Lecture I.1.2 - The Individual in Oriental Mythology

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Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Firstly, thanks JJ for a fine 'reset button' of a post that gets this thread back on track.

Lots to respond to from both yours and Neo's writing, so I'll just start with what rings the bell loudest:

JJ!
What makes the individual an outcast when they do not go along with the program?
Fear?
Being social animals we are hard wired to be suspicious of anyone who does not run with the herd.
Just so. Nature in general does not like behavior outside the norm... unless it's a behavior that adjusts to environmental circumstances and creates a 'new normal' (an expression, I fear, we are going to be hearing a lot about) that enhances survival... but even then, is the behavior liked because any who would reject it are either dead or weak from just that environmental circumstance? (Darwin! Speak to me!)

Now, when we translate this tendency, assuming the validity of such a translation, to the higher, social mammals, do we see a correlation? I think so. Here's the catch: the existing behavior complex always rejects the mutation even if snuffing it out is detrimental to its own continuance.

Moving further up the scale of complexity, we pass the threshold to human abstraction (
:shock: ) where I am tempted to grow a beard, cover my face in ashes and run screaming into the forest.

Jesus Christ!

The perfect case study. This guy comes along at the very sweet spot of history. Hellenism had mixed the culture complexes of south-eastern Europe, North-Africa and the Near East to the Indus Valley, resulting in a stew of new ideas. Rome cemented them together with new roads and efficient commerce.

Wow. May you live in interesting times! (I think we do. Again: :shock:)

Jesus commits various acts of heresy, especially the classic mystic identification with the divine, and, as the story goes, the System demanded termination with extreme prejudice.

However, the idea, thrown up against the wall, stuck, and overwhelmed the existing structures and became the System.

But it brought some dominant genes along on one of its DNA strands which expressed itself, (Council of Nicaea? Various expressions of the Christian movement were in conflict up to that point.) as exactly like the original system that tried to snuff it out to begin with.

Out of the box thinking had one of those skull and crossbones red, warning labels for the next thousand years.

And neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment could completely remove this 'genetic' impulse.

Yet, at the terminal moraine of Christian expansion, Western Individualism established a place on the DNA sequence, as it were, perhaps opening the door a bit for the Renaissance to burst through? (Don't know about that one... just thought of it.) I'm talking about the Arthur tales, specifically the Grail Quest.

JJ:
I wonder why anyone would want to "start from scratch".
Answer:
... they each took their own turning into the forest “where he saw the forest was the thickest and there was no way or path….”
Don't we all start from scratch? The 'forest' is information available.

Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

I guess no one liked my "computer" metaphor. :( Oh well, I'm sure I'll think of another. :D

JJ Wrote:
Many other folks just cannot be bothered with such ambiguous thinking. They seek the concrete...the ritual. What they seek is external guidance rather than internal clues. They need a dogmatic physical system to guide their spiritual existence. Some people do not need this...they may, perhaps, seek out all systems that have come before. They may like swimming in an ocean of various views and ideas. This does not mean that they are lost or aimless. I, for one, like the gray area.
I agree with this but I also think it's sad. "If I eat meat on Friday, I'll go to hell." There are three people at work who believe this. Of course they think I'm damned and beyond redemption. Once I tried to introduce the notion that the meaning of "Friday" was a subjective term since all there is "is now".

Needless to say i won't do that again!

But somehow they find confort in this. The same way that they find comfort in the idea that God is American. "God Bless America" .

Obviously, they have found their "truth".
Last edited by Neoplato on Sun Apr 05, 2009 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

jonsjourney
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Post by jonsjourney »

I guess no one liked my "computer" metaphor. Oh well, I'm sure I'll think of anither.
Is the spelling bug catching around here? :wink:

FYI, I liked the metaphor Neo! Cheer up! :D
I agree with this but I also think it's sad. -Neo
It is sad, but I think taking the 'easier' path is generally the human way. As I stated above, I like digging in the dirt.
Now, when we translate this tendency, assuming the validity of such a translation, to the higher, social mammals, do we see a correlation? I think so. Here's the catch: the existing behavior complex always rejects the mutation even if snuffing it out is detrimental to its own continuance. -Clemsy
Agreed, much like our physical desire for sweet and salty foods...it is going to take a while for our brains to evolve sufficiently to say 'enough!'
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

Agreed, much like our physical desire for sweet and salty foods...it is going to take a while for our brains to evolve sufficiently to say 'enough!'-JJ
Reminds me of the debt ceiling debate. Both sides realize the debt has to come down, but with two significant philosophies.

1. Let the upper class keep the money and run the masses into the ground.

2. Rob from the rich and give to the poor.

I always was fond of Robin Hood myself. :wink:
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Folks can become too well-adjusted to their particular environment to be "normal" in the larger social context.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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