Sue Hindmarsh wrote:As long as I never question them about their values, or the values of society, they are perfectly happy to buy me lunch. But that's the nature of friendship
Anything for a free lunch. How sagely.
Sue Hindmarsh wrote:There are no male supermodels
That just shows that you're so much more interested in female supermodels that you don't even think about guys in that way. At BA, sher always had a male supermodel pic in her signature line. I guess that's one difference between you and sher - she's more interested in male supermodels and you're more interested in female ones.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
-- Oscar Wilde
Good one!
First I've heard of it. However, I did go to China recently, courtesy of my father.
What? Someone here, I think it was Carl, said you were coming to his house to do some work for him and you said you were leaving and were not here for a while. It was a joke?
I could not name one female supermodel. But at least I recognized the name of one of them (Cindy).
Just arrived, and I have not even made it past this first thread. As for its original idea, I am getting Sue/David. I come at this differently - from the binaries of immanence and transcendence.
Immanence - all that is immediately sensory and bodily, and all affairs of human body-life. We know its meaning from the phrase "immanent danger" wherein a person's physical existence is immediately imperiled. Philosophically, immanence is what humans share with all of life, and it is that which we have traditionally considered to be our animal affairs. We have also considered a life led in purely immanent conditions to be less than a human one.
Belonging to immanent human-body life are sex, child-birth and rearing, nursing wounds, feeding/food production and filth-cleaning, washing the dead, clothing/protecting the body, making safe places to sleep, etc. Persons who have been occupied solely with these labors have variously included slaves, servants, manual laborers, and women.
This is not sufficient to describe the fullest human experience - that which extends - transcends - past this grunting, immanent existence of every living thing. This comes with self-consciousness, this is called transcendence. Were humans confined by nature to immanence alone, no thinking/questioning/conceptualizing; no architecture, instead of just buildings; no religion/spirituality (and no cathedrals to go with them); no educational institutions, no pedagogical intentions; no artwork, instruments, vocabularies; in short, none of those activities that we associate distinctly with being human/accomplishing human, and not just being animal. Definitionally, we shall never exceed the mammal, and yet we think and find ourselves worlds apart. Humans, in complete distinction, make things much much harder on themselves; perhaps a testament to the unfinished business of consciousness itself.
Those times when we have judged a person's humanity to be the most imperiled are those conditions that confine them to purely immanent life, with no chance to transcend to a recognition of human subjectivity (both its limits and its accomplishments). The 17th century revolutions attempted to variously address slavery (Russian serfs; later, the American civil war); and servants (French revolution against aristocracy); and the manual laborer (Marx/Engles socialism, etc.). In each of the revolutions, the imperiled humanity of people who are expected to define themselves by solely immanent conditions was recognized and addressed. Withholding paths of transcendence from any human got understood - past our animal business - with our thoughts & rationale.
This has naught to do with "capability," as these various revolutions demonstrate. Not every human will seize upon the work of transcendence, if it's been withheld from them and then returned. In fact, it has less to do with these political configurations and more to do with the sanctifying point: We have more to do with ourselves than eat/drink/sleep/fuck/nurse our body-lives. At least if we intend to distinguish ourselves as "human." (Our present culture, I might add, is horribly about the immanent in the amount of breeding news and related animal butt-sniffing we do with all the dramas, movies, songs, and news centered around who is fucking whom.)
You'll notice the amount of immanent affairs that are still the expected and accepted domain of women. Her singular value resides in these standards - by ignorance or intent. She had better inspire breeding behavior, first and foremost - be all about breeding and its related affairs (fashion: the plumage of competition). If she fails that, she at least better be able to cook/gather food or rear-children, or nurse - in some or any way, serve the body-life of the species, or she is less-than a "woman." Her counterpart in men is the manual laborer/slave, who dies while alive under repetitive, inhuman labor, and makes no register in the world of transcendent affairs. We have to take note of these conditions tending to fall along gender lines, and then we have to promptly discard them. The thing at stake here is transcendence - that part of us we call human. Transcending as human object to human subjectivity. History has addressed it over and again, but will not face-off the problem with women.
