GENIUS FORUMS

dayborg wrote: Sparta was well known to have a rape rate of zero. Course, they didnt have nuclear family homes where there would be no witnesses. The Grandmothers owned the communal houses the women lived in. The boys, at age 8 were moved into the barracks, so there wouldnt be any big boys in the house to do any raping of little girls either.

The Iroquois also had a system by which the Grandmothers owned the communal houses, and the clans were matrilineal. The five clans were the bear, heron, turtle, oats, and corn. The corn clan lived on the flatter land and was only suitable for fattening pigs.

It was said of Sparta that a virgin could walk from one end of town to the other and back with her virginity intact. This seems impossible, but there are some other curiosities. Sparta set the ancient record, of going for 600 years without the boot of a foreign soldier setting foot in town, yet it never had a city wall.

Actually this is not true. Sometime in the 483rd year, a Macedonian soldier named Alexis Farquar sneaked into town, in a dense fog, and clomped in his boots straight thru, from one end to the other. Several young virgins traversing (safely and unaccosted) in his path alerted the troops, but Alexis made good his getaway. The military reports were excised to keep pure (and virgin) the perfect record.

part of the reason that ancient armies were primarily motivated by the prospect of loot. Lycurgus sezied all the gold and silver in town and used it to equip the army. Soldiers all over the ancient world knew that Sparta was not worth sacking. Their architecture and furniture had a kind of 'Shaker' simplicity that didnt sell well either. We still use the word 'spartan' for sparse and barely functional settings.

Armies have always been motivated by the lute. Ancient soldiers were sentimental about it's sweet sound. The most ancient ones also liked zwieback biscuits, which they could 'gum' with tea. Sparta gave us the word 'spew,' as in spew the zwieback when the tea was drunk to hot.

The men slept in the barracks, under the supervision of the Ephors. So, neither were there any Spartan men about at night to do any raping. The only men let in the house, be they 'husbands' or otherwise, were under the watchful eyes of the grandmothers. No children were therefore ever sexually abused. Children were never left alone in the house with a man while mom went to work, shopping, or whatever. What do you spoze that does to the kind of adults that grew up this way?

The ancient soldiers of Sparta were mocked by the children and grandmothers, for being so decrepit. I happen to have it on expert authority (Ladies Home Journal) that in 600 years not one child was sexually abused, and not one virgin lost her virginity (which, by the way, is why there were so many ancient soldiers). You figure it out.

What is it worth to you to reduce the child sexual abuse rate to zero? In any case, the Mosou of SW China, up in the SE Himalayas, still live communally like this. They dont have marriage as we understand it. women can be with any stud muffins that strike their fancy any time they like. But the kids are all raised together like in a large family with the grandmothers and aunts there for 24/7 childcare as needed.

I'll see your stud muffin and raise you one large family. Himalayan grandmas and aunts included. With Yeti. Demographics.

The other thing to note about Sparta, was that at the outset, Lycurgus went thru town and picked out all the airhead sexy bimbos to send to the Helots for their pleasure, and kept only the bigger, stronger, and smarter women as Spartans. I dunno that you could make the Spartan system work if the women were not all smart.

Right, they used to boil the virgins to make sure they were hot. I dunno how I know so much, thank God for Reader's Digest and the History Channel. Lookit the genius that comes spouting out of my airhead.

Dan,

Tell me: why would either of you feel humiliated by being raped?

I wrote about 8 lines of text, and realized that it didn't prove there's a valid reason to be humiliated with rape. So I deleted it all and thought about it some more.

Thinking of all the things that humiliate me, there seems to be one thing they all have in common: my freedom as a person is taken away. I therefore become someone else's slave. I just don't see slavery as a dignified thing.

Someone I know once said "We'll be standing up or dead, but never on our knees, never!"

Being raped is like being on your knees: you have lost all dignity.

I do know where you're going with this, btw.

-

Laird wrote:Oh, and by the way:

Dan Rowden wrote:I won't even address the idea of feeling "worthless" because somebody assaulted you. I think that's a matter for a psychiatrist.

