also altered the modern mind but perhaps all these changes were
implicit in the industrial revolution of the 1850's and the breakdown
of agrarian life and its isolation/peace.
On Sep 2, 10:14 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm no expert on the Greeks to be sure. I remember that women got to
> leave home when they were about 60 to go to funerals! I understand
> the 'men of their time' arguments - and we tend to forget Greece is
> really middle eastern - but I have real problems with the 'high'
> philosophy and no grasp of the wrongs on the treatment of slavery,
> indenture and women. It hardly suggests much of a route to a
> materially enlightened society. The Italian aristocracy was almost
> exclusively homosexual in the 17th century and much of the Middle East
> remains 'homosocial'. In scientific argument and practice we often
> work hard at excluding wads of common sense and religious muck under
> pretense of objectivity, yet we are really trying to include all
> options that aren't ludicrous (and we entertain these too to some
> extent). I find human thinking that ends up with notions that a sex
> or race is 'unequal' or unmeriting not wrong but intolerable, but this
> doesn't lead me to believe we can't have abortion or not give deaf
> people hearing if we can (and so on) - the intolerable remains a
> heuristic open to situational particularism. Equality doesn;t mean I
> won't lift the heavy box, think sport should be unisex, regard men as
> potential sexual partners and so on - but it does mean I don't approve
> of daft notions of banning girls from playing soccer because they
> can't share the changing rooms. And it does mean I tend to despise
> argument that excludes what should matter in the pretense of
> objectivity. Our people who can't do much academic are not sub-human,
> but I suspect much intellectualism is - including daft economists
> suggesting inter-generational mortgages, or that we have to have a
> super-rich for the benefit of all. I am not led to conclusion much
> and think this is a result of perverse schooling and a fixation with
> 'strong leadership'. My guess is we need moral assertion on the basis
> of likely outcomes on social issues and that we are ignoring an
> interesting history of this at our peril, including the distraction
> from actual change that wordy words becomes when we lack courage. The
> key in this is probably deep in a form of mentality that can't work
> out the metaphor of fiddling while Rome burns or banksterism as a
> criminally organised road to serfdom. Socrates called the unexamined
> life pointless and its easy to agree faced with yet another class of
> students who don't read, populations who vote 'on the economy stupid'
> knowing nothing of economics - yet he was wrong. What we have failed
> to do is provide the technology of it that people can use.
>
> On Sep 2, 1:05 am, rigsy03 <rigs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I dug up the file this afternoon- Spring "73- no mention of the
> > professor's name but a reference to Tuft's- another university. He was
> > older and soft spoken- his shirt sleeves had been shortened for some
> > reason. I got an "A" for the final grade so I must have hooked into
> > the material and my notes look complete and tidy. The course covered
> > more than Plato- it was called Greek Thought/Classics Dept.- and I was
> > taking 3 other courses that quarter. But this simply opened a can of
> > worms=memory.
>
> > So all these years, Plato just sat waiting with a collection of Modern
> > Library books- so out of sight-out of mind! In the meantime, I had my
> > hands full with ordinary life plus in Plato's world I would have been
> > stuck at home. I thought the Greeks preferred young boys and wives
> > were for breeding- though Pericles seems to have loved Aspasia...
>
> > On Sep 1, 5:56 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > You may have been taught without a caste or read Plato through someone
> > > who liked him rigsy. I even teach Kierkegaard as a Danish humourist.
> > > I found PLato as despicable as Joseph Heller in 'Picture This' or
> > > Popper in vol. 1 of The Enemies of the Open Society. There seems no
> > > reason to regard an elite who can learn at least some of what's hard
> > > to special privileges, but at the sane time trying to mash the stuff
> > > into people's heads by academic means seems cruel. I share something
> > > of Vam's view that a small number in power create a system that causes
> > > great discomfort and disempowers others (social mice are a good study
> > > in point). Finland gets a lot of its people to high standards of
> > > education (one can google the PISA studies) - so there's a lot we
> > > could do.
> > > The problem as I see it is that we educate to make people 'successful'
> > > in a society that has gone wrong instead of to change it. And the
> > > vast majority can't cope with what we have made this education and I
> > > now believe this is cruel. I guess what I want to see is a society in
> > > which people can fit in without a caste system or some equality in
> > > mediocrity. Democracy isn't it for me - I tend to see it and its
> > > economics as religious and past sell by date. We need something more
> > > peaceful that recognises its been the best game in town and its
> > > faults.
