I read Ayn Rand, Hayek, Milton Friedman, von Mises, Murray Rothbard when I was 20 to around 24 when they enjoyed a resurgence of interest shortly after Obama was elected. I read Locke and Burke not long after that...some Buckley too. Mostly centered on far right-wing economics.
Culturally, Trump's election in 2016, Bannon's brief role, and some additional individuals and events, changed the trajectory of conservative intellectual interest away from the more economic-focused thinkers and towards more unsavory socio-political ones, such as Evola, Schmitt, etc. whom I don't have much interest engaging with, at least at book-level, at this point. Otherwise, I've read some First Things and Claremont Institute articles, some Yoram Hazony, National Review, Douthat op-eds from time-to-time, but I don't find any of them intellectually serious. — Maw
It seems to me that life is much more enjoyable and less burdensome when one is not afraid of when it may end. — darthbarracuda
It's free. — James Riley
But I did well on a standardized test and was put in a smart kid's class, so I went from priding myself on the badass jets I could draw to being a strong reader — norm
I feel bad about the mask metaphor. I guess I just mean that I don't remember any jokes in Whitman. It's more like he shows a part of his high self. He was probably hilarious too, but left that out. — norm
I agree. Or more specifically: what world is that kid being trained for? If he's stuck in the underclass or in some war-torn place, perhaps harshness is actually best But to rise in peacetime capitalism is very much about soft skills. Violence is done to and by poor people (though often directed by the rich.) — norm
Perhaps you've also noted how easy and natural this is with people who don't think of themselves as intellectuals. I have great conversations with true friends that haven't read any of my favorite books. The whole I'm-smart compulsion can be such an enemy. There's a peer-to-peer attitude that people have antenna for. They can sense when the conversation is condescending or aggresive. — norm
*Side-issue, but I can imagine someone saying 'well, that's not Zen.' OK, Cool, I reply. But what matters to me is an attitude/realization that exists now for me, which is maybe (doesn't really matter) what someone else somewhere else called something else. Even a shared American misreading of Zen can be a bridge, or just sharing in the cloud of the concept. Koans and shit! Waking people up to something behind language. Some kind of mutated OLP boredom with mind-matter-blah-blah. Also knowing that what keeps me going might not work at all for someone else and will only work temporarily for me. — norm
And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."
— Gospel of Thomas
That sounds kind of crazy until you compare it to:
Blessed are the meek
For they shall inherit the earth.
How do you inherit the earth? What do you do with it once you've got it? — frank
Excellent description. I think that this can morph into a strange brew of confession-and-accusation. I am this, but I am also not this. — norm
I read Whitman (narrator of Leaves) as a heroic creation of Whitman, a beautiful mask, a fresh image of the noble man.) I mean that he grabbed his strongest self and got it on the page. He's a great example of a poet who's as important as a philosopher. (Really the distinction is a joke for spiritual purposes. ) — norm
I find Cioran somewhere in the middle. 'Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.' I recently learned that Cioran and Beckett were friends, that Beckett was a 1-on-1 guy, not a public wit. Cioran makes me believe that he's experienced the highs and lows that my vanity would claim for myself alone. He knows the great vanity of suffering, the enjoyment we can take in despair. Schopenhauer seems to lack this (without ceasing to squirt some accidentally hilarious gloom.) It's his dark cosmic vision of an irrational will at the heart of things, the world as an ultimately senseless machine for making half-sense.
This issue does seem central, the 'man' and the 'woman.' There's a idea attributed to Freud rightly or wrong that all jokes are about women. 'Only the exaggerations are true.' In another thread about 'rational suicide' I talk about my fantasy of walking into death, alone, fully aware. Why does that seem heroic to me? Why do we like it in Socrates and Christ? Even Joanna Newsom must be a product of violence, at least of some kind of severity of high standards. I also think of Nick in Freaks & Geeks. He's the pot-head narcissist shitty poet who hasn't been shaped by the mocking father. I guess I'm saying that some violence and humiliation is necessary and justified in order to train us into civilized animals (not defending old-fashioned belt whippings, just talking about hurting a kid's feelings sometimes, if they steal, etc.) Interiority depends on repression, of uncouth (often ultimately-selfish 'love' (lust, obsession)) and of course petty aggression. There's something undeciable for me here, though certain extremes I'd obviously reject. If the world is nasty (and my small town was tough for a misfit), then maybe 'dad' should represent the reality principle within limits. — norm
Yes, we are on the same page, very much. And I like Taoism. If you want to be whole, let yourself be torn. I think you are nailing the tone, which is difficult. It's hard to talk about wisdom and spirituality without lapsing into a certain unpleasant role. It's what Zizek means when he calls wisdom obscene. I totally get that and yet it's obvious that humans want wisdom, which is something like the skill of living well where words are perhaps a secondary part of the skill. IMO, there's a playful attitude that's primary. When disaster is forcing us to be serious indeed, there's a creative ground state that could only play at launching manifestos. I like some of Tristan Tzara's stuff quite a bit, self-eating manifestos that (importantly!) register as joyful and not bitter. There's no definite conceptual content to be communicated. It's the attitude that matters. I project this on Zen, which I don't know well. — norm
Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.