That's because you're in denial of your humanity.

No, it's because feeling worthless because someone assaulted you is insane. Such a response requires compassion and attention, but it is nevertheless insane.

Agreed. If anyone is worthless, it is the rapist.

But victim-blaming runs incredibly deep in Western society, and the most fiercely promoted form is self-victim-blaming. Blame yourself first. When we learn from an early age to apply this to our economic and social circumstances, how can we be expected not to apply it elsewhere?

Philosophaster wrote:I think of "humiliation" as a situation in which a person is made to feel powerless. When he struggles with all his strength but is still unable to get himself out of a "losing" situation.

So rape would definitely count as a form of humiliation, one of the most intense.

There are cosmologies which say all situations are loosing, and to form an internal detachment, as if you are watching an avatar in a video game.

The Stoics, like Epictetus, argued that humiliation, or any other feeling, is within you, and you have the power not to feel it no matter what anyone else does to you or for you. He suggests thinking of your feelings as a set of tools that you bring out from time to time, and dispassionately choose to display passions, compassions, or whatever.

One reason the ancient witches were so vigorously suppressed, was that they offered women herbal abortions- which disempowered the rapist from the one thing he wanted above all, that is to have his victims bear his sons. In this way, over time, all the rapists can be filtered from a gene pool, and rape ceases to be a problem.

Shahrazad wrote:Sandman, please visit the Sexual Agression thread at Genius Forum, and answer the two last questions I ask Dan there.

Shahrazad:

I am sorry I lost my temper and was rude. I was in a bad mood after watching the shit the church has been up to, and the stupidity of feminism just gets me going when I am intoxicated. :-(
All that pent up savage male sexual aggression I guess. O_o

Please realize that not all men are out to rape you or cut your head off after the wedding night is over. Don't presume that I am a sexual maniac that you need to analyze and run clumsy tests on. I am not. Feminism to me is much like religion, good idea in theory, but ultimately it has ended up just another tool of control through fear. The amount of legal control women have over male lives is just crazy, hence my "should be so lucky" comment.

I, am sorry you were humiliated by rape, but have bit of a perspective, there are worse things going on right now and in the works for our future. Shit happens etc. etc. Let it go and enjoy your life, enough with the gender wars.

I, am out of this thread... ewww.

daybrown wrote:The Stoics, like Epictetus, argued that humiliation, or any other feeling, is within you, and you have the power not to feel it no matter what anyone else does to you or for you. He suggests thinking of your feelings as a set of tools that you bring out from time to time, and dispassionately choose to display passions, compassions, or whatever.

Yeah, I am aware of this, and it seems like it may work even in extreme situations -- with extreme amounts of practice and dedication, like the case of Thich Quang Duc, who burned himself alive and never flinched. The trouble is that most people have nowhere near the mettle for that sort of thing.

Well, we have to stop and think about why we would feel "worthless" - however recognisable its irrationality might be. The only reason for it is that you entertained an egotistical a priori belief that you should be valued. Indeed, that this is your natural right. When not valued or respected we automatically feel that some natural right has been violated. But no such thing exists.

When our arse is invaded by a population of pinworms we don't feel worthless, or when a tree falls on us and breaks our leg, or when a pitbull latches on to our dick and does damage. Our sense of worth is so inextricably linked to other people's valuations that we do, in fact, have no worth at all outside these valuations. Put a person like this on a desert island and they would immediately start to feel worthless because their sense of worth has no existence other than by relation. There are, of course, a multitude of common examples one could give of the constant, indeed everyday grief this causes people. Just about each and every interaction we have with people carries with it a dimension of judgement of our worth tied to the way we're treated. A person talks to us, we feel worthwhile; a persons chides us, we feel our worth diminish. What folly.

