much havoc and rude black smoke that inhibit the peaceful manifestation of personality that you so long for and we here so long for! Even after one week, one week of steady shamanizing and the clinking of my Totem Bones, when you open your muzzle to communicate, no hoarse disturbed primitive barking shall come from you but a newly melodious yodel! That is my promise to you! (And I do take Visa, MasterCard, Diners, Certified Checks, PayPal)].
Alex Jacob wrote:[Mikiel, you are getting a few low-ball offers to remake your fine self, and I can't deny that it looks like you'd get a better deal with the competition, that is you'd spend less hard cash. But what they cannot do for you and what I CAN do and WILL do, is voyage deep down into your spiritual innards, down into the very bowels where 'you' are produced, where 'you' originate, and I promise you I will uncross those wires sparking and shorting out and causing so much havoc and rude black smoke that inhibit the peaceful manifestation of personality that you so long for and we here so long for! Even after one week, one week of steady shamanizing and the clinking of my Totem Bones, when you open your muzzle to communicate, no hoarse disturbed primitive barking shall come from you but a newly melodious yodel! That is my promise to you! (And I do take Visa, MasterCard, Diners, Certified Checks, PayPal)].
mikiel
Never mind him. Imagine sitting on your inflatable meditation cushion, completely relaxed, as your finest vesture, your innermost shining, divine thread, is finely worked through the gates, as veil after veil falls away, and the very spark of your being is lifted to the heights of nirvana! All in your very own home! Your very presence will imbue others with a state of grace and bliss. Amaze your friends! If you act now, you will also receive as my gift to you a reversible meditation shawl, handwoven by indigent crippled children in Calcutta. (I accept the same payment methods as Alex, as well as American Express, Discover, and bearer bonds.)
You guys are a real hoot!... entertaining as hell (if you dont't mind the heat) and absolutely free!! How could I ask for more?....
Well, maybe one little thing... someone who gives a rats ass (or better) about the topic.
Cosmology, anyone? ... or direct experience of the Living Cosmos, in Whom we are all iddy-bitty little micro-organism (with very witty little minds... but no clue to The Big Picture.)
And "mine" of course is just one of many. Some folks are raising the ante way above 11 dimensions, for instance... the more complicated the better if you are a mathmatician with a total disregard for observable phenomena and a deep love for fantasy physics. (They must write sci-fi in their spare time.)
Anyway, thanks for the chuckles...
but is anyone here capable of a serious conversation on the thread topic?
mikiel
There is only the All, who does everything, not even a blade of grass moves on its own. However this All also lacks will since it is subject to causality, there is not an iota of will anywhere.
maestro wrote:There is only the All, who does everything, not even a blade of grass moves on its own. However this All also lacks will since it is subject to causality, there is not an iota of will anywhere.
Well, at the risk of boring repetition... as per my "free will vs determinism" post in reply to Iolaus (somewhere)...
*If* you understand the difference between being merely programmed... bio-computers, all... and the *gift of free will*, given as spaces between the billiard balls of causation, spaces in which real options can be seen and real choices made... then you not only have a long run-on sentence but an understanding of free will...
Cosmic Consciousness delegates response-ability to individuals rather than micro-managing absolutely everything from "central control."
(I know, it would be easier to chew and digest in smaller bites, but "stream of consciousness" is my *chosen* style for this post.)
Maestro, do you understand/have you experienced *conscuiousness* in its transcendental aspect? This is the "plane" or "dimension" in which actual free will is "grokked"... as it is beyond the reach of mere logical understanding.
("But man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what is heaven for?)
Carl G wrote:You apparently have already forgotten your Ouspensky.
It seems that was how it was destined. The Ouspensky project of creating a permanent self is doomed to failure. I think Ouspensky realized as much near his death, and said that vigorous efforts lead nowhere.
