At 2:19 PM -0700 on 7/9/99, Rob Cozens wrote:
>I've been biting my tongue and trying to keep uninvolved in this thread
>ever since Uli's remark about altruism = egoism; but I can't read further
>without offering a few fooleish thoughts:
>
>Not having to work to ensure one's survival is in opposition with one
>reality shared by many cultures, especially puritanical and/or
>economically-centered ones. (And in truth, it's the primary reality OC
>will exist/compete for attention in.)
It's in opposition to reality. Not a reality "shared by many cultures," but
_the_ reality -- a reality created by the biology of the human body: People
must eat. Period.
Someone must pick the berries off the bush. Someone must kill/collect the
animal. That's work. If no one does work, no one eats. Period.
>
>But it is only one reality experienced at one level of consciousness.
It does not matter how much PCP you take; you still need to eat. It is the
only _real_ level of consciousness; sure, you can dream, but a dream can't
feed you.
>
>Alan Watts said the secret of life in an economically-centered reality is
>to find a way to get paid for playing.
>
>But in other realities or levels of consciousness you/me, God/person,
>love/hate, life/death can be seen as inseperable extremes of the same
>continuum and the concepts of the altruism/egoism continuum become non
>sequitur.
There are no other realities. You must eat, no matter what the h*ll you
think. If you don't beleive me, try not eating :)
>
>Individual egos are constructed by Totality as means of experiencing
>Itself.
Who the h*ll is Totality? Did you get this line out of a random
technical-nonsence generator? I have one, and it can spit out a lot of
stuff life this! Would you like some?
>Our problem is that experiences dominated by physical senses and
>the resulting focus on materiality cause most of us to believe we are
>seperate from what we are experiencing.
Are you suggesting that I am one with a rock? And so are you? If you are
one with the rock, then there is no way I could throw the rock at you,
because it is a part of you. So, let me try... *throw* (now I bet you say
'ouch').
>
>I was born in 1943, and didn't travel to Europe until 1966; so I can hardly
>claim expertise as to the failure of Communism. I would say any system
>whose philosophy includes the use of force to obtain converts is doomed to
>fail eventually.
I agree that tyrrany can't last.
>
>I think the comment about people stoping to work has more to do with the
>weakness (notice I didn't say failure) of the socialistic or welfare state;
A weakness? Well, hmm, fails every time because of it... I'd call that a
"failure" and a fairly big one, at that!
>but it's also tied inextricably with a cultural bias toward economics as
>the ultimate measure of achievement/fulfillment.
Yes. And that's because people must eat.
>Perhaps people stopped
>working because they found no real corelation between economic prosperity
>and a meaningful life?
Yep. With communism, you quickly find that no matter how hard you work, you
still don't have enough food on your plate. And the more labor you do, the
hungrier you are...so the only logical action is to site around all day and
do nothing.
>
>But probably not. There is a weakness in any social support system that
>creates dependency. Some years ago 60 Minutes or some similar show
>documented what happened to the quality of life in a South Sea island
>fishing community that became totally dependent on US aid.
Went to hell, no doubt.
>Here's a
>personal experience (which I hope people will take as the literal story it
>is: after Scott was taken to task over a reference to Nigerians on the HC
>List I feel obligated to state there are NO racial overtones): I live in
>an area of 300+ acre ranches. I am sure there are at least 100 raccoons
>nearby who lead busy industrious lives fishing in the ponds and foraging in
>the forests...but not the three who live under my house. They get up about
>4 PM and come to the sliding door on the deck to wait to be fed. For the
>next 4 to 5 hours they hang around the food dish, coming to lie at the door
>and stare at us whenever they feel it's been too long since their dish was
>filled. I've created my own small welfare state (including two deer who
>sleep on the deck) whose inhabitants may have lost the ability to sustain
>themselves in my absence.
>
>So altruism can actually be damaging to the recipient (surprise??...wasn't
>it a major justification for the Inquisition?), and in such cases I guess
>it must be the epitome of egoism.
But it's also damaging to the giver: You don't have the food that you gave
to the animals anymore. And if enough animals were to come begging, you
would have no food for yourself. And you would not have food for them,
either. That's the ultimate ned of altruism: Death.
>
>Anyway, if you'ld like to understand this is all meaningless because we can
>never describe how the world IS, only our best understanding of what it
>WAS, I highly recommend "How the World Can be the Way It Is", by Steve
>Hagen. (If you have trouble wading through his use of examples from
>quantum physics to illustrate principles of Zen, skip to Chapter 10 & the
>Epilog).
Are you saying that I can't know where the rock is because of the inability
to measure where an electron is...? I can prove I know where the rock is.
Let me demonstrate... *throw* (oops... also proved I know where your window
is... sorry.)
>I found "The Fountainhead" insightful in places; but couldn't get
>into "Atlas Shrugged" enough to finish it.
Hmm... stunned. I could not put it down.
>
>"Totality is in you;
> you are in Totality.
> Totality IS you;
> You ARE NOT Totality"
That's nonsence. A is not A. Wonderfull.
