Forum Post: Liberty and Tyranny
Posted 11 years ago on Oct. 11, 2012, 8:55 p.m. EST by prometheis
(63)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
How many eras of human existence have been spent in a state of liberty, and how many in tyranny?
The answer to that question tells us much about ourselves, as well as about the nature of these powerful diametrically opposed modes of being. Therefore, when we think about the latest form of tyranny to threaten human liberty (namely this strange mental construct called "the corporate structure") we must not allow ourselves to fall into the common delusion that it is the corporation itself which is tyrannical, but rather remember that tyranny has heretofore been almost the perpetual condition of human life (at least post agricultural revolution, a strange reflection on the concept of civilization when you think about it) and therefore must be seen partly as an aspect of What We Are.
Tyranny is also an extension of the animal order. It is the logical outcome of our exposure to the pervasive earthly condition of kill or be killed - conquer or be a slave, in short, an expression of the Darwinian order and the instinct for survival rooted in elemental terror in the terms of survival on this planet. And so we must not see a certain form of tyranny as the enemy to a higher order, but recognize revolving themes of tyranny to be the outcome of the condition of life. Tyranny exists within us - it is a part of us.
The origins of liberty, on the other hand, seem to be irrefutably rooted in the spiritual - in the inspirations of mankind rather than the struggle for mere existence. Liberty has not to do with just what things appear to be, but with what we would dream them to be. It is an act of creation as opposed to acquiescence in the nature of the world; an aspect of the soul's struggle to rise up from the mud and journey to the stars. Therefore, in a very real way, the struggle between these two opposed visions of existence is really a struggle Within Ourselves. We must make the choice between the security and reassurance (whether real or imagined) of a tyrannical order, and the hope of bettering ourselves beyond the struggle for mere survival with its attendant fear. The choice is a question of whether we shall believe in ourselves and the potential of our spirits, or remain forever trapped in the animal order. There is no more important choice as a living being.
How could you overlook religious tyranny? Your last paragraph sounds like new ware irrationality.
Even monkees know when things are unfair https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8mynrRd7Ak&feature=player_embedded
Without question, the greatest contribution of these United States to the human legacy has been the rekindling of the Hellenistc Ideal of liberty. Our fathers fought and died for it. Our mothers broke down and died for it. Shall we now allow that Great Dream, that Terrible Sacrifice of the generations to simply slip away in sudden perplexity and irresolve?
15 generations of your fathers have died for it. Have a care.
For millions of years we lived in harmony with a social order dominated by the collective Spirit of Human Nature.
The rise of self interested leaders is the abomination of human nature by corruption of our social instinct that may be called Original Sin. We survived for millions of years with leaders who thought first of the community. After up to ten thousand years of slavery to the rich, we have come to the verge of total self destruction.
Who said rural Texans were ignorant? And also, Faulkner was from Mississippi. We forget these truths in this polarizing time. The political dissention in most states in within 10%. I think our polarization is reinforced mostly as a matter of convienance for the oligarchs.
Thank you schmoot - trenchant.
Um....according to scientists, homo sapiens originated somewhere around 200,000 years ago and only began to exhibit modern behavior somewhere around 50,000 years ago.
Not sure where you're getting this statistic of "millions of years" with "leaders who thought first of the community"...
The sophist (conscious obfuscator) first announces themself through an obvious attempt to simply counter, rather than advance the course of knowledge. You, "Betsy" are not only a sophist, but are desecrating our flag, and that was putting it diplomatically. (I might have used a word that rhymes with desecrate). Shame on you.
It doesn't matter what you call yourself or how many new accounts you create for yourself, the fruit that falls from your tree smells exactly the same.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - Shakespeare
You are no rose.
Not just nonsense, but nonsense you surely believe.
I'm sorry, was that to me?
No, sorry. That was for Betsy Ross. I wish these replies stayed attached.
Thanks for the clarification. I sometimes have difficulty in following the chain of thoughts here accurately.