When we respond in this fashion to those who harm us we do nothing other than empower them even more, because we hand to them the thing we value. They don't take it. We literally hand it over. In many instances this may indeed be the result they are attempting to achieve. We have to get over this deep seated idea that we ought always be valued and respected. There's no reason we ought. There's reason we ought not be violated but that's a different matter. Humiliation and worthlessness are effects in which we freely participate. We simply don't have to if we can get over our egos.

sandman,

I, am sorry you were humiliated by rape, but have bit of a perspective, there are worse things going on right now and in the works for our future. Shit happens etc. etc. Let it go and enjoy your life, enough with the gender wars.

Don't worry, I got over it in 2 or 3 days. I refused to think about it. Many years later, the rapist came to a party in my mom's house, and I would've never recognized him if it weren't because someone else pointed out to me that he was the rapist. You would think a woman would remember a face like that.

.

Dan,

Dan Rowden wrote:No, it's because feeling worthless because someone assaulted you is insane. Such a response requires compassion and attention, but it is nevertheless insane.

I will see if I can respond to this and to your later longer post tomorrow. Right now I'm feeling very drained and I'm going to have an early night. Later guys.

Carl G wrote:

dayborg wrote: Sparta was well known to have a rape rate of zero. Course, they didnt have nuclear family homes where there would be no witnesses. The Grandmothers owned the communal houses the women lived in. The boys, at age 8 were moved into the barracks, so there wouldnt be any big boys in the house to do any raping of little girls either.

The Iroquois also had a system by which the Grandmothers owned the communal houses, and the clans were matrilineal. The five clans were the bear, heron, turtle, oats, and corn. The corn clan lived on the flatter land and was only suitable for fattening pigs.

It was said of Sparta that a virgin could walk from one end of town to the other and back with her virginity intact. This seems impossible, but there are some other curiosities. Sparta set the ancient record, of going for 600 years without the boot of a foreign soldier setting foot in town, yet it never had a city wall.

Actually this is not true. Sometime in the 483rd year, a Macedonian soldier named Alexis Farquar sneaked into town, in a dense fog, and clomped in his boots straight thru, from one end to the other. Several young virgins traversing (safely and unaccosted) in his path alerted the troops, but Alexis made good his getaway. The military reports were excised to keep pure (and virgin) the perfect record.

part of the reason that ancient armies were primarily motivated by the prospect of loot. Lycurgus sezied all the gold and silver in town and used it to equip the army. Soldiers all over the ancient world knew that Sparta was not worth sacking. Their architecture and furniture had a kind of 'Shaker' simplicity that didnt sell well either. We still use the word 'spartan' for sparse and barely functional settings.

Armies have always been motivated by the lute. Ancient soldiers were sentimental about it's sweet sound. The most ancient ones also liked zwieback biscuits, which they could 'gum' with tea. Sparta gave us the word 'spew,' as in spew the zwieback when the tea was drunk to hot.

The men slept in the barracks, under the supervision of the Ephors. So, neither were there any Spartan men about at night to do any raping. The only men let in the house, be they 'husbands' or otherwise, were under the watchful eyes of the grandmothers. No children were therefore ever sexually abused. Children were never left alone in the house with a man while mom went to work, shopping, or whatever. What do you spoze that does to the kind of adults that grew up this way?

The ancient soldiers of Sparta were mocked by the children and grandmothers, for being so decrepit. I happen to have it on expert authority (Ladies Home Journal) that in 600 years not one child was sexually abused, and not one virgin lost her virginity (which, by the way, is why there were so many ancient soldiers). You figure it out.

What is it worth to you to reduce the child sexual abuse rate to zero? In any case, the Mosou of SW China, up in the SE Himalayas, still live communally like this. They dont have marriage as we understand it. women can be with any stud muffins that strike their fancy any time they like. But the kids are all raised together like in a large family with the grandmothers and aunts there for 24/7 childcare as needed.

I'll see your stud muffin and raise you one large family. Himalayan grandmas and aunts included. With Yeti. Demographics.