This reminds me of Witt/Heid but maybe it's more like Jung's whatever is unconscious is projected. If Jung is right, then 'unconscious' is misleading. There's what we identity with and as and there's all the repressed/projected stuff that's in front of our face. Othering is self-division. — norm
Warhol did some book that was just 24 hours of his friends and him talking bullshit, uncensored and raw. Maybe they performed a little for the tape-recorder, but I like the aim of sanctifying ordinary life, or making peace with the banal, the lazy, the imperfect. (I wish Byron's journal hadn't been burned. It would have been nasty, sure, but illuminating even in its nastiness.) — norm
What does the little boy learn? A contempt for vulnerability. My dad used the belt, and at some point I could take the whipping without tears and that's about when they stopped. A boy who cries over a little pain deserves the belt in the first place, right? So the sissy soul of the boy goes into hiding or rather projection....and the castrated girls (actually uncastrated one might say) are more fascinating than ever. We end up with a classic system (possibly crumbling) of men insisting on 'sublimated' relationships with one another and saving some secret tender private side for women. (I know this is cis-het biased, and I just can't speak for other situations.)
Returning the The Possessed and Stavrogin's confession: why does he hate the little girl after seducing her? After her confused initial resistance, she is shockingly enthusiastic. I think he is appalled not because of her physical youth but because of her trust, because of how easy it was to deceive her and instill faith in her. He suddenly hates her, because she suddenly loves him, because he was inspired by an imp of perversity or demon of irony in the first place, and certainly not by love. — norm
On the picking a fight issue, yes indeed that's stuff we humans do. And I wrestle with shame sometimes too, because there's the temptation to mock, challenge, subvert. Then there's perhaps the worse temptation to be above all this, to scorn all this in an even less forgiving pride (silent contempt.) If one knows this evil or aggression in one's self, it's hard to be earnest, because one expects it in others, especially in those who matter, because our pretty intellectual flowers grow in the soil of cruelty (something like that.) Messages are contorted as they are squeezed through defense mechanisms (like dream work of some kind.) — norm
I guess I've just always come to the usual conclusions - why should I care what is written in any holy book? — Tom Storm
He is, that's the name I was grasping for - but at the end of the day, why's he doing it? I've watched many interviews with him, when I was reading the OT with a friend, who was a fan. He's cagy, and isolated. As are many people who are pushing heterodox ideas...but you just get a feeling that his impulse is based on religion, and he's trying to get a comeuppance. It's very tantaiizing if you grew up in a strong religious community; it's kind of weird otherwise. To put it into context: imagine Richard Carrier giving a lecture, with the same vibe, on the role of mana in polynesian tribes.Dr Richard Carrier is an exponent of this. — Tom Storm
No you misinterpreted me completely. — schopenhauer1
I am going to come out of left field here and come at this from an anthropological/historical perspective..
I think the more "Gnostic" movements that influenced Hellenistic Judaism made for some interesting synthesis.
I think Judaism is/was a very community-oriented religion. The basic core is that God created the lower world of physical realm in order for there to be free-willed humans who will communally acknowledge him by practicing various commandments. Some of these were meant for laypeople, some meant for Cohen-priests, and some of these over time shifted from priests to lay-Israelites to make a "guard" against violating the commandments. It was very much about communal practice. One anoints the mundane things by following a particular commandment that raises it a holier level by doing it in a prescribed god-ordained way. One can argue historically, that this kind of strict communitarian version of the religion was created by community-leaders (like Ezra the Scribe) that returned from the Babylonian Exile under the auspices of the Persian Empire, as governors, reforming the previous (probably more Henotheistic) religion into a strict monotheism with an orthodox version of how the history came to be.. This was around the Great Assembly with the last "prophets" of Israel (like Haggai and Malachi).
Hellenism after the time of Alexander and his spreading of Greek-thought brought ideas such as Platonism (and later Neoplatonism), Aristotelianism (and emphasis on "intellect" as mystical), Elysian mysteries, Mithra/Isis mysteries, and Pythagoreans, and many more mystery schools and variations thereof. There was also mystical ideas from Zoroastrians, Babylonian mysteries, and Egyptian mysteries prior to Alexander, so there were other strands as well. These traditions were more of a direct, personal, inner aspiration to commune with a mystical godhead. There were elements of this from the prophetic period of Judaism in the prior generation, but the nature of these schools is lost. Was it more esoteric inward looking meditation or still rather communal? Perhaps there was an inward meditative technique.. Either way, since this prophetic tradition was considered to be no longer legitimate, there was probably an allure of the more inward-looking traditions of the Greeks and Eastern mystery schools. That is where I think Gnosticism came in. It provided Jews living in Hellenistic communities to combine their own traditions with Greek mystery schools, allowing there to be a synthesis. Notice, the Gnostic sects and practices were not usually found in Israel proper, but in the cities around the main Hellenistic centers like Alexandria, Antioch, etc. I don't think historically, the Jesus Movement was associated with these Gnostic sects which rather used the character of Jesus as a vehicle to explore Gnostic thought in general. Rather, the historical Jesus, I would say was probably a sect of Essenic/Ebionite Judaism (much closer to Pharisaic Judaism but with different interpretations of the Mosaic Law, and ideas about the End Times that were more pronounced).