Can we call bankers Bloodletters and Sacrificers? I was just reading a translations below:
keje' k'u kisachik
kima'ixik
Balam Quitze Balam Acab
Mahucutah Iqui Balam
e nab'e winaq
xepe chila'
ch'aqa palo
chi releb'al q'ij
ojeroq ke'ul waral
ta xekamik e ri'j chik
e ajk'ixb' ajk'ajb' kib'i'nam
Thus was the disappearance
and end of
Balam Quitze, Balam Acab,
Mahucutah and Iqui Balam.
They were the first people
who came from
across the sea
where the sun emerges.
Anciently they came here.
They died in their old age,
they who were called bloodletters and
sacrificers.
(Popol Vuh, fol. 48r)1
Thank you for your input. BTW if I mysteriously vanish and can't answer you for hours or days, just think of it as the work of the gods. LOL . . . ! There's something mystical about this cyber-existance that is unfortunately somewhat inglorious!!!
Sadly, I am unable to really address your question, you see I am now an out of the closet Platonist . . Ta Da!
What I am trying to do here, in my own pathetically small way, is to revive Socratic dialogue. That is, have a conversation about the place of mankind in the universe, using the light of reason.
This is something that, for various reasons, hasn't been attempted much since the Inquisition.
I have no expectations, just hopes . . . I do have one question though. Given that Plato was considered the high point of Western Classical Civilization, why doesn't anyone know what the heck it was he was saying? When you talk to even the most educated people in modern days and you mention Plato, their face simply becomes a blank, Rather amusing considering his thinking was the foundation of our entire culture and outlook, don't you think?
I've read some Plato and it made perfect sense. I think the trick is that Plato didn't really know what he was talking about, but that's all good.
I have a couple of philosophy books somewhere, but probably am not that smart either. We start with a question, then revise the question when we find that we have messed it up with assumptions. But you questions seems simple and clear.
1) Humans play different roles during the day, worker, husband, wife, father, ideolog, crony, etc. On our off hours most people have to concentrate on their homes, spouses, kids, community, etc.
2) In the USA we have an advanced culture of distraction to go with our high standard of living. Cinema, games, Iphones, TV, Cable, Radio, Music, Sports.
3) In the USA we are the most productive people in the world, and maybe in a hurry all the time, time is money, rush out and hurry back, we leverage time.
4) Classical Education has disapeared between 1960-1980, maybe lost to the sex revolution, drug culture, women going to work, social changes, etc.
Question: Who's Interest is it for consumers to be well Educated, logical, trained in classics like Latin, versed in History?
A) our Parents and extended family.
B) Not the people who want us to consume, sign contracts, go to war, work without safety, work without benefits, keep overhead down in the greater workforce.
Assumption: Most people in the US probably agree that Greece was the start of Western civilization. However, I have questions about the History of Crete which is older and shows the same signs of culture, history, law, anthropology as Greece according to a new Book written by a Navy Retiree. There is also an Island with a big Crater in the region of Crete, Santorini with similar older ruins. Then there are world religions and language similar and possibly connected to Greece, Western Europe, Arabs and Hebrew in Summeria.
So Let me look at the rest of this Post. Looks like you say people are trying to over come being an animal. And other posters are saying no that is not correct.
I am talking specifically about the Golden Age of Athens, the greatest outpouring of ideas that humanity has ever known. We think of knowledge as something that bulids upon itself continuously, and therefore we don't need to reaccess the ideas of the past because they are incorporated into present knowledge. This isn't true. Almost no one today can repair a cathedral.
Effort must be made to preserve ancient knowledge, and further effort required to hold it up to new thinking and see if it is possible to arrive at synthisis. I think this is now possible regarding Platonic and modern thought, and that in doing so we could not only surmount our present difficulties, but enter into an unprecidented human flowering.
That seems like a difficult point. I would agree it'd be funny to leave our children on a boat they can't drive. On one hand it sucks to forget the truth, but on the other the truth is always there. If something is overcomplicated I'd rather forget it, and allow it to reappear as itself once again.