The other thing to note about Sparta, was that at the outset, Lycurgus went thru town and picked out all the airhead sexy bimbos to send to the Helots for their pleasure, and kept only the bigger, stronger, and smarter women as Spartans. I dunno that you could make the Spartan system work if the women were not all smart.

Right, they used to boil the virgins to make sure they were hot. I dunno how I know so much, thank God for Reader's Digest and the History Channel. Lookit the genius that comes spouting out of my airhead.

What's the point of these jokes of yours? Are you simply messing around, or are you trying to discredit Daybrown's historical digressions (that are related to the subject of the thread) by ridicule? Can you prove him wrong on his post about ancient Sparta?

I ask this, because you are discrediting something that might very well be a relevant piece of knowledge (some of which I, and many others can easily verify with a basic textbook), without giving any explanation, which implies that you are simply completely unfamiliar with the subject.

Dan,

Dan Rowden wrote:No, it's because feeling worthless because someone assaulted you is insane. Such a response requires compassion and attention, but it is nevertheless insane.

Actually, the real insanity is in statements like this:

Dan Rowden wrote:The only reason for it is that you entertained an egotistical a priori belief that you should be valued. Indeed, that this is your natural right. When not valued or respected we automatically feel that some natural right has been violated. But no such thing exists.

Of course we have the natural right to be valued and respected. That's why we have laws against murder, rape and fraud. It's also why we have (in Australia at least) a public healthcare system that provides for everyone, no matter what. It's why as a society we deplore racism, sexism and other forms of unfair (disrespectful) behaviour. And it's why words like "please" and "thank you" exist and are so near-universally taught by parents to their children. So that's one way in which you're in denial of your humanity.

Human beings are creatures of social learning. Without the lessons that we learn from other people we would be shadows of our current ourselves. As babies we learn language mostly from our parents. As children we learn more formally at school. Throughout our lives we learn appropriate and helpful behaviour from our peers, from our elders, and even from our juniors as we interact with them socially, recreationally and professionally. Some of us even learn from others on the internet, at places like Genius Forum.

A lot of our early learning as a child depends on expressions of approval and disapproval. When we behave in a way that our parents believe is appropriate and useful, they reward us with smiles and words of approval. When we behave inappropriately or destructively, our parents might disapprove by becoming angry or stern, or by otherwise correcting us.

It might seem that as we become adults, this sort of approve/disapprove learning would stop, but it doesn't. Good friends and lovers let us know when they are unhappy with our behaviour, and sometimes, despite that we often find this experience difficult, we recognise that they are right and we learn not to repeat our mistakes. The process of learning that we've made a mistake runs something like this: from "How dare they accuse me of that?!" to "But what if they're right?" to "You know, I'm a little uneasy now and my conscience is trying to tell me something" to "Oh crap, I really stuffed up there, didn't I?" Conversely, when our good friends and lovers believe that we have excelled or behaved very well, they reward us with affirmation and congratulations. And it's not only good friends and lovers who we learn from in this way: at all levels of interaction we are constantly picking up on signs from others of approval and disapproval and adjusting our behaviour accordingly.

This sort of learning is important, and for it to be effective we need to inherently place value upon the opinions and attitudes of others. It's just part of what being a human means. That's not to say - as I described above in the process of learning that we've made a mistake - that we automatically accept everything that other people try to teach us. We filter it through our reason. We question how it fits into our current mental model of who we are, who we want to be, and what we currently believe is acceptable, and we question how it makes us feel. Dischordant feelings can sometimes be an indicator that we are fooling ourselves in our rationalisations, or they could just be hangovers from past ineffective beliefs - either way it's up to us to reason through them. It is to say though that even for the most outlandish claim by another person, there is a part of us thinking to itself "But maybe they're right..."

Emotions play a role in learning. A strong emotional response emphasises how important an issue is to another person, and prompts us to place more importance on it ourselves. When daddy "loses it" and yells at his child, the child really takes notice. Another way in which we place importance on a particular lesson that's being taught is by the extremity of the behaviour of the other person; often extreme behaviour is motivated by emotion anyway though.