(I'm getting to it . . .) This is NOT a simple-minded body/mind duality; it is WHAT that bodymind is found doing in lived experience that matters. Restrict its range to immanence, and obsessive attention to it ensues. Accepting immanence as a cultural role - either willingly or in ignorance - does not alter the less-than result. In other words, it doesn't matter whether one is trapped in immanence or is choosing it alone, one does either from the less-than human stance. In immanence, your value is passive, in being a thing-wanted (for labor/sex, etc.). In transcendence, your value is active: you are a thing that does the wanting itself.
My paraphrased understanding of Sue has to do with this, and David as well; when your nose gets ground in the poo-poo of it, it is not done by people who don't expect anymore of you. Women's humanity is at stake in this world-historic state of affairs, and women's transcendence will not come about in their present state of immanence - enforced or chosen, doesn't matter. And a woman's 'obsession' (or conditioning) with it shows readily in her thinking. It reveals her own understanding of herself as less-than human, if she is looking for and finding "footholds" in someone else. This would be speaking in general of this lack. immanence, wishing after some transcendence, depending on transcendence not-possessed.
I don't have a judgment about whether this has to do with Sher at all; I have nothing to say on that front!
I get this opening thread, though. It's not nothing.
Too many men and women make the mistake of assuming that the power and choice available to women now is fulfilled, when it is fulfilled toward immanent affairs! She can chose her mates now, they cry! - run the whole sex game her way, etc. She can have children alone and work her own job; or she can get dudes to feather her material nest with her sexual charms! None of this is transcendence! In this, she is immanently confined, and she herself is just as apt to mistake this as her best!
Consider the hapless husband prototype often portrayed on these pages here. He, too, is a slave of immanent affairs: he labors repetitively to provide the bodily shelter, and the food, to get the regular sex and procreate. He is also all about the immanent, even if he has entry to the world human transcendence. In that world, he may at least have the chance to exercise the faculties of envisioning and deciding past his animal life, into the future of ideas or material. There are desperate housewives and desperate househusbands alike. It is a desperate place to confine the human being in nothing but immanence.
At BA, sher always had a male supermodel pic in her signature line. I guess that's one difference between you and sher - she's more interested in male supermodels and you're more interested in female ones.
( Note to self: look for that pic later. E and K may have missed it. And Tomas would get a kick out of it. David would totally miss the humor in it, though. )
Broken, I enjoy the way you talk to prince.
Who is he, anyway? Have we met under another reincarnation?
I think Pye demonstrates the debt feminist ideas owe to Marxian analysis.
The use of the terms immanence and transcendence is certainly interesting, it is a nice frame for a sometimes dreary picture: the terrible human condition, and I am not so much speaking of us---we 'privileged'---but of the grinding masses for whom life is purely toilsome and conditioned. It is hard though---as far as words and definitions go---to escape their embeddedness in theology, and most definitions of the word have those tones. Pye has taken the word and put a different spin on it, so it has a touch of originality, which is welcome and refreshing.
"Immanence, derived from the Latin in manere "to remain within", refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of the divine as existing and acting within the mind or the world. This concept generally contrasts or coexists with the idea of transcendence."
---Some definition off the Internet
If I were to describe a big part of my 'philosophical thrust' as a writer on this forum, I would describe myself as an 'immanentarian' insofar as I think we factually have no other choice, at least for now, but to try to see this world and this life as the perhaps sole field of God's expression. We are indeed within the body of God, yet I know that for some (like Shah) raised in confining Catholicism and other conceptual straight-jackets it is hard to see life and all that happens, but especially our consciousness as a viewer and participant (an actor with a certain amount of freedom), as 'God'.
To live 'immanently' would be to never ascribe such negative value to all these things of the earth: labor, growing food, our life in flesh and bone, sex, relationship, love, children, death. For example, Pablo Neruda as a poet/philosopher, finds God's expression in all the immanency of...basically all the things of life.
"There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul."
---Nothing But Death, Pablo Neruda
It is so easy to let that value, that finding of value, slip away from one as one is striving for...things that do not in fact exist! I submit to you that no one on this whole forum (I say this sincerely) seems ever to express any appreciating for the things of which this life is composed, and as far QRS is concerned, aside from lip service to an experience of 'enlightenment', there is only outright contempt for an artistic/philosophical eye for the beautiful things of life. And when I say 'beauty' I mean God expressed as immanence, so I want to nip in the bud this adolescent, cartoonish, depthless interpretation of such values as 'aesthetics'.
I am not too comfortable with the way that Pye has set up her dichotomy, however. The implication (with a decided Marxian tone) is that there is something wrong with this 'immanence' as she has defined it. She posits but does not define at all the 'transcendent' (in human affairs). I think this is a terrible mistake. For example, and speaking directly to something only a woman can do, to form a child, to bear a child, and to nourish and have a relationship to that born being, is 'immanent' in the more glorified theological sense of the word. If that is not a place where 'God' expresses itself (in terms of human experience0, I am not sure where else one is to find it. Women's experience in many ways, because it is rapturous and immediate, often finds real value in so much that is 'mundane', and it is wise (wise I say!) not to stray too far from the 'real things' of the Earth: unless you can define something else and present it for discussion.
The implication in what Pye writes is that someone (men, I gather) have defined for women an 'immanent' role, but defined no other possibility. She brings up but skirts the issue/problem of Nature as the originator of our condition (back to Mistress Nature, so hard and cruel, here). But this doesn't wash as I see things because, like it or not, we have no choice at present but to find value in our 'immanent' incarnated here-and-now life, but (if we choose to) to divinize it, to raise it up, to elevate ourselves in it. Now that is a substantial accomplishment, and I would contrast that with all this jaw-flapping (always by talkative youngsters with little real experience in life, with relationship issues, with mental issues, etc.) about 'enlightenment'. Who in the fuck here really has a clue as to what 'enlightenment' is? Frankly, you don't get the sense that anyone really does. It is just spiel and part of a long-standing game of false-representation.
Here though she writes:
"This comes with self-consciousness, this is called transcendence. Were humans confined by nature to immanence alone, no thinking/questioning/conceptualizing; no architecture, instead of just buildings; no religion/spirituality (and no cathedrals to go with them); no educational institutions, no pedagogical intentions; no artwork, instruments, vocabularies; in short, none of those activities that we associate distinctly with being human/accomplishing human, and not just being animal."
Nothing is in fact 'transcended' though. All of these accomplishments and striving are of an 'immanent' order. The whole question turns on how one defines 'immanent'. What I want to point out is how all of the accomplishment just named, never appears as part of the concern or interest of Q-R-S.
To move into the higher reaches of immanence is a work of art, it is to see life as a chance for artwork, creativity, but also a a chance to give expression to things of the spirit. It is to nourish, just as one would nourish a small fire, the sense of the spiritual (immanent) within oneself and within life, which is lifelong cultivation of self. It is pretty much only when culture moves into very rich periods that the people arise who give expression to these sorts of values, and they are delicate, so delicate, and all those temples and palaces and landscapes (and beautiful rearing of children btw) are what are trampled by philistines and philistine values.
I have a feeling, why I am not certain, that the road that Pye is exploring (if I may be so bold) is not really a feminine path toward self-realization, but looks like a woman imitating a man. I am aware of the sexist possibility in that statement, yes, that is there. Women, when they merely imitate men's accomplishment, seem to lose touch with themselves, and distortions arise from that. Pye speaks of a 'division' and she also embodies it, it seems to me.
That just shows that you're so much more interested in female supermodels that you don't even think about guys in that way. At BA, sher always had a male supermodel pic in her signature line. I guess that's one difference between you and sher - she's more interested in male supermodels and you're more interested in female ones.
Given that a supermodel is defined as a model who is known worldwide, far beyond the fashion industry, Sue is quite right. There are no male supermodels.