Okay 1250 BC, or Classic period 400 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Athens
There is a weakness in your idea in that we don't share many of the cultural and historial influences of Classic Greek. Plus we a like 300 Million adults covering a large land area with many different lifestyles and many different circumstances. Language is actually one of the influence of culture. In the US we don't have the same language and the words we speak all week long emphisis computers, cell phones, text messages, emails, simple minded politics, cognitive errors, propaganda to make us believe simple ideas, etc. Our culture is Entertainment, music, cinema, tv series, cable shows, a youth culture, a beauty culture, etc.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/political-impotence-interpersonal-skills-judgement/
http://occupywallst.org/forum/political-distortions-erode-us-public-confidence/
We in the US are brainwashed by media everyday and it is reinforced by people in out lives. There is no school of philosophy in the US, but we have international relations think tanks and schools that deal with how to take advantage of other foreign countries.
Further to the point I believe you are making here is this: Neither Plato nor Socrates were pagans. They didn't believe in the gods. Soctates was in fact executed for not believing in the gods and on that charge he was guilty. But neither was Platonic thought incompatable with religion. Christians and Platonists worked side by side for centuries until an increasingly dogmatic orthodoxy finally led to the destruction of The Academy in 529,
Well those are good ideas and points, but I don't think I was thinking of them. I developed the idea about culture a little more in this post: http://occupywallst.org/forum/historical-models-of-civilization-corruption-new-l/
Culture Contains idea, but some ideas exist outside of our culture, country, language, religion, ect. Like Eskimos having 10 different words for snow. We have only one word: Snow. There are many more ideas in the Eskimo culture about snow.
IN effect we are programmed by our culture like software. Have you ever been to Greece, Greek Museums, Tried to Learn Greek Language (there is ancient Greek and Classic Greek), have you talked with Greek teachers or people from Greece, ...I have been to a Greek Church for a Festival, but don't know much about Greece or Philosophy. But there are philosophers from Russia, Germany, France, etc.
So we are programmed with US sports, US Radio, US TV, and adults that talk about what? Family, shopping, sports, business, values, college and the value of college...
How many terms do we have for Democracy, different aspects of democracy, are they terms which lead themselves to creating philosophy or just individual rights?
World Literature and American Literature actually can take you toward philosophy faster than US TV or US Cable entertainment.
Historical documents of thefounding fathers probably reflect a lot of what they learned of philosophy... but I can't really say. Because they are now a small part or maybe an important part of our culture that is largely forgotten and unused.
Your last lines there seems to sum up what you are saying, and it is valid. The point is we must shape our destinies, not have them shaped for us. We have that power, although there are those who would rather we did not. And the strange thing is they are to be the most pittied.
have to get back to u on that
I would like to add this if I may. As a religious man, which I assume you are, I would feel your conclusions and that of the Ancient Platonists are likely in close alignment. That is, that through many recent (last several centuries) breakthroughs in biology, psychology, particle physics, etc., it may now finally be possible to arrive at conclusions regarging the immortality of the soul through reason - thus resolving the great split in Human Civilization that threatens to destroy us all.
Just as faith dissociated from reason is dangerous, likewise reason dissociated from faith.
The (in my opinion artificial) divide between reason, science, spirituallity, ethics. etc., that has the people of the world at each other's throats may no longer be necessary. I think this may be true, and if it could happen it would really seem to be none too soon. It seems worth a try anyway.
But it is Politics and Conflict of Interest that Separate us all, I am thinking. Ideology might come into it when the people with power, with the Microphone, convince a crowd or a whole country to fight a war on Terror or a holy Jihad.
The powers that be don't have to even convince the people of their own country. They just have to control sectors like Police, Military, parliment, Court Systems, etc.
For instance if I invent a ring that takes away pain and makes people feel alert, happy, and not out of control... It won't stop congress from taking off the ring to vote to fund a war in Iran. Congress has other interests and other personal reasons for going to war.
No Ideology solves the problem of conflict of interest or personal interest. I don't know many countries that have people slavish to philosophy of any kind. Zealots, Loyalist, Rationalist, Humanist, might be what they could be called. But China and North Korea are the only countries I know that seem so concensual.
These observations, although perhaps valid in and of themselves, seem off-topic. They are not addressing the substance of this thread.
Absolute unmitigated bullshit.
Pleased to meet you, AUB.
A good reminder, in my bio I talk about the desire to do well by your children, I think this is where Kings, or tyrants come from. It is a natural feeling within all of us, and only by understanding ourselves can we be prepared to write fair rules that will prevent one of us (or small group) from talking over.