So now how does all of this fit into what I've been trying to say about the humiliation of rape? Well, rape is extreme behaviour. It is also a social lesson from one human being to another: that you are of so little worth that your most intimate parts can be pillaged without your consent. We cannot but help that some part of us is questioning itself "Am I really this worthless?" I'm not trying to say that a rape victim will or should answer "yes": that would indeed be insanity. I am trying to say that such feelings are probably (I don't know for sure, being inexperienced in rape) inevitable. And I do agree that a well-adjusted person is capable of rationalising these feelings, perhaps to the point that even during the assault they have little to no effect.

You, David and Kevin, on the other hand, deny the utility of emotions as evoked in our interactions with other people including during rape. That's the other way in which you are in denial of your humanity. You have what to me is a bizarre belief that some (to me) false intellectualisation as to the "non-inherent, illusionary nature of the self" somehow causes emotions to stop arising. How a mere intellectualisation can impact so profoundly on what is such a deep, ingrained and - as I've tried to explain above - necessary part of a person is completely beyond me. I will go so far as to characterise it as a fundamental delusion. And so here is yet another example of QRS doublethink: love is hatred, delusion is enlightenment.

--
There's a difference between having an ego and being an egotist.

Pye wrote:

"Men cannot seem to stop obsessing about what she's doing; who she's doing; why she's doing it and when, and at bottom, you are redundant to her own program, paddling furiously to stay abreast".

And really, what a horrible feeling that is. It is *only natural* that one would look for a way out of that discomfort, but if no opportunity exists, one is left to try to carry on within 'pathology'.

Confessed truly, this is one of the reasons why I opted not to live any longer in the US, and why I chose to live in a place where I am, as a man, not at all redundant. It is the difference between night and day!

I think this is in fact a very clear (yet not fully expressed) subtext in this forum, that of anger that things have turned out this way for men, that conditions are so disadvantageous for them.

Also, I think it was mportant, in my case, to be able to come to say 'I don't care about women's power, or about what women need and want, but I am acutely interested in what I want, and what serves me, and if a woman (in my life) serves my *power* and my interests, that is good, but if it turns out the other way around, down the road she goes'. It is a strangely empowering statement and has done me a great deal of good.

I suspect that the issue of 'rape' here is a sort of psychological red-herring, and the issue that is at the forefront is that of male power in light of certain conditions. Most of the theorists of rape (Susan Brownmiller, Andrea Dworkin, etc). locate rape not within a sexual context but in one of straight power. Rape is about assertion of power, according to them, and less about sex.

Thanks, Laird. It may take me the rest of my life to point out your errors, exaggerations, misconceptions, and idiocy (ah, that feels yiddisha good), but I got a karaoke crowd to attend to.

A rational defense of humiliation seems an odd thing to ask for, Dan. I'm pretty sure you are one of those dualists who places reason/emotion on a spectrum at odds with one another, so in these terms, no emotion/feeling needs a rational defense. I agree with the possibility that humiliation with rape is not a default setting for every personality - we can understand you don't think you'd feel that if you were force-butt-fucked; so I think you could understand where someone could feel it in those circumstances anyway. Your detached rapee, who sees his or her experiences simply as an effect of other causes, indeed fits the schematic of the unruffled, non-personal sage. Such a response fits other human pathologies, too.

Philosophaster is on a good track - even a greek track - of understanding the appearance of humiliation in powerlessness. To ancient greeks, the most in-human position to find oneself in is one of impotence - inability to requite any given situation - and why not take note of the modern sexual context with which this word (impotence) is used, too. In pre-socratic terms, the most virtuous and right-acting just individual was the one who could harm his enemies and help his friends, and what matters here is less what he does, and more, that he can do it at all - in any circumstance, in all circumstances - requite a given situation with potency of his own.

