Awaiting a visit from my opinionated daughter to whom everything is an insurmountable problem to be mercilessly grappled with before piling on more obstacles to argue are insurmountable, and I find myself floating off to a paralel universe, (in order to let the mud clear)
I sometimes think that those who suffer the most in these times are those whose doors of perception have been cleansed. But they do not suffer for themselves; instead, they suffer for those whose doors of perception remain perennially smeared by self-righteousness, false dichotomies, either-or thinking, and frightened aversion to direct experience.
But you may have provided an answer for this dilemma: "that as the democracy dies ... there is still no reason to stop attempting to live a life as full of grace and kindness as possible, and also to call out injustices wherever we see them and to assuage the suffering of those being tormented wrongfully by oppressive bullies."
After all, what else is a poor bodhisattva to do?
These are difficult and troubling times. And I am increasingly convinced that Spengler was right. Civilizations have an organic lifecycle. Ours is now caught in a perfect maelstrom of conflicting interests and negative influences and is rapidly becoming terminal.
Remember Francis Fukuyama's dramatic claim that "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."? He too was right. We are at the end of history. But not in the way he thought. Having defeated their Godless Communism, we were left with our own Satanic Neo-Liberalism instead.
It wasn't supposed to happen. I grew up believing that those bad things only ever happen "over there", never here. It never occurred to me, or anyone else for that matter, to ask: why not here?
Yes. Indeed! I remember my very Catholic uncle refusing to see Monty Python’s Life of Brian simply because he had read that it was blasphemy instead of seeing it and realizing that it spoke to religious hypocrisy and idolatry.... ho hum..., forgive them etc.
Sir, you certainly use a lot of words. Thankfully I learned to diagram sentences so I could figure out what you are saying. Reading this is like decoding a secret message. Or decluttering a hoarded home. Well, it was an enjoyable exercise. Now to recall the gist of what you wanted to get across.
Awaiting a visit from my opinionated daughter to whom everything is an insurmountable problem to be mercilessly grappled with before piling on more obstacles to argue are insurmountable, and I find myself floating off to a paralel universe, (in order to let the mud clear)
Your thesis amused me DEEPLY
Masterful prose!
I sometimes think that those who suffer the most in these times are those whose doors of perception have been cleansed. But they do not suffer for themselves; instead, they suffer for those whose doors of perception remain perennially smeared by self-righteousness, false dichotomies, either-or thinking, and frightened aversion to direct experience.
But you may have provided an answer for this dilemma: "that as the democracy dies ... there is still no reason to stop attempting to live a life as full of grace and kindness as possible, and also to call out injustices wherever we see them and to assuage the suffering of those being tormented wrongfully by oppressive bullies."
After all, what else is a poor bodhisattva to do?
These are difficult and troubling times. And I am increasingly convinced that Spengler was right. Civilizations have an organic lifecycle. Ours is now caught in a perfect maelstrom of conflicting interests and negative influences and is rapidly becoming terminal.
Remember Francis Fukuyama's dramatic claim that "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."? He too was right. We are at the end of history. But not in the way he thought. Having defeated their Godless Communism, we were left with our own Satanic Neo-Liberalism instead.
It wasn't supposed to happen. I grew up believing that those bad things only ever happen "over there", never here. It never occurred to me, or anyone else for that matter, to ask: why not here?
Yes. Indeed! I remember my very Catholic uncle refusing to see Monty Python’s Life of Brian simply because he had read that it was blasphemy instead of seeing it and realizing that it spoke to religious hypocrisy and idolatry.... ho hum..., forgive them etc.
Sir, you certainly use a lot of words. Thankfully I learned to diagram sentences so I could figure out what you are saying. Reading this is like decoding a secret message. Or decluttering a hoarded home. Well, it was an enjoyable exercise. Now to recall the gist of what you wanted to get across.
wow