Piers Morgan recently had Scalia on his show:
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2012/07/18/pmt-scalia-bush-gore.cnn
It's not in this clip but in this show, first he said, if he were King flag burning would be illegal, then he says making flag burning illegal is the sort of thing that tyrants do, then when asked about abortion he said he had no public opinion on matters of law! How can he sit there and lie so clearly right out loud with no fear of being called out on it? When flag burning is absolutely a matter of law.
I don't believe tyrannical order comes with security and reassurance. I don't believe one person with megalomania can make better decisions than the collective wisdom of all people. I do believe there is a struggle between our becoming conscious and from something animal. We are in this together, it's our turn to face the weather, and sharing opens all doors, bigger, better, faster and stronger.
I don't believe security and reassurance come from tyranny either. But unfortunately, so many who are led by simply their emotional response to a frightening existence do.
I do believe if we survive this conscious animal war, everything will only get better, and history will show a striking example of childhood, that we are capable of surviving well beyond the visible pattern.
As dark as things seem, sometimes that is the very time for a great awakening. Really, it has often happened that way before. As though shaken from sleep.
Humans largely do not trust themselves and this is why they don't trust others. When we don't trust we are fearful, right? When we are fearful we defend and protect what we think we have, whether we actually have something or not.
Now, if we could choose love over fear many of our problems would disappear. We would trust that others would share and the need to defend and protect would be eliminated.
During the Neolithic Revolution when humans began to settle through sedentarization and afterwards when stratification of society came to be the norm, people became more individualized and less community centered and this led to a desire or perceived need to acquire power and stuff. This individualization led to fear because now each man was on his own and so felt he more need to protect and defend what was his. Prior to stratification everyone had the same and lived in a more community based way. (This is really an over-simplification, lol.)
Sorry about the delay. Thanks. What I am trying to say is that the divide between spirituality and reason, that is at the heart of much of human struggle seems to be unnecessary, dispite what poor Steven Hawking thinks.
Being spiritual and being able to reason are not mutually exclusive, I agree. No one can prove or disprove the existence of a higher being/energy/whatever it is including Stephen Hawking.
Firstly, what I find fascinating is the process of Socratic dialogue, which is simply when two or more people get together (prefferably in person) to explore spiritual and existential questions with the determination to speak the truth and seek the truth unflinchingly. That process is fun and tremendously awakening.
When you say no one can prove the existance, or non-existance of a higher being/energy/whatever, you are of course expressing the almost universally held view. It is this view that I think can be said is now open to challenge.
Okay. Feel free to expand, lol. I read "A Brief History of Time" and I would say that I leaned toward believing Stephen Hawking at the time simply because I wanted to believe him and then later realized I was simply "believing" him because the knowledge is too esoteric. So, I no longer believe that god/higher being/energy/whatever can be disproved.
I really don't want to be so bold as to state Patonic cosmological, or spiritual, or philosophical conclusions. Socrates wouldn't do it, Neither would Plato; the reason being that some kinds of knowledge are of diminished value if not arrived at independently, and also that the Process of arriving really IS the point. The expierence of conscious spiritual searching, rather than of being spoon-fed regurgitated ancient truths, IS the point. It helps to bring us into full being.
So if Socrates and Plato wouldn't do it then who the heck am I to do so?
Yet we can't get there on this forum without some sort of cursery explaination. We simply don't have that ability here, I don't think. So I will say that I think human life is a middle-ground between nonexistance and pure being, and that those signposts of the divine - Love, Truth, Justice, etc. - serve as both a promise and a warning - a promise of spiritual immortality and a warning to zealously guard the integrety of the soul. Here Platonic thought closely mirrors Chrisianity, minus the adherance to faith as opposed to enquirey.
One of the things I find interesting is that once one entertains this "world-view" things make sense - they fall into place. It is like throwing up a box of 500 puzzle peices and having them fall down on the table assembled, whole. This view makes sense of life, it fits with everything known, it puts the human expierence within a framework that can be understood, and above all it banishes fear.
