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The Naked King
| Philosophy 101 |
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The Naked King |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan 
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Who, and what real value is self? Is it more than a manufacture created by and to accommodate a particular environment? In “Of Blood and Hope”, Samuel Pasar tells how out of from among all those previously powerful successful men, only one, who had been an assistant butcher, had the courage to stand and argue with their guards as in the end saved at least some lives including his own. I knew of a man, a handsome brilliant once relatively successful artist from a wealthy family, who deliberately went into a life of poverty and humiliation, and when that and alcohol failed, chose suicide rather than live with his failure to recognize and help a woman, from among those who readily came to him, in desperate injured need before it was too late. In the epilogue of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw tells how Doctor Doolittle gets Eliza a flower shop and married off to an innocuous gentlemen who, it being innocuous times, would do for a successful union. Take the same egg and sperm but have it emerge from a womb a few, a thousand, ten thousand, miles away and who do you get? Someone who should hope and expect eternity? So what is this thing called self. And why should one really care whether it lives or dies? John P.S.: I am not a person. I am a succession of persons Held together by memory. When the string breaks, The beads scatter. Lindley Williams Hubbell |
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| © Copyright 2004 John Pawlik - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Perhaps it may help to think on the holy trinity. God has one self: God. But he has three hoods: Father (God in Fatherhood), Son (God in Sonhood) and Holy Spirit (God in Spirithood). Whatever you call God, God is the selfsame God. He has three selfhoods or "roles", yet he is only one self. And though people have the same names, they are different selves. Bob is not that bob, that bob is not this bob. They are different selves, with the selfsame name. Thus, perhaps, self may also truly be called one's oneness. No matter how many personal roles you have and are of, you may only be one person; an overall oneness: your self. [This message has been edited by Essorant (10-23-2004 03:43 PM).] |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
quote: If it is a construct created by and accomodating an environment, why does that necessarily imply no real value? Dennet would call it a narrative center of gravity. And while there is no such thing as a center of gravity, it's certainly valuable to talk about such things. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Huan Yi, What is your opinion about self? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
Essorant, I think it is a manufacture created by and to accommodate a particular environment. An accretion over time layer upon layer giving us less chance as time goes on to understand over what. It has social function and purpose if it properly works. As a basis for faith, belief, or trust, only as much as you would have in a well trained dog. John |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Then why do men banish enviroments--natural landscape and overdo their cities; and overurbanize the world? They spill waste into air, earth and water; and spill waste into themselves. They gave up their companion in travels, the horse, to put over the world a traffic jam of unliving hastewagons in which thousand injuries and deaths come each year. Overmanmadeness all over and less and less natural space for natural movement. Junkyards of metal. Greedy empires to manufacture and make money and compete. To accomodate an enviroment? That is very difficult to believe in. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
Essorant, It is a commercial environment that is driven by consumption, and from childhood humans are schooled in participation, regardless. Mother Nature is not the CEO of Toyland. John |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
But there were earlier enviroments than the "commercial" enviroment. What happened to the accomodation of them? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
Essorant I suspect survival of the fittest, they were killed off. Besides, what earlier environments are you speaking of; those where women grubbed the ground for roots while men went to war for heads? Where was there a Garden of Eden before? Rousseau’s Noble Savage is a fiction; the French themselves soon found that out once they began to explore the until then uncharted world. John |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
"Besides, what earlier environments are you speaking of; those where women grubbed the ground for roots while men went to war for heads?" I'm talking about civilization, not savagery. It is not much better to be a savage of structure (including commercialism), than it is to be a savage of nature and ignorance. It is better though, I believe, if one may create balance between nature and extraordinary structure; a better balance, is where Civilization is. Civilization I believe is about cultivation and preservation, and edification of what we already have; it doesn't make manipulation of nature and accumulation of structure out as the token and omphalos of Progress. Just as an artist may not be an artful only by making his work more manifold all the time; our societies may not be civilized by making them more manifold all the time. We need more cultivation and worth. And less accumulation and commercialism. [This message has been edited by Essorant (10-24-2004 04:54 PM).] |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
"In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing." Mark Strand |
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