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At 09:04 20/02/99 -0500, Maynard S. Clark wrote:
>My attitude on the violence and sexist thing is that
>the world is essentially populated with bad people,
>and that the world is unlikely to get better on its
>own steam, in any way that is sufficient to warrant
>lots of enthusiasm.
>
>Exit liberalism.
>
>Now, given that we WANT to "conserve" or preserve
>or even develop or see developed some of the better
>qualities, and we don't want to see ourselves swamped
>and ruled by the destructive qualities and oppressive powers,
>how ought we to live?
>
[and further quotes from Maynard Clark at bottom, 2nd-last being end-Oct.]
** The problem with discussing philosophy (bottom quote), "liberalism",
"the world is [likely/]unlikely to get better", and even the question: "how
ought we to live?", is that the statements generalise too much - they
assume several things, one of which is that people are so similar that the
differences can/should be ignored ("how ought _we_ to live?").
A psychiatrist's clinical work, at Karl Jaspers' time and earlier,
would have been with those who could pay him - probably middle and upper
class. The first time "how ought we to live?" was written down was probably
at the time of the Greek philosophical schools, and _we_ was referring to
those who had the free time to attend the schools, i.e. the citizens - a
minority, again middle and upper class. The modern version would include
graduates from Harvard and other universities, like myself.
At 14:16 20/02/99 -0600, Betsy Barnum wrote:
>There is a need to acknowledge the system of unearned privilege that we
live in,..
in this case, people who usually have white skin and whose families
immigrated into North America about one (or perhaps more) hundred years ago.
Just yesterday, I returned a form asking what I could contribute to the
election campaign of the Green most likely to get to Parliament from an
electorate (in contrast to those elected from Party Lists), and I made two
points. (i) I could deliver pamphlets to sparsely-settled areas that would
likely be otherwise left out, since I was happy to walk for 4-5 hours a
day; and (ii) that I regarded politics as a faint or non-existent hope for
a better world (or at least a better New Zealand), because the only real
hope is that individual people will change their view of what they
themselves should be doing in their lives. This is why I'm happy to deliver
Greens' pamphlets - to (hopefully) get people to start thinking of these
things.
I agree with part of what Maynard is saying, though instead of: "the
world is essentially populated with bad people", I'd rather say: there are
large and influential groups of people who are so selfish and greedy that,
in our strictly limited world, they should be thought of as bad, since they
are taking (by force or threat of force) the resources that people and
other living things need for a normal life. Notice that I'm using the
"us/them" wording that Betsy and others on this list object to.
My point is that there are _also_ groups and isolated individuals who
still have the normal human community spirit, and the only hope in my view,
is that more people will want to open their eyes to what the excesses of
the last few decades are doing to every living thing except perhaps an
elite, patrician few.
So my _personal_ answer to: "how ought we to live?" is to live as
lightly as possible on the earth, as close to non-existence as I can; this
acknowledges that other people can and should rule their lives in different
ways, some of which will be markedly different. To me, the over-riding goal
is to have great diversity in human ways-of-living, since the world is in
transition, changing rapidly, and no person or group of people,
philosophers, government, Trans-National-Corporation or whatever, _can_
know what is the best way into the future from our present parlous state.
As we go about these extremely various lives, we need to have the
strength to resist so that "we don't ... see ourselves swamped and ruled by
the destructive qualities and oppressive powers" of the present ugly,
distorted political and economic view of the world.
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Earlier posts by Maynard S. Clark:
>Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 15:46:25 -0500
>To: thegardeners@juno.com (Lila O. O'Brien), positive-futures@igc.org
>From: "Maynard S. Clark" <MaynardClark@post.harvard.edu>
>Subject: Re: Saving on food
>
>The food co-ops seem to be excellent places
>for the 100% vegetarians to do their shopping.
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>At 01:48 PM 10/22/98 -0500, Jill Taylor Bussiere wrote:
>>Great comment, Priscilla!!
>>If we are going to have a discussion based only on scientific data and
proofs,
>>then I will be sorely disappointed. I use scientific knowledge to help
>>me understand about being alive, but there is so much more to it than
that.
>> Jill
At 15:14 22/10/98 -0400, Maynard S. Clark wrote:
>The German psychiatrist-turned-existential-philosopher Karl Jaspers
>outlined three areas or arenas of knowing (based on the thinking of
>Soren Kierkegaard):
>
>1 - the realm of the objectifiable - that which can be considered
> "objects of consciousness" - science
>2 - the realm of existence and decisionmaking - ethics
>3 - the realm of the metaphysical, related to WHY and ultimate issues.
>
>These can be translated from "schools of thinking" to "existential issues."
>
>1 - the realm of the objectifiable - that which can be considered
> "objects of consciousness"
> Science - "What is that?"
> What am I?
>
>2 - the realm of existence and decisionmaking
> What ought I to do?
> Who ought I to become?
>
>3 - the realm of the metaphysical, related to WHY and ultimate issues.
> Religion
> Why ought I to become who I ought to become.
>
>Remember, these are, for Karl Jaspers, TYPES of thinking, which
>one can see more often in clinical work, but also everyday in
>interactions with others in CRISIS, while they make their decisions.
>
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sent by David.
** http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/6783/index.html#top
David MacClement <davd@geocities.com>
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/3142/index.html#top