Oh . . . beautifulworld, I almost forgot. The realization that is perhaps more interesting is that when one looks at the world through this lense of understanding, one sees that the "real" material world is transient, is mutable, is impermanent, and therefore unreal. While conversely those things closest to out hearts - the things that make life worth living to us - ergo: love, truth, justice, beauty are permanent, unchanging, immutable and therefore real.
Thus, we know divinity through its rumors in the material world, through it's reverberations - through its echos in the dark .
Well, I'll give it a shot:
Biology is the science that describes the animal order on earth. We didn't need Darwin to tell us that that order is cruel. For 99.999% of humanities time on earth we have been trapped within that struggle (and still are to a great degree, I believe, especially in our minds).
Tyranny is, at least greatly, an expression of the fear and consequent longing for security induced in us throughout that long struggle. It is a responce to the animal - the material order.
But is that all that's going on here?
What is love? What are truth, justice, and the higher aspects of life? Are they mere abstractions; can they be said to not actually exist. My answer to that is no, I believe they are real. But how can they be real and at the same time not actually exist - in the sense that say, a hyeana pack can be said to exist?
Where do these higher things come from, and what do they mean? It is this question that proposes the interaction of a higher order in the material plane - in this veil of tears in which we find ourselves - and that through analysis also proposes the existance of a higher order and the immortality of the soul. I believe in both of these things, and I believe it is possible to arrive at the certaintly of their existance not through faith alone, but also through reason.
If this could be realised we might finally find room in the world for "the higher angels of our natures." Sorry, a misquote, I think, there of lincoln.
I just saw somewhere on this forum where Dennis Kucinich says something like if humans can learn to fear and to war can they not learn to love and make peace?
And, I have a friend who poses the question "Are we humans on a spiritual journey or spirits on a human journey?" I love that question.
Thanks for explanations which are very good. I don't disagree with anything you say. I just don't have the answers, but will think about it some more.
"Are we humans on a spiritual journey . . .?" Great quote.
The world we appear to be in today, the world of cars and phones and computers and annuities and ipods, etc., etc., etc., isn't real. We are spirits on a mysterious journey from the unknown into the unknowable, and the only thing that is real is the communion between ourselves and other living spirits on that path.
Never before has the real nature of this journey been so masked by self-deception. We both want to be decieved and don't want to be decieved. We want shelter from the terrible unknown while still preserving the holiness of our lives - and yet how can we preserve our holiness in a state of denial and self-delusion? We can't, and so we feel a terrible sense of meaninglessness. Only when we recognise that the spiritual is real and the material an illusion can we begin to become whole again.
As our friend 'therising" said often here . . . "only connect." Only in actively engaging the mystery can we fully be alive.
As I said before, when Plato is acknowledged to be the founding thinker of Western Civilization, why doesn't anyone know what he thought? The reason is simply that two millenia of tyrants have not wanted us to understand Plato. Those ideas are inherently anti-tyrranical and pro-freedom, and it is not convienant for tyrants that you and I know Plato, and certainly not for us to engage the active spiritual journey of Socratic dialogue. Freed spirits make poor slaves.
But for we ourselves I believe the rediscovery of that journey is necessary to rekindle the grandure and meaning of what it is to be alive, and even the dignity of our own deaths. We are great spitits on a mysterious journey, not consumers on the way to self-disgust and meaninglessness.
I agree with everything you say. Thank you for articulating that all so well as I could not possibly, but I do feel it deeply.
BTW, are you therising?
I was GypsyKing, but the name became discredited due to a strange and maddening ability/inability to log on and maintain a coherent dialogue. So the user name GypsyKing is now dead, a small sacrifice to freedom of speech and the banishment of the . . . dare I say the words "conspiracy theory," without prometheis also mysteriously disappearing into the internet fog? I don't know?
Anyway, it doesn't matter. Personalities of course matter here because we are human - usernames, not so much.
You were here as GK the other day, weren't you? I hope you are well. I really like your profound thoughts, as you already know. LOL. Stick around this time.
Thanks BW, I'll try. I seriously had to fight some kind of bizzare little war just to maintain any contact with this forum at all for three or four days. Had to burn through three or four usernames, just to make posts, after one at a time became disabled. Then I couldn't comment on those posts. It was Weird.
Honestly, I'm feeling a little tired of it.