One could argue that David Beckham and Brad Pitt are male supermodels. However, if they weren't top achievers in their respective professions, they would never have achieved fame. They certainly wouldn't have achieved fame on their looks alone. Rather, they are top achievers who happen to be good-looking.
Only a woman can become famous for doing nothing at all, apart from grooming herself.
Your idea that Dan’s popularity (is he popular?) comes from “speaking universally” and “not against particular females”, has absolutely no basis. He has consistently laid bare the truth about the feminine and its relation to wisdom, as exampled below:
Brokenhead wrote to Sue:
I think Ryan is spot on with this observation. I also think it is meant as a positive thing - Dan refrains from character assasination. What's wrong with that? Except about Oprah Winfrey, and the big fat whale deserves it.
I’m just pointing out that Dan and I are of two extremes, Dan is generally much more jokey, nice and friendly with people on GF. He has been known to engage in small chat, and occasionally deviate from the serious objectives of GF. With myself, my weakness is that sometimes I react with a strong dislike and disgust to thoughts that I judge as unconscious, and instead of my criticisms being soft, gentle, and patient, as they should be, I go straight for the juggler with the aim to cause serious ego injury. Dan and I are polar opposites in this regard. Dan is emotionally immature in his ways, while I’m emotionally immature in my ways.
Basically, Dan’s weakness is that on occasion he enjoys the illusion that he is making lots of new friends here at GF, whereas on occasion I enjoy the illusion that I’m mentally murdering lots of new friends here at GF.
David,
First I've heard of it. However, I did go to China recently, courtesy of my father.
What is your opinion of China? Hows my description? An Unconscious, and exaggerated anthill of consumption.
Furthermore, It seems apparent that the one child policy is not correcting the population problem they have there, perhaps they should adopt a no child policy, or better still, A –1 child policy?
DQ wrote:Only a woman can become famous for doing nothing at all, apart from grooming herself.
David cracks me up with these observations.
Just the other day I espied a woman's magazine in a supermarket that had the bold headline "Perfect Hair." Intrigued, I picked it up, thinking, Finally! After thousands of years of women cultivating their hair, at long last absolute Perfection is within grasp. I quickly flipped to the salient article so I could discover, for myself, what the mysterious secret could be. I won't reveal the answer in its entirety here, but it began: "First, get a great cut..."
No doubt the priceless information therein accounts for the magazine's prominent display at the checkout counter...
There is no getting-rid-of immanence; this isn't a manichaean binary. The problem is social, structural, or self confinement to it alone.
It is not even a matter of getting-rid-of immanence for those occupied in transcendent affairs. To be occupied in transcendent affairs alone means that another class beneath you must deal with your immanent needs. This is master/slave stuff as old as the hills. It is about the original division of these (immanence/transcendence) that make-up fullest humanity - a division exploited by one through power, idea, law, and social more. Ask Aristotle, who believe this doer and done-to to be the natural order of things. Those who can, and those who instead must . . . .
Alex writes:
To move into the higher reaches of immanence is a work of art, it is to see life as a chance for artwork, creativity, but also a a chance to give expression to things of the spirit. It is to nourish, just as one would nourish a small fire, the sense of the spiritual (immanent) within oneself and within life, which is lifelong cultivation of self.
This is all the work of transcendence, Alex. Changing the definition does not change the dynamic.
Alex writes:
For example, and speaking directly to something only a woman can do, to form a child, to bear a child, and to nourish and have a relationship to that born being, is 'immanent' in the more glorified theological sense of the word. If that is not a place where 'God' expresses itself (in terms of human experience0, I am not sure where else one is to find it. Women's experience in many ways, because it is rapturous and immediate, often finds real value in so much that is 'mundane', and it is wise (wise I say!) not to stray too far from the 'real things' of the Earth
It is interesting listening to dudes posit the 'magical' qualities of female existence. What you express here might be available to women, but only in the most episodic way. The rest is a you-do-it-if-you-think-it's-so-valuable sort of thing.
I've pointed this out before, but look at what this immanent confinement produces in most women. Her need for human transcendence - confined in this way - produces the narcissism, the domestic-dictator, the body obsessed self-hatred, the love/attention of a man/men as indispensable to her well-being, children as identity -- everything which with you and others complain. She is a monster, deformed with such persistent conditions, self-imposed or otherwise.
Alex:
I have a feeling, why I am not certain, that the road that Pye is exploring (if I may be so bold) is not really a feminine path toward self-realization, but looks like a woman imitating a man.
Argument comeback #323A. heard it a bizillion times, from psuedo-feminists, like yourself. Name me the highest human model upon which we stake transcendent human accomplishment, and you will indeed find this place occupied mostly by men. Not by nature, but by Aristotelean design. Not by nature (immanence), but by transcendence (human thought/human design). Embedded in this eternal, infernal assumption that these binaries be separated is its fatal flaw.
David:
Only a woman can become famous for doing nothing at all, apart from grooming herself.
immanence. her thing-hood is enough. for her - and for everyone who consumes her - as product as well.
I've arranged to come to Australia, David! To see you! I'm bringing a very attractive friend of mine---Yolanda Jimenez Nunez---and when I get there I am going to tie you up and I am going to have her rub herself with rose, jasmine and clove-scented almond oil, and sit on your face while I read you the collected works of Pablo Neruda, and I am going to tell her not to stop until you have been completely healed, and until you agree (a trick I learned from Beingof1) that you have neen healed, and I'm going to make a video of it, and I am going to post it on YouTube!
First I've heard of it. However, I did go to China recently, courtesy of my father.
What? Someone here, I think it was Carl, said you were coming to his house to do some work for him and you said you were leaving and were not here for a while. It was a joke?
It was a joke, as I pointed out for those less subtly connected to the forum's history, a couple of posts later. It was a play on Kevin's trip of a year ago to help Elizabeth with her landscaping chores.
(Someone, I think Brokenhead, then played on my play, suggesting Kevin went to trim Liz's bush. Heh.)
But David, how was China? I think it's great that you got to go.
Ryan Rudolph wrote: What is your opinion of China? Hows my description? An Unconscious, and exaggerated anthill of consumption.
Well, such a description could apply to any nation. From what I observed, the Chinese live more or less the same way as most Australians or Americans. They work, have families, engage in hobbies and then they die. They are still poor, compared to us, but their aims in life and their ability to fulfill them is pretty much the same.
The biggest impression I gained from the trip was how conscious the Chinese are of the rapid changes that are happening in their society. They talk about it openly as "The Transition" and they are all embracing it - businessmen, peasants, political leaders, children, etc. They are all reading from the same page here. Given that China historically has always entertained ambitious visions and think nothing of engaging in massive projects (a quality that does impress upon you when you visit), it seems inevitable that China will become a superpower in the near future, probably eclipsing everyone else.
Another thing I noticed is that they are incredibly sensitive to what the West thinks of them, to the point of obsession. They feel very misunderstood by the West and don't understand why Western leaders, etc, constantly criticize them. If the West wants China to change to a more open society, it is clear they are going to have move away from confrontational strategies and instead shower them with a lot of good-will and acceptance. The Chinese do admire the West and would probably willingly change if they thought the West was on their side.
Furthermore, It seems apparent that the one child policy is not correcting the population problem they have there, perhaps they should adopt a no child policy, or better still, A –1 child policy?
As I understand it, the lag effects of the policy are still working their way through and that the population won't peak until 2030 or some such thing. There is a hell of a lot of people there, no doubt about it.
The one-child policy is having interesting consequences. For example, traditional Chinese activities and artforms, such as acrobatics, are slowly dying out because few parents want their one and only child doing acrobatics. They want him or her to be a government officer or a businessman instead. This is particularly true in the cities.
Also, reversing centuries of traditional thinking, most parents nowadays prefer their one and only child to be a girl. This is because a new tradition has arisen where the parents of a boy are required to pay for the apartment that their son and his wife will live in after they get married. This tradition is new because up until a few years ago nobody ever owned their apartments - they were all owned by the government or by their local factories (same thing). But now with The Transition, that's all changed.
