Brad, at the time I thought my mountains were mountains of the spirit. I was leading a pretty dull life as a teenage logger.
I'm not competent to comment on Husserl, but I must say I find the quote from Oppenheimer a bit idealistic. What if the clouds parted and there was no mountain? What if we found that the only reality was the rather awful stuff we are forced to stand on - the terrible ordinary? Perhaps that is the way it really is. We may indeed be finite. We may indeed be limited in our capacities to transcend ancient grudges and let go of harmful myths. Perhaps waiting for a Gestalt shift in the landscape is about as useful as waiting for the second coming. What I think we have to do is learn to work with the world we have, muddy and bloody as it is. We have to try to make what little difference we can in the brief time allowed us. Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 10:59 PM Subject: Re: Climbing mountains (vs standing on the shoulders of giants) > > Ed Weick wrote: > > > > Ray, your posting about the violinist and his mountain touched me > > deeply. In my youth, on the British Columbia coast, I too climbed > > mountains > [snip] > > If only those > > earthlings far, far below us knew! If only they could see! If only > > they could understand! We were very young. But we always had to > > descend from our mountain, back into the terrible ordinary to resume > > our everyday lives. Sad. > > Clearly these were not the mountains of the spirit, of which > Robert Oppenheimer spoke: > > "I thought it might be useful, because I am sure > that it is not too soon---and for > our generation perhaps almost too late---to > start to dispel the clouds of myth and see the great > mountain peak that these clouds hide. As always, > the myth has its charms; but the truth is far more > beautiful." (SCIENCE, 16 May 1980, p. 698) > > Edmund Husserl's vision was that we would once-and-for-all-times > put definitively behind us all forms of life lived in finitude, > all repetition of the already existent, all ethnicities, > and that humanity would > be henceforth forever re-renewed in the > pursuit of infinite tasks (the first and > only adolescent of which, but the only one our > society knows of or would tolerate > is the project of the Galilean exact sciences > of nature). > > To see the world in a richer perspective is not "reversible". > It is not a mountain one goes back down, but rather a > "Gestalt shift" in the whole landscape, which raises the floor, so to > speak. > > I speak from having been childreared in a low place. The more > I learn, the further I look *down* -- which is sad, because I > see all the previous years of my life ever further down below than > I had previously estimated them to be. Every anew, I see > things were even worse than I had just previously thought they > had been. > > Of course, for those who live in high places, there are > limitless opportunities to reach a hand down to help someone > else up. > > But "standing on the shoulders of giants" is a different > paradigm than climbing a mountain: It does not have a "down > side". > > brad mccormick > > > -- > Let your light so shine before men, > that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) > > Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) > > <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ >
