Replying to LO25223
"It is easier to act under the conditions of tyranny than it is to think
in freedom."
Dearest Leo,
Welcome home;-).
You wrote in part:
>we use the same characterset (although it seems that Andrew
>has sometimes difficulties to tight himself in this straitjacket:-)). But
>we cannot hear our voices, tones and variations in speed, rhythm and
>pitch. There are thus some serious barriers present in our dialogues,
>transfer of thoughts and ideas and in our understanding of thinking.
"Understanding of thinking" Mmmm;-) "Character(set)" Mmmm.
Do you remember the contribution I wrote very early on while being
somewhat "born" ;-) herein, in which I recalled an image from my
childhood, one of my very first days at school? I walked out of the
classroom, lay flat on my back on the grass bank and peered up into the
blue sky with clouds vapouring by? If just one of my teachers had seen me
and said, " Hey, Andrew, come into the classroom and let me tell you about
an old man called Socrates and another called Plato, his 'star' pupil ;-)
he (Plato) felt the pull of the playground, both that pressing upon your
back (the past) and that blue above (the future) reflecting in your
twinkling eyes (the present) and so left "the cave" and went to play under
the sky vaulted blue..." But teachers like that are as rare as hens
teeth;-( and so I waited fully half a lifetime to meet the untangler of
the tangle;-) that young Alexander never met...or did he?
Walking the Talk...
"The living deed (enactment) and the spoken word are the greatest
achievements mankind is capable of. Aristotle conceptualized it as energia
("actuality") with which he designated all activities that do not pursue
an end (are "ateleis") and leave no work behind ("par' autas erga"), but
exhaust their full meaning in the performance itself. ("Seeing" and "flute
playing" are examples in Nicomachean Ethics) in this way the performance
is both life and work enjoined! Modernism since the seventeenth century
has derided this idea and turned men into machines. Action and speech has
been degraded and was implied in Adam Smith's Wealth of nations when he
classified all occupation that rest "essentially on performance", such as
churchmen, lawyers, physicians and opera singers together with menial
services the lowest and most unproductive labour. It was once these very
occupations of "healing", "flute playing" and "play acting" that furnished
a more crystaline, noble and ancient thinking "-with examples for the
highest and greatest activities of man."
The "spoken" word we cannot have, I came here practising and writing the
words as they tumbled, slipping all things written in one, as one and in
one day. Minimum premeditation;-) the very 'spring' of a private wisdom.
One can hide the "what" but not the "who". This forum LO that is dedicated
to the development of all (sic) has sometimes seemed far more concerned in
some (three) quarters in the "what" more than the "who".
My 'preferred' languages are as subtle and refined as any herein and very
much about the business of transformation ((((;-)))) "In the case of
works of art, reification is more than a mere transformation: it is a
veritable transfiguration, a veritable metamorphosis in which it is as
though the course of nature which wills that all fire burn to ashes is
reversed and even dust can burst into flames." Some reading this will have
a clearer idea of what that means for me than others...but that is the
nature of enforced schisms.
This place is not new in the history of learning Leo as I am sure you for
one know. I was called here by forces way beyond the scope of those
interested in just the 'what' for what At might call a "pretty dollar" and
who sell everything from soulful reincarnations in air conditioned
wildernesses at $500 a day (for example;-) or 'spiritual growth' and a
'new way' for slightly less...so that as Job and his bloodbrother depart
with absolute finality the 50,000 year wilderness once called 'HOME' by
one closing door "Mr. Oppressed and Confused Modern Executive" walks in
at the back entrance hand in hand, hoping for something entirely
metaphysical. Mmmm.
There are some 'heroic' personalities in this place, but they are IMHO not
who they think they are, both/and;-). But then who here knows beyond the
limp and often banal Hollywood archetype what a 'hero' is? Or even a
"leader" for that matter. Hero's have since the birth of the very word in
Homeric tales been those who, "- free, simply participated in the
enterprise... " or as others say it like Prof. Varela " the doing of the
knowing" --those willing to act as they spoke inserting and asserting
themselves both/and;-) hence commencing a narrative story of their own. In
its ancient and once honourable beginnings at the dawn of a civilisation
now fast slipping into the dark uncertainty of its own miasmic and
speeding slime it was sufficient to 'ground' democracy in the simple act
of " leaving one's hiding place and showing/sharing WHO one is, disclosing
and exposing, stepping up and out among ones peers (unless they count
themselves superiors;-(). Acts of this kind ;-) commence through the
individual spirit as it seek to 'map' as At might express it to and among
the 'many'. It is ultimately and act of faith and can require forgiveness.