Being as "powerlessness" is pretty much the province of the deep sage's relationship to the world (no person there; no will - just reactive substance amongst all the reactive substances), it's understandable you would not rate such a position as "powerlessness" as worthy of distress. One only gets this luxury if they view themselves in the world this way - no control of willing; no control of circumstances; constitutionally unable to requite because there is no requittal, only reaction - and because there is no "me" this is happening to.

In the sage's language, humiliation from the inability to requite a given circumstance (or all circumstance) is transformed into its elevated cousin, humility. Here, one stands powerless in front of everything - in a demeanor of lowliness and humblness, as in all tao/christian-like recommendations. Either way, the deal with humble/humility/humiliation is still and always within its relationship to power/force.

I meant my comments about male-animal-pitch necessary in consensual sex as "an aside" to the subject of rape, for this quality does not excuse its forced-appearance. One of the hardest things surely that man has done to civilize himself is to put a few rules, so to speak, to his own sexual appetite and procedures. On the one hand, I see that - but on the other, I don't see that anything about man's sexual habits have been curtailed - if anything - it is like the underground man who rattles that the only thing civilization has achieved is variety of sensation and nothing more. Perhaps in our proto-hominoid past we roamed the wide savannah with other things more frequently on our minds. Perhaps civilization itself is but mere congealing of any and all types of sexual stimulus ordered and organized, broadcast, mailed, delivered, enslaved, posted, flashing, pulsing, everywhere, both in media and immediacy, that we go - where, so help me, the sheer and relentless repetition and expectation in married sex I rate as the most punishing perhaps of all. You're right, Dan, the nature of our identity as an almost entirely sexual affair contributes to the keenness of rape.

Lowest human moment, for greeks and nietzscheans - the inability to requite. This surely is also what feels that badly in rape.

Highest human moment, for the sage, is lowliness(powerlessness) itself.

Good post, Laird.

You have what to me is a bizarre belief that some (to me) false intellectualisation as to the "non-inherent, illusionary nature of the self" somehow causes emotions to stop arising.

You are right, they wouldn't. Without an ego, we'd still feel bad about being raped. We just wouldn't know we do.

-

Philosophaster wrote: Yeah, I am aware of this, and it seems like it may work even in extreme situations -- with extreme amounts of practice and dedication, like the case of Thich Quang Duc, who burned himself alive and never flinched. The trouble is that most people have nowhere near the mettle for that sort of thing.

The rigor required by Stoicism has been over played by Christians. Nobody ever claimed to be a perfect Stoic or Bodhisattavah. Reasonable practice has been more difficult because the girls were not as challenged as the boys during childhood socialization to 'get a grip'.

But I remember, was born on a farm in 1939, back when large families were all over, and how the older girls were challenged by the duty to take care of the younger kids. i remember them in the barn shoveling shit, or in the field forking sheaves just like us boys.

And you know, I not only didnt know any woman or child who had been sexually abused, I never even heard of it til I lived in the city? I never did very well there, and have lived most of the last 30 years in the Ozarks. And near my back door, as in nearly every other house, leans the shotgun. You can never tell when varmints will be in the garden.

So, the last case I know of attempted rape, of a 13 year old girl left in the house alone with her uncle, she got to the shotgun by the back door first. And she would've blown his ass away, but she didnt wanna put her cousins on welfare. That whole situation never made the news, but was handled by the families and the school in the best interest of the girl.

In another case I know of, when it was discovered that a wife was beat up, several women went over to the dude's house, one of the girls called him out. when he came out, they ganged up on his ass and beat the shit out of him. What was left of him got in his truck the next morning, and he has not been seen since.

Thing is, that in the rural areas, in village life, we deal with these things ourselves very quickly. Justice does not wait. A rapist can go on with his life normally in the anonymity of the city. But out here, every woman in the community would know what he'd done, and he'll never get laid again. And you know- the guys know that? Men who have that desire to rape and abuse.. they dont stay out here. They move to the city.

Now, it usta be that village life was stifling; there were several novels and movies in the early part of the 20th century making that point and glorifying Hollywood, New York, and urban life over the primitive conditions on the farm.

