Joined: Apr 12, 2007 Posts: 1172 Location: Central NC
Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 8:51 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
Pehaps to summarize what a person has in their heart is more important than the rest of it. However, that often gets overlooked due to background noise.
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:56 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
btu2012 wrote:
There is a difference between autonomy and separatism. Do you really want a Europe consisting of 1000 versions of Kosovo ?
I really don't want Europe, in any form, period.
What I really want is "Europe" (colonies like USA included, aka "Empire" of growthism) to go away and leave us alone, my people and other non-European peoples. Globalization was brought to my land more than five hundred years ago by an invading army lead by a Christian missionary and frankly, we were better of before.
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Local autonomy is practical, but separatism can be counter-productive.
Regarding the US, it needed an 'official' language for purely pragmatic reasons (just as English is lingua franca in Brussels for all practical means).
Separatism would lead to countless problems. As a minor example, one would need to add a large number of languages and dialects to the already unpractical list of 'official' EU languages. Are you ready to conduct your business in Basque or Romani ?
"Problems" only from the point of view of governability by the or any empirelike hierarchic power system of greedy growthism.
BTW I conduct my business in suomi and am among other things a professional translator.
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In my opinion one ought to integrate subcultures and ethnic groups in a workable community. From this perspective multiculturalism is dangerously close to "identity politics", which can be unworkable and divisive. It is possible to have respect for ethnic culture and traditions (and encourage and support their expression) without making these into the cornerstone of social, cultural and political identity.
We do not have to be defined by our ethnic origins.
Thinking about this, it seems obvious that we can chose to be defined by other factors, such as adherence to certain ethics, choices about the value we place on rationality and so on. This is closer to personal autonomy in that such beliefs aren't simply the product of being accidentally born in some particular period and place and being enculturated within some particular social and ethnic group.
Ultimately everyone has a choice between being defined by an outer force or by his own will and reason. Ethnic subcultures are a collective creation of the people of the past, and there is no more justification to submit to them than to anything else. One can study their message and keep what one finds valuable while discarding the rest. Tribal cultures are not "superior" just because they are tribal and universalizing messages (such as Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism etc) are not "inferior" just because they are meant to be universal. One can simply judge all of them on their merits.
Btu
Thinking about it, your (pseudo)individualistic universal ethics (defined&interpreted by this or that version of Empire, in your case by a mere book and priest) seems to mean in practice nothing but the good old "divide and conquer" promptly proceeding to intergrate and assimilate all into the Empire.
As for spirituality, a local (eco)community, especially with help from a skillfull shaman, can live and even relearn to live self sufficiently, not taking more than giving back, creating peacefull harmony with spirits of ancestors and other local spirits of Nature. And thus live in unity with the holistic whole of the Great Spirit that is reflected in the tiniest and everything between.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
MrBean wrote:
What I really want is "Europe" (colonies like USA included, aka "Empire" of growthism) to go away and leave us alone, my people and other non-European peoples. Globalization was brought to my land more than five hundred years ago by an invading army lead by a Christian missionary and frankly, we were better of before.
The US hasn't been a British colony for a rather long time Is your land Finland ?
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"Problems" only from the point of view of governability by the or any empirelike hierarchic power system of greedy growthism.
I disagree. You need a governance structure in any system, even in 'anarchism' (you would still need a decision making system, by direct democracy or otherwise). The history of anarchism during the Spanish revolution is instructive in that regard. It is not trivial to implement utopia in practice. It's certainly much harder than writing woolly theories about it (which seems to be a favorite post-Enlightenment pastime, given the new obsession with building heaven on earth).
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BTW I conduct my business in suomi and am among other things a professional translator.
Right, but are you fluent in Romani, Gaellic, Welsh, Basque, Normand, Occitan etc ?
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Thinking about it, your (pseudo)individualistic universal ethics (defined&interpreted by this or that version of Empire, in your case by a mere book and priest) seems to mean in practice nothing but the good old "divide and conquer" promptly proceeding to intergrate and assimilate all into the Empire.
You are unfair to Christianity as ethics, metaphysics and soteriology. It was and is far more than just a book and a priest. This applies to all major religions.
Christianity and other major religions are not individualistic in the modern (Enlightenment) sense. Christianity is not responsible for the behavior of imperialists. There were many who followed it honestly. Blaming European imperialism on Christianity is historically inaccurate.
Also Christianity is not a 'European' religion, but a creation of the Middle East.
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As for spirituality, a local (eco)community, especially with help from a skillfull shaman, can live and even relearn to live self sufficiently, not taking more than giving back, creating peacefull harmony with spirits of ancestors and other local spirits of Nature. And thus live in unity with the holistic whole of the Great Spirit that is reflected in the tiniest and everything between.
You seem to be convinced that shamanism is superior to the likes of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and so forth. What arguments do you have for this except for the identification of Christendom with European imperialism ?