Sorry about that. I have no idea why that would be.
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BTW trashy is here above, even though I told him to depart this thread. His name is mikemacqueery at the moment or something like that and he's pretending to be just a lovable old prankster until he can really get his bloody teeth into somebody.
Send a PM from your GK account to ZD GF and others to announce/verify yourself. I still say you were likely attacked by trashy or vvvbutthead.
Sent messages with great difficulty. I think my computer is under attack and I will have to shut down.
Run a system viral scanner/cleaner.
You're so dramatic!
Will do.
Have you read this thread? Tr@shy would Never write a thread like this! Damn zendog, just damn.
By the way, keep at em!
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Hmm, but I don't think he could write like that and about that subject in that way.
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LOL! No problem. It's always good to be aware and we never know for sure anyway.
This is complete nonsense. Anyone can go to the library and read Plato, and many do. There are countless works by American scholars who analyze Plato and make it easier to understand. The idea that Plato is hidden from us by unnamed "tyrants" is ludicrous. Just more conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo designed to make Occupy look bad.
Just do a Google search. All of Plato's writings are online, and can be read free of charge.
We are spiritual beings anchored in the flesh and blood of this state.
Learning how to be released from fear and doubt is a part of the experience.
The consumerist conglomerate is the false flag. What you most totally desire, you can never have, because there will always be a new model, or a better system.
Forego your desire. Delete your desparation. Just be. It's the natural state.
Lovely, Builder. Very well said.
Very good. Our eternal engagement to desire for that which does not produce happiness but only delusion and emptiness, and unquenched longing for something greater, is the recipe of our despair. We all feel it, but don't understand its origin. Reconnecting with nature. deliberately, with conscious awareness of making the reconnection helps. Nature is populated with other living spirits, with things that are real.
More amateur philosophy that degrades quickly into new age gibberish.
I find biology and evolution fascinating
We know you do Matt. Your intelligence and great spirit shine through your social difficulties.
Me too. I don't think they are exclusive from spirituality though do you?
God(s) have not even proven to be, therefor they certainly not need be disproved. The ones who believe in God(s) bear the burden of proof, not the ones who don't. Science cannot disprove that God(s) exist or existed, that's not it's purpose. Similarly, it cannot disprove the existence of Renney's Reptilian Overlords, or the existence of the Spaghetti Monster. What science shows is that the need for God(s) is being wiped away one discovery after another.
Hi Thrasymaque. Wish me a Happy Anniversary, would you?
Happy Anniversary Dear One !!
Its a celebratory time it seems! I too have a day of celebrations today. 3 in 1 birthdays. Ahhhh....family, good food & spirits, and Music!
Have a wonderful day beautifulworld. May you delight in the embrace, of the meaning of such a treasured togetherness.
You too, Renneye. Thanks and enjoy.
You finally turned 80. Bravo! May your life continue to be long and prosperous.
LOL! Nope, I just turned one here on the forum.
You will now feel the hair rise on the back of your neck.
Be gone tr@shy.
Why should I feel the hair rise on the back of my neck?
This is not a history Question, Philospophical Question, or even a religious Question. This is a Law Question.
Big assumptions would be:
1) That I know anything about Greece or ancient Greece or even my distant European History. Sure everyone knows some facts, but much of history is written with a slant, a bias, a distortion.
2) That I know anything deep or accurate about US History (not American History which incorporates Canda, Central & South American, and probably the Carribean). US History is written wiht huge omissions from an Ethnocentric Point of View... at least as I understand it.
The evidence that proves your point might include the dirty little secrets about the US.
1) There are no nice guys in Congress making sure that from 1791 to the present we all had civil and individual rights.
2) The Vietnam War. There was never any threat to the US from Vietnam. So why did we corrupt 3 countrys with land mines and DDT and cause so much misery.
Is it a Nihilist Question? A Hobbesian Question? Is man Evil? English philosophers like Hobbes believed that human nature is "tainted".
Is it a Religious Question. Original Sin. Born Evil or with Sin.
I believe Religion Grew out of the need to deal with life and death and the idea of sin and evil and bad men and how to punish bad men. Money seems to be the bigger corruptor whether in Asia or In the West. It might be evil to ignore the power of money and not put rules and regulations in place to control the influence of money.
