A quote a day (or whatever stuff whenever I can)

[PuliMorgan]

[inkstainedruth]

Nice sentiment.  But I'm not a fan of L. Ron Hubbard (I dated a Scientologist for a couple of months my last year in college; I got better....  I doubt my ex did...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PuliMorgan]

@inkstainedruth

 

I just loved this particular quote and hence shared 

[PuliMorgan]

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[PuliMorgan]

[inkstainedruth]

I like that quote!

Interestingly enough, it was apparently attributed to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. But on a website called the "New Robert Brault Reader", Brault corrects the mis-attribution.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PuliMorgan]

  On 8/23/2021 at 2:53 PM, inkstainedruth said:

I like that quote!

Interestingly enough, it was apparently attributed to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. But on a website called the "New Robert Brault Reader", Brault corrects the mis-attribution.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

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Glad to know that you liked the quote 🙂 @inkstainedruth

 

 

This was a sort of life changing message for me sometime back when I had to choose between leaving the country for doing PhD and staying back home to be with the little ones. I stayed back home. For a while I was feeling miserable for not realising my full potential, but now I know that I made the right decision. If I had left, I would have missed all those little things in my life and I wouldn't have even realised what I was missing!!

 

[PuliMorgan]

 

Great book! I am discovering stoicism.

[brokenclay]

  On 8/23/2021 at 4:01 PM, PuliMorgan said:

 

Great book! I am discovering stoicism.

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I've been reading a lot of the Stoics this year, and then I saw this interview with Mary Beard in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/31/magazine/mary-beard-rome-interview.html

 

The following made me laugh out loud:

 

  Quote

 

I don’t know if this is novel to you, but in the last few years there has been a real resurgence of 

popular interest in Stoic philosophy⁸

— why’d you just roll your eyes? All to the good when people are interested in the ancient world, but this is one of the more mystifying bits of interest: clichéd self-help from a philosophy that, if you looked at it really hard, was nasty, fatalistic, bordering on fascist.

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[PuliMorgan]

  On 8/23/2021 at 4:58 PM, brokenclay said:

 

I've been reading a lot of the Stoics this year, and then I saw this interview with Mary Beard in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/31/magazine/mary-beard-rome-interview.html

 

The following made me laugh out loud:

 

 

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@brokenclay

 

I had briefly considered stoicism way back in 2016, but had rejected it after (mistakenly) thinking that stoicism was a tool used by the powerful to oppress the masses by encouraging passive suffering. But now I know that I was wrong. YouTube series by Einzelgänger helped to correct my misconceptions.

 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDVYjnosumiCf_QywoC8AAyowGym6b6-j

 

[txomsy]

Sorry, the "fascist" adjective woke me up.

 

Seems to me that there is much misunderstanding around Ancient Philosophy or, most likely, any Philosophy in general. Most currents have been distorted by clichés from their detractors or later "philosophers" who had little to add and needed to somehow "set aside" themselves; to the extent they are unrecognizable.

 

Stoicism is not that different from Buddhism once you look at both. Or from Cynicism when you get to the bottom. Or even from Christianity when you look at the overall message (I bring these not for their religious weight but for their tolerance, compassionate approach to Life.

 

When taken at face value (considering their historic-cultural context) I can hardly see anything "fascist" in any of them, specially when they say you should forgive offenders and build your life around your own virtue. Actually Christianism drank from Stoicism until the Modern Age (Seneca, for instance, was even considered a Church Father and proto-Christian Saint). St. Augustine cites Seneca saying "omnes odit, qui malos odit", (he who hates wrongdoers, hates everyone) which can only be understood as "do not hate anyone, not even wrongdoers" and hardly can be construed as a "hate" philosophy.