It involves a dissipation and collapse within a container BIG ENOUGH to
HOLD IT.;-)))))) Strength of this 'personal' kind is not 'power'. Power
comes from/through the sharing. That is empowering as a WHOLE IMHO. 'One
to many mapping' is the actualization of visions (mine and yours) and in
this participation is the kernal of freedom espoused in/as democracy.
My sweating dream At? Job and Kwaaiman approached me and played a tune for
me on the seven stringed harp and as I looked at the footprints in the
sand I saw they had walked backwards to arrive in my present.
Dear Dan Bishop, last year you sent me the word-image in LO25036 of "silk
threads" that "connect brain to heart". Thanks, and so what are written
words then? A kind of joined up learning?
Never, IMHO;-) has the world (YOU/ me) stood more in need of teachers who
are leaders who listen to children as if they were Kings.
Also Dan, do you recall that one of the five characters of 'thinking' in
ancient China was/is "watching with the eye". Some have two, some have
three. Two seeks equivalance and stay forever as it was, three on the
other hand seems to ascend irreversibly with the ineffability I tried to
initiate with the "SLIGHTLY hidden points" that somehow, for want of
"space", got lost on the way...
Here is a longish citation. It may deserve our attention. It was written
in 1958. I know some here are aware who the author is. I wonder who else
does? And if they do if and how the words resonate. And if they do, what
actions might be guided by them for a modern philosophy more attuned to
inclusion than exclusion. The same author wrote that in an "irreversible"
world that "foregiveness" enables future courage and co-operative leader
work, because then we recognise our inherent frailty. So easy, so hard.
"While such possibilities still may lie in a distant future, the first
boomerang effects of science's great triumphs have made themselves felt in
a crisis within the natural sciences themselves. The trouble concerns the
fact that the "truths" of the modern scientific world view, though they
can be demonstrated in mathematical formulas and proved technologically,
will no longer lend themselves to normal expression in speech and thought.
The moment these "truths" are spoken of conceptually and coherently, the
resulting statements will be "not perhaps as meaningless as a 'triangular
circle,' but much more so than a 'winged lion' " (Erwin Schrodinger). We
do not yet know whether this situation is final. But it could be that we,
who are earth-bound creatures and have begun to act as though we were
dwellers of the universe, will forever be unable to understand, that is,
to think and speak about the things which nevertheless we are able to do.
In this case, it would be as though our brain, which constitutes the
physical, material condition of our thoughts, were unable to follow what
we do, so that from now on we would indeed need artificial machines to do
our thinking and speaking. If it should turn out to be true that knowledge
(in the modem sense of know-how) and thought have parted company for good,
then we would indeed become the helpless slaves, not so much of our
machines as of our know-how, thoughtless creatures at the mercy of every
gadget which is technically possible, no matter how murderous it is.
However, even apart from these last and yet uncertain consequences, the
situation created by the sciences is of great political significance.
Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by
definition, for speech is what makes man a political being. If we would
follow the advice, so frequently urged upon us, to adjust our cultural
attitudes to the present status of scientific achievement, we would in all
earnest adopt a way of life in which speech is no longer meaningful. For
the sciences today have been forced to adopt a "language" of mathematical
symbols which, though it was originally meant only as an abbreviation for
spoken statements, now contains statements that in no way can be
translated back into speech. The reason why it may be wise to distrust the
political judgement of scientists qua scientists is not primarily their
lack of "character"-that they did not refuse to develop atomic weapons--or
their naivete '-that they did not understand that once these weapons were
developed they would be the last to be consulted about their use-but
precisely the fact that they move in a world where speech has lost its
power. And whatever men do, or know or experience can make sense only to
the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech,
and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man
in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in
the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this
world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and
make sense to each other and to themselves." Hannah Arandt.
The artist, like the author, never walks quite alone....ok Bucket, I'm
coming!
Love,
Andrew
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