Is it a Law Question instead of a Philosophical Question. YES. It is a question for William K. Black. "We can't Stop Crime. But we can put together laws and regulations to prevent people from committing crime."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black
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Prometheus: ~~~
(Greek: Προμηθεύς) is a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who in Greek mythology is credited with the creation of man from clay and the theft of fire for human use, an act that enabled progress and civilization. He is known for his intelligence, and as a champion of mankind.[1]
The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft is a major theme of his mythology, and is a popular subject of both ancient and modern art. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his transgression. The immortal Prometheus was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, was sent to feed on his liver, only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day. In some stories, Prometheus is freed at last by the hero Heracles (Hercules).
In another of his myths, Prometheus establishes the form of animal sacrifice practiced in ancient Greek religion. Evidence of a cult to Prometheus himself is not widespread. He was a focus of religious activity mainly at Athens, where he was linked to Athena and Hephaestus, other Greek deities of creative skills and technology.[2]
In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving, particularly the quest for scientific knowledge, and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy: Mary Shelley, for instance, gave The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus
Yes. We must reduce the degree of our thinking along lines of purely current political cause and effect, and get back to rethinking the place of humanity itself. The current pass of humanity calls for nothing less then such a profound reasessment.
Thanks.
Your observations and questions merit thought...however, I like to know who I'm talking to IF I have previously known that person. Your writing here, though deeper than usual, could be one of two different people previously on this forum. Which one are you, I wonder?
It doesn't matter. The questions are what matters. Let's finally have that talk we've all been waiting for, concerning the Real Questions. If I might, I would like to help facilitate such a long and sadly overdue enquiry, for those who are willing and not afraid.
Please help us find our way, for it is We who must do so. The question cannot be put off any longer, nor handed to the "experts" all, with a vested interest in, and with a sensuality for the hand that feeds them.
This is not about we as individuals - this is about the future of all of us. It is about the essense and survival of us all.
But first, for those willing, we must acknowledge that even the attempt to do so will be considered an unpardonable audacity, and that we will be beset by the furies.
Is it too early for flapjacks?
No, no mistake at all Renneye. Anyone here might have mistaken any refference to the Ancient Greeks as the work of that damned petty forum devil thrasymaque. If he shows his head here I will banish him. Those who have proved themselves to be working against the betterment of humanity, and don't want to engage here with honest intentions aren't welcome.
I have a particular bone to pick with him over his besmirching of the greatest of all human legacies.
Why do so many people on this site talk about this Thrasymaque person?
Here (for some unfathomable reason) since last October and you ask that question? Pretty disengenuous TM.
Now go back to playing with your toys
LOL he's just some dude on the internet... why would I go out of my way to make posts about some guy? I'm asking why others do this? It's a simple question. Some said he harassed them or something like that and I've seen people accuse other users of being this thrasy person.... I was never harassed by this person or what not... and I didn't pay attention to them either. I think my question was more than legitimate. I haven't seen this person on the site for a long time now... maybe I'm not looking in the right places... Just wondering why people are still talking about him/her I guess.
Kind of weird for a new user like yourself to have so much "knowledge" on this issue. Recent name change?
And I don't have toys. They're called action figures.
Jack all the flaps you want - but spare us the details.
I don't spelunk
Me?
trashy...if it were anybody else, I'd do it. I'd kinda like to...but, I'll discuss nothing with you.
The dark cloud that hangs over the tone in this thread is ominous...and the people on this forum can speak of a 'People's Society' from a much more love-bearing and heart-centered place. The drama is unnecessary.
The scientific fact is, that we have been discussing the things you speak of, all along.
No Renneye, not our mutual enemy. At times evil and good bare a strange resemblence, because evil would like to userp and twist the nature of good. The would-be evil overlord of this forum has userped the name of the Greeks, the founders of Liberty. Let's try to reclaim the light of that liberty and of free-thought - if we may.
I see...my mistake...I apologize. Maybe I'll join the discussion later.
Just a whole lot of gibberish that means nothing at all. The author seems to be the victim of all the new age nonsense that's floating around these days.