How do you explain the success of these 'universalizing' religions over the shamanic and polytheistic practices which preceded them ? Notice that Buddhism is not a missionary religion in the Christian sense.
How do you explain the incessant wars in the Middle East during the polytheistic, pre-Christian and pre-Islamic period ?
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 12:09 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
btu2012 wrote:
You seem to be convinced that shamanism is superior to the likes of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and so forth. What arguments do you have for this except for the identification of Christendom with European imperialism ?
How do you explain the success of these 'universalizing' religions over the shamanic and polytheistic practices which preceded them ? Notice that Buddhism is not a missionary religion in the Christian sense.
How do you explain the incessant wars in the Middle East during the polytheistic, pre-Christian and pre-Islamic period ?
Btu
It is you that thinks in lines of superiority and inferiority.
History is a litany of errors, terrible tales that we refuse to learn from but keep on repeating. Beginning from errors of agriculture and writing, which go long way to explain the incessant wars that are still going on and certainly did not end with christianity - but in many ways got worse.
Societies relying on shamans don't have history in the same sense as litterate "civilized" societies, but they have lived for thousands and tens of thousands of years, since the dawn of man, in harmony with their enviroment, not alianated from Nature/God but as organic part of the whole; sustainably as we say today. And would and could keep on living if it were not the "superior" and "civilized" empires killing them of.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:58 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
MrBean wrote:
It is you that thinks in lines of superiority and inferiority.
There is such a thing as superiority and inferiority once measurement criteria have been selected. you can debate the criteria but it's not productive to deny the obvious fact that we can make useful comparisons. It is irrational to attack logic itself.
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History is a litany of errors, terrible tales that we refuse to learn from but keep on repeating. Beginning from errors of agriculture and writing, which go long way to explain the incessant wars that are still going on and certainly did not end with christianity - but in many ways got worse.
It is debatable that they got worse because of Christianity.
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Societies relying on shamans don't have history in the same sense as litterate "civilized" societies, but they have lived for thousands and tens of thousands of years, since the dawn of man, in harmony with their enviroment, not alianated from Nature/God but as organic part of the whole; sustainably as we say today. And would and could keep on living if it were not the "superior" and "civilized" empires killing them of.
Societies living on shamans can be quite violent and self-destructive, contrary to the falsification of anthropological data perpetrated by certain self-appointed utopian ideologues. They can also have high levels of infanictide, disease, violent accidents and sexism, whether they are agricultural or not.
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:08 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
btu2012 wrote:
There is such a thing as superiority and inferiority once measurement criteria have been selected. you can debate the criteria but it's not productive to deny the obvious fact that we can make useful comparisons. It is irrational to attack logic itself.
What happened to "credo quid absurdum est"?
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Societies living on shamans can be quite violent and self-destructive, contrary to the falsification of anthropological data perpetrated by certain self-appointed utopian ideologues. They can also have high levels of infanictide, disease, violent accidents and sexism, whether they are agricultural or not.
Btu
Says you and I'm not claiming anything fool proof. But what's the point? It's not the primitive tribes that caused oil dependence, climate change, etc. global catastrophies but the so called civilization that is on the verge of self-destruction. Primitive tribes would and could keep on living reasonably happy lives as they have done for millennia if there weren't European civilization genociding them through various means on it's path to self-destruction.
How is that for criteria for logical comparison games?
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:36 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
MrBean wrote:
What happened to "credo quid absurdum est"?
My remark wasn't about the nature of religious belief (shamanism is as debatable as any other) but about the effects of that belief and the nature of its ethics. As an example, shamanism and ancestor worship seem compatible with cannibalism, most major religions are not.
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Says you and I'm not claiming anything fool proof.
Says most of academic anthropology.
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But what's the point? It's not the primitive tribes that caused oil dependence, climate change, etc. global catastrophies but the so called civilization that is on the verge of self-destruction.
It's not Christianity, Buddhism etc that caused all this but a certain modern point of view concerned with "subduing nature" and building a physical version of heaven on Earth in the name of "progress". These ideas originated with the Enlightenment and are anti-religious.
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Primitive tribes would and could keep on living reasonably happy lives as they have done for millennia if there weren't European civilization genociding them through various means on it's path to self-destruction.
They are certainly sustainable. Whether they are happy is a bit more difficult to ascertain.
We are a product of "civilization" whether we like it or not, just as tribe members are a product their tribe's culture. I think that we look for scapegoats in the wrong places instead of facing the fact that post-Enlightenment civilization set itself up on a collision course with its environment when it abandoned any preoccupation with self-reflection and the human nature.
A change of course could start with the rejection of utopias, which in my opinion are a result of our desperately looking for the sacred in a culture which objectivizes everything. We could also look at the rampant narcissism and self-falsification which characterizes so many of the individuals whom we chose as leaders and role models, and at our sheep-like acceptance of fakes and fakers who build their whole lifes around exploiting and destroying others.