But you know, we have electricity out here now? I am at the end of the grid, last mailbox, last electric meter, last telephone, the end of the city water. But online with a satellite dish. I usta have the TV dish too, but I dont watch that much TV since I got the high speed web.

I know two women out here who've used the high speed bandwidth to do medical transcriptions from homes in the woods, making the same money they would in the city. But living without any of the fear of urban life. What is that worth?

In any case, its rebuilding remote rural communities where women can live without fear, and know who every man they come in contact is, and what his relationship with other women is. Two timing is kinda hard out here also.

But there's another thing the ancients knew about. I found some Amanita Muscaria in the woods last week. The polkadotted toadstool the catapillar sits on in "Alice in Wonderland" smoking a hooka is an Amanita Muscaria. There's a lotta clues in that tale that refer to altered states of consciousness. Some of the effects of that are that most people realize that Jesus is not god, and that there is a degree of detachment. Many have an out of body experience, and from that *objective* point of view, look back on the body as an avatar they use in a video game commonly called "life".

Witches commonly provided the shrooms, potions, and rituals that had this effect, which only intensified the repression by the Bishops. But the enlightening experience the witches provided made Stocism & Brahmahood commonly available. So, yes, most you see now, dont see how to achieve the detachment, but that does not mean that you cant learn it in a single night. I look forward to seeing how this batch of shrooms work on the new moon Fri nite. "Like a box a chocolates, you can never tell what you are going to get."

Daybrown, you make me wanna move to the boondocks. If only I knew I'd eventually get used to the slower pace.

For a year I lived in a mountain town in Arkansas. It had a real pretty lake. I did like living there, except that in the winter, I'd be lucky if I could make it to the mailbox without freezing my butt.

I guess those mountains must have been the same ones you've been hiding in. I'm glad to know now they even have web connections.

.

Laird wrote:

You have what to me is a bizarre belief that some (to me) false intellectualisation as to the "non-inherent, illusionary nature of the self" somehow causes emotions to stop arising. How a mere intellectualisation can impact so profoundly on what is such a deep, ingrained and - as I've tried to explain above - necessary part of a person is completely beyond me.

That is so obvious that it barely needs remarking upon. But I will say that it is probably the first expression of honesty that I've seen from you.

-

You have what to me is a bizarre belief that some (to me) false intellectualisation as to the "non-inherent, illusionary nature of the self" somehow causes emotions to stop arising. How a mere intellectualisation can impact so profoundly on what is such a deep, ingrained and - as I've tried to explain above - necessary part of a person is completely beyond me.

It can't. I've had it and it does next to nothing in an immediate sense. It does tend to work on one's psychology very gradually, but so can traditional psychotherapy or anything else (albeit in somewhat different ways).

In my view, David's alleged lack of emotion is due to the onset of schizoid personality disorder and/or self-suggestion (i.e. putting on a guru air), not to the magical effect of metaphysical insight.

But David's response will be that I simply haven't reached the understanding I claim to have reached and therefore don't know what I'm talking about. If one disagrees with David's view of what follows from the "intellectualisation" in question, then one simply has not attained it.

Laird just hasn't had the proper conversion experience yet.

He hasn't been saved.

Indeed.

David Quinn wrote:That is so obvious that it barely needs remarking upon. But I will say that it is probably the first expression of honesty that I've seen from you.

David, everything that I write here is honest. But I'm interested in seeing you elaborate on the relationship between this intellectualisation as to the illusionary nature of self and its supposed effect of dissolving emotion, because that's the most detail in which I understand your claim. I've discussed it with Kevin in person and that's as far as he goes too. You guys are claiming a cause (an intellectualisation) and an effect (the dissolution of emotion). OK, so then what's the mechanism by which this cause effects its result?

Laird just hasn't had the proper conversion experience yet.

He hasn't been saved.

According to Trevor he has. You need to pay more attention to the threads.

.

I was joking.

LOL.