Anyways, there are four basic branches of Gnosticism.. I believe it is the Thomas Tradition (based on The Book of Thomas), Sethian, Hermetic, and Valentinian.. They all have similarities and a lot of variation too. — schopenhauer1
There's a Christian theme about loss and disaster being the path itself, the door. It's as if we have to be broken open, humiliated. Our pride in our knowledge of trivia and mastery of ritual blinds us and binds us. 'Astonishment' is a nice word here. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. There's a vague, dark reading of that that appeals to me.
I've been reading Cioran lately (The Trouble with Being Born), and the intersection of the dark and the light seems important here. If I live in some sense like I'm already dead, if I'm not so pathetically fucking thirsty for the recognition and ultimately envy of others, there's a new kind of life in that, while it lasts. Perhaps one does not taste death because the dying ego is no longer functioning as a center. It's the space between mortals that's interesting. I cough up my boring biographical trash only as a symbol, as a bridge, and not as of inherent interest. 'I' am nothing. 'I' am already dead. 'We' know this and are therefore more alive than ever, infinitely and bottomlessly alive. But we remain mortal and faulty, without a cure for the world beyond a little graffiti that may or may not signify for others and help them get over themselves now and then and feel less alone.
He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it." — norm
I have to watch how I come across. I certainly can be detached and analytical just as you say. The problem with forums is the conversation can feel impersonal and veiled and because philosophy and cultural studies can hit controversial subjects, it is often hard to know what tone to strike.
The interesting thing about the opening of Thomas is that it has the familiar tropes of mysticism that frankly seem designed to appeal to personal vanity. Secret knowledge/ key to personal transformation. This is right out of Hermetic wisdom or the Kabbalah. But frankly the same proposition is made in Scientology. Is it the case that secret or hidden teachings are the classic refuge of the dispossessed and marginalized? (think I first read that in Isadore Epstein's Judaism - his take on Kabbalah).
What is appealing about mainstream Christianity is the surface appeal of the myth. Jesus is the least mystical of religious teachers. A key teaching is about loving the poor, the weak, the scorned - so detested by Nietzsche and so many modern sensibilities - is actually a powerful idea with far reaching repercussions. There is no need for secret teaching or initiation. That's refreshing. This to me is where orthodoxy (for want of a better term) has the edge on the more secretive Gnosticism. Making something a secret doesn't mean it is more profound, but it sure seems that way.
Perhaps the Gnostic stuff appeals more to people with hierarchical machinations on their mind. "How can I access the real wisdom and the key to ever lasting life?" (or whatever the reward underpinning the doctrines might be) Is it not interesting that the Gnostic teachings also pivot on an idea that is so prevalent now. That the world is coming unstuck and the truth is hidden by design and that only some with the right mindfulness can access this truth. It makes you wonder if QAnon is today's apocalyptic nascent religious tradition with a baroque line in hidden internet based scripture - waiting to be rediscovered in 2000 years and reinterpreted for the times.
Oops, that was more of a flight of ideas than a coherent view. — Tom Storm
One of the windows is how sexuality is referred to as not being important in some passages while others call for everyone to be "male."
It sounds like a local difficulty being related to a universal one. — Valentinus
Pagels (who doesn't sing) is a reference to one of the seminal writers on this subject - surely this name is copasetic. Her work on the Gospel of Judas was revelatory to me (no pun intended). The notion of Judas being the most loved and significant of all the disciples (because he had a key role in setting the divine plan in motion) is a compelling idea. A beatific betrayal, if you like. This was also echoed in the novel The Last Temptation of Christ, another extraordinary mystical interpretation of the story. — Tom Storm
I don't have any views on it as I don't remember the documents well enough. I read some of them in the 1980's and I knew one of Carl Jung's offsiders when the Jung Codex was put together. We spent a good deal of time discussing their significance to early Christianity. Nothing you won't find in Elaine Pagle's famous book (The Gnositc Gospels). — Tom Storm
One of the interesting qualities of the Gospel of Thomas is how the language is very close to the received canon of the Church Fathers. So the "esoteric" messages are important but there is also a down to earth quality in the words to be observed. Consider the 6th verse: — Valentinus