Maybe we need another Runnymede! lol
On Oct 1, 8:43 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote:
> Chan Buddhism has a rather excellent rejection of conventional ethical
> values as blinkering and distorting (see Hui Neng, Liuxu tanjing, and
> The Recorded Conversations of I-Hsüan), and also a sense that one can
> become attuned to the world so as to move with its grain I am less
> sure about. The special emphasis on the elimination of suffering and
> on the way it explains suffering by referring to the human attachment
> to self as fixed ego entity challenges Western orthodoxy. Realization
> that the self is not a bounded and discrete entity may encourage a
> much more impersonal view of oneself and one's projects and desires.
> One's concern widens to all of life, and one dampens one's desires so
> as to lessen attachment to the self's cares and concerns. This may
> seem to drain all passion from life, and it requires that we dampen
> the attachment we have not only to our selves but also to special
> others. Western ethics tend to uphold only a limited altruism that
> allows one a private sphere of life free from moral demands and in
> which one gives much more weight to the cares and concerns of the self
> and those close to the self. There are themes in Western philosophy
> that parallel the kind of impersonal altruism urged upon us by
> Buddhism. Some utilitarians have strongly held to the theme that each
> counts for one in calculating what produces the greatest good, and
> they have derived challenging consequences from that theme for the
> question of what one should be prepared to give to alleviate the
> suffering of strangers, arguing that the way many in affluent nations
> indulge themselves and their own is simply insupportable in a world of
> widespread and severe suffering. Some have seen the sort of impersonal
> concern that utilitarianism may demand as an indication that it
> unsuitable for human beings, who are so strongly partial to themselves
> and their own. Buddhism presses for the possibility that impersonal
> concern is humanly possible, and the fact that it is a vibrant and
> long-lived tradition with many committed practitioners provides some
> support for the viability of impersonal concern as a ideal that is
> capable of claiming allegiance and influencing how people try to live
> their lives. A barbarian such as myself, of course, only prefers this
> because I just can't stand wailing women!
> The problem really is that what is offered as 'success' is so naff,
> yet we are frightened to move to the delights of peace because this
> will only let others develop power, including the power to exert their
> ethical judgement on us. None of this matters as long as most of the
> world is consumed by idiot economics and almost no ability to tolerate
> peaceful diversity based on minimal rules within practical security.
> The issue is political and not philosophical and we know the answer is
> secular democracy based on improvements of what we have managed around
> the world. The best for me will be the moment when we laugh at and
> ridicule any notion raised by parochial politicians of our great,
> noble history in the recognition this is a future we need to build by
> recognising the past as myth.
>
> On 1 Oct, 19:56, Molly Brogan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Thanks for the laugh. In the context of Conan, this makes sense:
>
> > 'To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the
> > lamentation of their women'
>
> > No doubt, the world has its barbarians and what they see as the best
> > in life may differ than the viewpoint of the worlds mystics. The
> > barbaric love of conflict will only take Conan so far, as it is
> > limited to the lower states of consciousness. So what is best, is
> > relative and ever changing with the emergence of greater possibility
> > and awareness.
>
> > On Oct 1, 1:32 pm, Lonlaz <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > Don't mean to derail the conversation, but as far deep quotes from
> > > Conan the Barbarian, I found a different one more impressive. I can't
> > > find it online, but I did find its analog in the written REH stories:
>
> > > [The] chief [of the gods of Cimmeria] is Crom. He dwells on a great
> > > mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die.
> > > Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send
> > > you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he
> > > breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall
> > > men ask of the gods? ... There is no hope here or hereafter in the
> > > cult of my people. In this world men struggle and suffer vainly,
> > > finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their
> > > souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander
> > > cheerlessly throughout eternity.
>
> > > Conan, first fictional prehistorial proto-athiest??
>
> > > What's best in life for me depends on my mood, at the moment it is to
> > > sit in a quiet corner and read a book with some beverage laced with
> > > caffene.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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