You can’t say that Western women don’t have the opportunity to partake in activities of transcendence, can you? True, most don’t because of the way society nurtures them to be immanent creatures to a greater degree than males, or because of their natural lack of the genetic tools that give rise to a desire for transcendence, but the opportunity is still there for the taking. For this reason I’d don’t concern myself with women as such, but that which prevents everyone from shifting focus away from the immanent – egotism, religion, non-directed capitalism and a shallow media focusing on producing even more immanent desires.
When women seek transcendence, they do so via immanent means, through philosophies involving the concept of “love”. It is up to role models like you, who care about such issues, to move them away from false immanent-based philosophies, to philosophies of reality.
Also, reversing centuries of traditional thinking, most parents nowadays prefer their one and only child to be a girl.
hooray! 50-100 million disposable men, would probably lead to a desire to dispose of them, due to the additional crime that will ensue, through warmongering.
Yes, Pye, still here, doing the hard work of consciousness raising among the QRS pishers.
It wasn't at all intended as an 'argument come-back', Pye. It wasn't really directed at you personally, it is just a general sort of idea I am working on. We only have such a small fraction of time with these recent experiments in female freedom, this recent escape from a veritable cage. I will be the first to say that I have no idea where it is all tending, nor do I presume to suppose I have 'woman's nature' somehow all figured out, or even that I understand it.
"To be occupied in transcendent affairs alone means that another class beneath you must deal with your immanent needs. This is master/slave stuff as old as the hills. It is about the original division of these (immanence/transcendence) that make-up fullest humanity - a division exploited by one through power, idea, law, and social more. Ask Aristotle, who believe this doer and done-to to be the natural order of things. Those who can, and those who instead must..."
I'm just not too interested---or perhaps 'comfortable is the word---with the Marxian platform, especially in the hands of the resentful (in the Nietzschean sense). Though there is of course truth in Marxian analysis, it fails to take into account that it is quite possible to explore and embody (what you are terming) 'transcendent values' or objectives even if one is on the lower rungs of service in the social order. And there are people who pull it off. On the other side of the spectrum, in your Marxian view, those upper-echelon figures are surely enjoying their 'transcendence', but in many cases this is not at all the case: they are mired in traps that consume their energies.
The resentful seem invariably just to want to turn the tables around. It is just one of the 'psychological facts' of ressentiment.
I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate though the reference to Aristotle's natural slave and master with all that it implies.
"This is all the work of transcendence, Alex. Changing the definition does not change the dynamic."
It's you who have the unusual vocabulary. And what I am saying is that there is a way for anyone in 'immanence' to also enjoy or discover 'transcendental' values or meaning. The Marxian mistake is that the order is artificially overturned or remodeled and that in itself will cure the essential problem. I hear these notes in your writing.
"It is interesting listening to dudes posit the 'magical' qualities of female existence. What you express here might be available to women, but only in the most episodic way. The rest is a you-do-it-if-you-think-it's-so-valuable sort of thing."
That is an age-old rebuttal, of course. I think it is a diversion since what you are responding to is not exactly what I am saying. In the last 30-40 years radically new possibilities of definition (of women, and women defining themselves) have arisen. So much of it is up in the air. Vast business interests have weighed-in to insist on certain definitions, or to diminish the power of others. If you are saying that men should not also have a say in how things get defined, I think you are on a very wrong track. I see this as a feminist mistake, of a first order. One hears various notes from various discourses in historical feminism in your writing. You seem just as tentative as anyone, I might point out.
A culture that reinvents the role of women in childbearing (and all that this entails which extends so far beyond this alone), will invent itself out of existence. So, these philosophies are not neutral. (And I am not at all saying this is the only field of activity for women).
"I've pointed this out before, but look at what this immanent confinement produces in most women. Her need for human transcendence - confined in this way - produces the narcissism, the domestic-dictator, the body obsessed self-hatred, the love/attention of a man/men as indispensable to her well-being, children as identity -- everything which with you and others complain. She is a monster, deformed with such persistent conditions, self-imposed or otherwise."
I am not condoning or suggesting an 'immanent confinement'.
I find the relationship between Chinese and American Economics interesting. America has basically outsourced much of their manufacturing to China because of the cheap labor, but the affect is that such large trade deficits caused the American government to borrow a lot of money from China to fuel their luxurious consumption habits. This has resulted in huge amounts of American debt being covered by the Chinese government and banks. However, China is growing a middle-class society, and a wealthy class, and soon their own citizens will be capable of buying more much more of their own goods and services, and so China will not be as dependent on America to buy all its exports. Plus China is developing new trade agreements with Countries all over the world.
The end result is a sort of teeter-totter affect. The economic power is gravitating away from America into the hands of China.
The major danger I see is that as India and China develop, more strain will continue to be put on many of our finite natural resources, which will continue to cause prices to increase, and some metals may actually become very scarce in time. The result is that recycling will have to become a widespread practice, and alternatives will need to be found as certain metals and commodity reserves are depleted.
David,
Another thing I noticed is that they are incredibly sensitive to what the West thinks of them, to the point of obsession. They feel very misunderstood by the West and don't understand why Western leaders, etc, constantly criticize them. If the West wants China to change to a more open society, it is clear they are going to have move away from confrontational strategies and instead shower them with a lot of good-will and acceptance. The Chinese do admire the West and would probably willingly change if they thought the West was on their side.
In my opinion, America and other western nations are sort of like the spoiled big brother than gave birth to China, the child. And the child is more naïve, but looks up the brother, and doesn’t want the brother to think ill of him. Yes, diplomatic measures are in definitely in order to deal with such a volatile situation. International relations between nations is like walking on egg shells anyway in my opinion. Each nation’s leaders have certain things that set them off.
I submit to you that no one on this whole forum (I say this sincerely) seems ever to express any appreciating for the things of which this life is composed
Not so!
I have defended life, and railed many times against the anti-life stance by the wise and rational inner lunatic fringe here.
What is the point of any of this if we despise the very life which we are?
The only problem with Pye's immanence, is that it can be quite unconscious, but it need not be.
Furthermore, it is a renewed and reawakened sense of the immanence of God, besides the transcendence, which is breathing new life into the stale old time religious sensibilities.
There is no enlightenment worth having without bone shattering immanence. I like to feel God in my bones.
And to be fair, David, albeit he has been deliberately obtuse of late, has written nicely of the immanence of God in all things.
A culture that reinvents the role of women in childbearing (and all that this entails which extends so far beyond this alone), will invent itself out of existence. So, these philosophies are not neutral. (And I am not at all saying this is the only field of activity for women).
I do agree that while much is positive in women's new choices, I am wondering what sort of generation we are now raising, which does not have real mothers. And it seems to me that these choices are patterned after male life trajectories, not women's.
I think women have been largely cheated by feminism, and certainly children.
Carl,
It was a joke, as I pointed out for those less subtly connected to the forum's history, a couple of posts later.
Alex Jacob wrote:I've arranged to come to Australia, David! To see you! I'm bringing a very attractive friend of mine---Yolanda Jimenez Nunez---and when I get there I am going to tie you up and I am going to have her rub herself with rose, jasmine and clove-scented almond oil, and sit on your face
Ouch! Have you seen David's beard? That's gotta be prickly!
Alex Jacob wrote:I've arranged to come to Australia, David! To see you! I'm bringing a very attractive friend of mine---Yolanda Jimenez Nunez---and when I get there I am going to tie you up and I am going to have her rub herself with rose, jasmine and clove-scented almond oil, and sit on your face while I read you the collected works of Pablo Neruda, and I am going to tell her not to stop until you have been completely healed, and until you agree (a trick I learned from Beingof1) that you have neen healed, and I'm going to make a video of it, and I am going to post it on YouTube!
You didn't read my post!? Oh man, you missed out!
Do I know you? Have we ever spoke before the previous one posting?