 

Yeah, you'll see signs of the times (which we must remember were quite different) in any philosophical system; and much picky misunderstanding (Seneca, for instance again, was accused of hypocrisy, but he made it clear his goal was to depend on nothing, not to renounce everything, Marcus Aurelius, being emperor, wasn't so openly criticized), which subsequent wannabee cult-creators will exploit to pursue their own agenda. But even so, in most cases you'll see they were more modern and encompassing than most current streams of thought; after all, they are the foundations over which modern thought is built, curiously, by adding upon, not by breaking with.

 

And it is only sensible: any successful line of thought must build upon the same universal principles that have worked for most people in most communities, and will include a core of similar or related behaviors (mixed with a hoard of differentiating 'peculiarities', of course). An idea which must not be so evident itself, considering it took until Jung in the 20th Century to verbalize it as a "collective unconscious" and even longer for people to understand what Jung was referring to.

 

The point is, "Great" philosophers (like great artists) experienced very complex, abstract feelings and subtle reasoning which matches collective sensibility , which they tried to express --verbally as knowledge-systems in the case of philosophers-- (i.e. everyone can express complex, abstract constructions, but the ones we consider great are the ones whose constructs match ours, and those who match most people's become truly "Great"); and which most subsequent and less-capable "successors" have struggled to understand, fit into their short-sighted schemes or disparage to make room for their own.

 

Shortly, applying "fascist" to philosophical system is a lame excuse not to discuss its actual content.

 

[PuliMorgan]

  On 8/24/2021 at 10:12 AM, txomsy said:

Sorry, the "fascist" adjective woke me up.

 

Seems to me that there is much misunderstanding around Ancient Philosophy or, most likely, any Philosophy in general. Most currents have been distorted by clichés from their detractors or later "philosophers" who had little to add and needed to somehow "set aside" themselves; to the extent they are unrecognizable.

 

Stoicism is not that different from Buddhism once you look at both. Or from Cynicism when you get to the bottom. Or even from Christianity when you look at the overall message (I bring these not for their religious weight but for their tolerance, compassionate approach to Life.

 

When taken at face value (considering their historic-cultural context) I can hardly see anything "fascist" in any of them, specially when they say you should forgive offenders and build your life around your own virtue. Actually Christianism drank from Stoicism until the Modern Age (Seneca, for instance, was even considered a Church Father and proto-Christian Saint). St. Augustine cites Seneca saying "omnes odit, qui malos odit", (he who hates wrongdoers, hates everyone) which can only be understood as "do not hate anyone, not even wrongdoers" and hardly can be construed as a "hate" philosophy.

 

Yeah, you'll see signs of the times (which we must remember were quite different) in any philosophical system; and much picky misunderstanding (Seneca, for instance again, was accused of hypocrisy, but he made it clear his goal was to depend on nothing, not to renounce everything, Marcus Aurelius, being emperor, wasn't so openly criticized), which subsequent wannabee cult-creators will exploit to pursue their own agenda. But even so, in most cases you'll see they were more modern and encompassing than most current streams of thought; after all, they are the foundations over which modern thought is built, curiously, by adding upon, not by breaking with.

 

And it is only sensible: any successful line of thought must build upon the same universal principles that have worked for most people in most communities, and will include a core of similar or related behaviors (mixed with a hoard of differentiating 'peculiarities', of course). An idea which must not be so evident itself, considering it took until Jung in the 20th Century to verbalize it as a "collective unconscious" and even longer for people to understand what Jung was referring to.

 

The point is, "Great" philosophers (like great artists) experienced very complex, abstract feelings and subtle reasoning which matches collective sensibility , which they tried to express --verbally as knowledge-systems in the case of philosophers-- (i.e. everyone can express complex, abstract constructions, but the ones we consider great are the ones whose constructs match ours, and those who match most people's become truly "Great"); and which most subsequent and less-capable "successors" have struggled to understand, fit into their short-sighted schemes or disparage to make room for their own.

 

Shortly, applying "fascist" to philosophical system is a lame excuse not to discuss its actual content.

 

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Thank you for presenting your view. Well written too 🙂.

 

Coincidentally, my boss had today made a well meaning comment about the "collective" stupidity of my team 😆...