> > > Education based on making individuals 'moral' or 'virtuous' really has
> > > to come after structuring social freedom - we have to be brave enough
> > > to try this. A young American student burst into my office some years
> > > ago (I don't hold a regular position or teach much now) after a
> > > business ethics class. He was appalled by the teacher (my ex-boss - a
> > > jerk) and claimed the lesson was just about teaching excuses for bad
> > > management behaviour. The ethics teacher was one of the most
> > > unethical perverts it had been my misfortune to meet. Soon there was
> > > a queue and I was asked to run an alternative. I'd conclude after 20
> > > years that much management teaching simply reinforces prejudice and
> > > the wrong way to do things. I'd sum it up with something research
> > > methods students with work experience say - 'you don't expect us to do
> > > any of this at work do you Neil - telling the truth there is like
> > > writing a resignation letter'. They are soon assured i don't.
>
> > > My feeling is that much early religion may have been about rebellious
> > > moral assertion - freedom from indenture. This has been lost and
> > > maybe we need something like this back. This is probably what I mean
> > > by something 'more simple' Lee. Teaching (effectively) 'honesty is
> > > the best policy' seems wrong in a world that doesn't reward honesty -
> > > even if one does this through difficult concepts. We need a movement
> > > to make life happier and more decent and then maybe John Rawls would
> > > make sense. But we can't do it by teaching Rawls. Or by designing
> > > the life for Plato's few through massive training in which we become
> > > so moral we deign to share wives, in a manner that rather suggests we
> > > own them.
>
> > > On Sep 1, 4:08 pm, Vam <atewari2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Just joining in... with a Wow !
>
> > > > Much of what Neil deprecates in ineducable human beings is also
> > > > evident in this very group discussion ... morality, ego, ethics,
> > > > or read Plato social order / values / effects ... and much talk, many words, wider
> > > > canvas, saying for the sake of saying, an activity that satisfies ...
> > > > but really going nowhere, reaching noplace.
>
> > > > Lee's relative morality is a fact... not the truth. The difference is
> > > > that facts are truths of the moment and truths are facts for life.
> > > > Facts can be spotted, by individuals on account of what the moment or
> > > > one's situation in life means to him, and by the collective on issues
> > > > which Neil is acutely concerned about. In contrast, truths are only
> > > > available, if at all, either when one is breathing for the last time
> > > > or to one who has lived through expelling that "last" breath while
> > > > still relatively young !
>
> > > > The founder of Lee's spiritual order has no such " relativistic "
> > > > ambiguities in what he prescribes, both as ethics and morals. They
> > > > very explicit, and abundantly clear when implicit. So does the Buddha.
> > > > So is Spinoza. And Kant. Or, Gandhi and Luther King. And Faulkner,
> > > > Steinbeck, Camus. And the reason why are clear, even when they admit
> > > > the relativistic paradigms commonplace or narrate the saga of human
> > > > failings, is that they have a vision IN TRUTH that is simple... Say, A
> > > > SOCIETY IN WHICH PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE THE NEED TO, AND THEY ACTUALLY DO
> > > > NOT, SETTLE ANYTHING WITH VIOLENCE ! If you take a representative
> > > > worldwide survey 99% of the population would find it most agreeable
> > > > thing to happen. The 1% who'd disagree are those who actually hold on
> > > > to power and spoils for themselves through the exercise of violence.
>
> > > > It is this which is SIMPLE. The rest of it complex, more complex,
> > > > absolutely knotted and compounded to boot. But that didn't deter them
> > > > from proceeding down to laying out the content and elements of this
> > > > ONE simple truth... and what it implies for each one of us as
> > > > individuals, our morals and our ethics.
>
> > > > What comes in the way of us actually subscribing to such morals and
> > > > ethics is IGNORANCE... of what ? that vision, that simple truth. And
> > > > EGO comes into the picture because it loves this ignorance, of not
> > > > having to subscribe to and subject itself to such rules for itself,
> > > > morals and ethics, because the fact of our moment is that they do not
> > > > pay. Why ? Because the people who will make the payment do not
> > > > subscribe to such rules and, in fact, require that we who are looking
> > > > to be paid also do not do so !
>
> > > > This in fact is the nature of the argument I see for ourselves. And
> > > > that we do dissipate ourselves in mere words, learning and desire to
> > > > say the last word !
>
> > > > On Sep 1, 7:10 pm, rigsy03 <rigs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Democracy is simply a new system
>
> ...
>
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