tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post3914694845604501082..comments2024-03-17T11:54:10.124+11:00Comments on Journeyman Philosopher: Socrates, Russell, Sartre, God and TaoismPaul P. Mealinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post-59663755243467538882009-05-15T09:03:00.000+10:002009-05-15T09:03:00.000+10:00Hi Peter,
Yes, I had read your post, but I read i...Hi Peter,<br /><br />Yes, I had read your post, but I read it again. We say very similar things (I'm referring to my own post on <A HREF="http://journeymanphilosopher.blogspot.com/2007/10/evil.html" REL="nofollow">Evil</A>, which you've read).<br /><br />In particular, I also make the point that the person who takes a stand is the extreme exception rather than the rule. I also agree that a deep narcissism is what drives the real megalomaniacs who have so often steered history, which is one of the strangest evolutionary anomalies of humanity.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post-39628684890097219092009-05-15T05:50:00.000+10:002009-05-15T05:50:00.000+10:00Hi Paul,
I very much like your quote from the I C...Hi Paul,<br /><br />I very much like your quote from the I Ching, which has a kind of reassuring resonance.<br /><br />I don't think I'd characterize myself having a "pessimistic view of humanity," since, not unlike Anne Frank, I still do believe that "most people are good," or at least natively benign and well-intentioned. You seem to have an almost eerie, "temporally inverted prescience" about my current thinking since I do believe very precisely that <I>groups</I> ARE the problem, and wrote a blog post to that effect exactly back in late February. (see <A HREF="http://lostlaneend.blogspot.com/2009/02/evil-depthless-immitigable-and.html" REL="nofollow">evil </A>) What I'd say, relative to the "ingroup/outgroup mentality" is that it's not so much a native, atavistic proclivity for most people, but that it's deliberately fostered by the sociopathic ones, since relegating others to "outgroup" status and susceptibility to exclusion and persecution feeds and gratifies their narcissism (it almost doesn't matter *which* others, but it's almost invariably the least powerful). Absent this deliberate nazi-like unification and gathering of "insiders" and identification and anathematization of "outsiders" by instigating sociopaths, though, I don't personally think that all that many non-sociopathic people would do it naturally in the course of things. Of course, I might be wrong. I'm not a sociologist, but like you, I tend to proceed from personal experience and observation, and an attempt to find plausible explanatory hypotheses. We're absolutely of one mind on the "group" problem, though.<br /><br />Regards,<br />PeterPKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post-62929879869073753172009-05-14T17:58:00.000+10:002009-05-14T17:58:00.000+10:00Hi Peter
I guess I have a less pessimistic view o...Hi Peter<br /><br />I guess I have a less pessimistic view of humanity in general.<br /><br /><EM>If kindness be considered your virtue you have attained your purpose completely</EM>. My favourite quotation from the Richard Wilhelm/Cary Baynes translation of the <EM>I Ching</EM>.<br /><br />I still believe real evil doesn't come from individuals but groups - I remember Koestler writing about it in <EM>The Ghost in the Machine</EM>. It starts with an ingroup outgroup mentality and it escalates from that; doesn't take a sociopath, believe it or not, just ordinary people, politicised and propagandised.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post-36179019770090869492009-05-14T13:33:00.000+10:002009-05-14T13:33:00.000+10:00Hi Paul,
I'd never seen Smullyan's essay, but of ...Hi Paul,<br /><br />I'd never seen Smullyan's essay, but of course, given my own spiritual preoccupations, I found myself captivated by your description, and managed to find it on the web. (Google keywords: Smullyan God)<br /><br />Wherein I fail to identify with the mortal in the essay is not in his desire to be disencumbered of free will, but in his motivation. I think Smullyan, being essentially moral and not a malicious sociopath, projects those traits onto his Everyman. But *every man* (or person) doesn't have them. At least 5% of us (by statistical accounts) are sociopaths, and they're the ones who run the world. I wrote in a blog post, just a few months ago:<br /><br />"For the record, I'd give up 'free will' -- or at least the freedom to harm others -- in a nanosecond, if it would disempower the sociopaths who make all our lives hell. It seems to me an insufficiently gratifying form of compensation. I, for one, have no desire to exercise the option to trample and torture other humans in a demented quest for wealth and power, or just for the "fun" of it. People who do have that desire tend to become CEO's or talk radio hosts.Why not simply deprive us of the ability to harm one another?"<br /><br />So if I'd been the mortal party to that discussion, I'd have asked God to disencumber us of just this one, particular, infinitely and horrifically pernicious freedom. (Which I believe would be a constraint that would apply vacuously to most of us, but would shackle the vicious, Schadenfreude-obsessed sociopaths who really *need* constraining.) The thing I find most objectionable about the world is not that I *could* sin if I wanted to (which I don't), and that I'm therefore obsessed with fear of guilt (which I'm not, because I feel absolutely no inclination to murder anyone), but that sociopaths are immune from guilt in any case, and they *do* have that inclination, and that, accordingly, as with the most pernicious of organisms in an artificial life simulation, they come to dominate the ecological niche. I'd have been more interested in God's conversation with a Morlock than with an Eloi. But then, perhaps Smullyan fancies himself a *potential* Morlock, but I just don't see it.<br /><br />Regards,<br />PeterPKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post-71090289127310334102009-05-14T11:46:00.000+10:002009-05-14T11:46:00.000+10:00I wrote my Master thesis on "The Concept of Democr...I wrote my Master thesis on "The Concept of Democracy Within 2nd Generation Marxism". So, someone calling themselves a pseudo-Marxist is not a put-off in the least! :)<br /><br />Thanks for the book recommendation.The Rambling Taoisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04730292897416827840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post-58915653829992361672009-05-14T11:40:00.000+10:002009-05-14T11:40:00.000+10:00Thanks Rambling Taoist for your references. Both o...Thanks Rambling Taoist for your references. Both of those books sound worthy of exploration.<br /><br />Another book, in the same vein, is Terry Lane's, <EM>God The Interview</EM>.<br /><br />Terry Lane is a broadcaster with the ABC (Australia's equivalent to the BBC). He was once a clergyman, but describes himself on the back cover as: 'a secular, rationalist, pessimistic psuedo-Marxist.'<br /><br />But don't be put off by that, it's a very good book.<br /><br />Regards, Paul.Paul P. Mealinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14573615711151742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427479692989285926.post-47316652310805407302009-05-14T10:43:00.000+10:002009-05-14T10:43:00.000+10:00The idea of God as mathematics or pure logic goes ...The idea of God as mathematics or pure logic goes all the way back to Baruch Spinoza in his seminal work, <I>The Ethics</I>. I'm just now starting to read it.<br /><br />I love Smullyan -- great writing style. Another example of a conversation with God that mirror's his comes from <I>God's Debris</I> by Dilbert creator Scott Adams. Talk about a book to make one rethink the basic underlying assumptions of life!The Rambling Taoisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04730292897416827840noreply@blogger.com