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:45 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
btu2012 wrote:
My remark wasn't about the nature of religious belief (shamanism is as debatable as any other) but about the effects of that belief and the nature of its ethics. As an example, shamanism and ancestor worship seem compatible with cannibalism, most major religions are not.
"Shamanism" is a creation of western academics (Eliade etc.) and of later more or less fluffy new age wannabes with very little to do with the way of life and world view of certain tribes of northern Eurasia. Who don't have "religious beliefs" but when asked about that subject state that "religion is what Russians have, we have only our shamans".
As for cannibalism, if that and ritual warfare are the naturally evolved means of population control to maintain sustainable population levels in some exotic localities, so what? As long as they don't bother others and start to conquer the world to enforce their version of "holy universal ethics of cannibalism" on everybody else, so what? But of course, there is only one correct Holy Universal Ethics of Cannibalism in the whole universe, namely the "this is Jeebus flesh, have a bite, this is Jeebus blood, have a quaf" version of cannibalism, and all other cannibalisms be damned and civilized whether they want or not!!!
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Says most of academic anthropology.
Do you imply to be speaking with the mouth of "most of academic anthropology"? Even if you claim such position and could back your words (which I greatly doubt), even then, so what?
Science is not the universal absolute truth, it's just Greek to me...
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It's not Christianity, Buddhism etc that caused all this but a certain modern point of view concerned with "subduing nature" and building a physical version of heaven on Earth in the name of "progress". These ideas originated with the Enlightenment and are anti-religious.
May be so. But Enlightment was born as reaction to something that it in its turn copycated in its version of it. We can call it missionarism, growthism, greedyism etc., and Enlightment certainly didn't invent those isms.
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
btu2012 wrote:
We are a product of "civilization" whether we like it or not, just as tribe members are a product their tribe's culture. I think that we look for scapegoats in the wrong places instead of facing the fact that post-Enlightenment civilization set itself up on a collision course with its environment when it abandoned any preoccupation with self-reflection and the human nature.
A change of course could start with the rejection of utopias, which in my opinion are a result of our desperately looking for the sacred in a culture which objectivizes everything. We could also look at the rampant narcissism and self-falsification which characterizes so many of the individuals whom we chose as leaders and role models, and at our sheep-like acceptance of fakes and fakers who build their whole lifes around exploiting and destroying others.
Btu
Utopia, Thomas More's book title, is a play on words: outopos - "noplace" and eutopos - "good place". And his eutopos, example of an ideal society, was based on a description of a Brazilian native tribe. That is just a historic factoid and does not mean we should aim for any ideal perfect society. But does not mean either that we should evade our responsibility for future generations and their chance of living good enough - which in many ways is the opposite of perfect.
If God or All really is not separate from us, not an outsider personality sitting on a cloud, but the whole of creation that also we are organic (and creative!) parts of, then don't we in a way get to "enjoy" the judgements and blessings of the kinds of gods we create? Don't hell and heaven exist only here, between sky and earth?
Greeks exhort men to "know thyself"; gnothi seauton. Both Christian creation myth and Buddhist concept of karma poise the question about origin of alianated or cultural suffering (fleshly pain is not alianeted but very natural and "godly") and it's origin, as if to know the origin of suffering would be the liberation from it.
AFAIK that is also the base of shamans work and skill, "gnosis" of origins, at least in my culture that is the basis of shamanic knowledge and work - and in that respect science is not basically different even though more cerebral and less rhythmic (and thus prone to be more narrow and out of tune).
In my language we can still hear (perhaps today only as faint echos and perhaps only with a poet's sensitivity) voice that precedes division into subject and object, absolute "structuralist" division between man and god. And even if English lingua franca mostly separates us from God, having become the Imperial Language, nevertheless we all, English speakers not excluded, share the language of music and rhytm, the same thrubbing flesh.
It is difficult to speak about matters of heart, matters of spirit, because spirit of envy is allways present, and thus the spirit of fear too. But I hope it is not envy or fear that you feel but praise of your God that you feel if I tell you that sometimes when we drum and sing together, our Mistress of Forest joins our music and is heard in our ears, minds and hearts, and through Her at those moments we forget our separateness and in our own humble local way praise the Whole of Being.
When I walk in the forest, there is sadness, distress and even anger to be sensed, because of what civilized man has done and is doing to Her. But if and when She sings along, she is not sadness nor happiness, nothing perfect and absolute; but just joy. And gratitude. And If I think of our Lady in Blue in Christian context, I identify her with Virgin Mary.
What I mean by these confessions about my experiences, is not to brag, but to share and hopefully encouridge; I'm certain that Christianity offers access to no less holy experiences. What I mean is that for me and my friends our local and humble non-integrated ways are the only way to experience these things the way we do. And allthough all this is way beyond our understanding and we can only trust our intuition, my intuition tells that any Earth-size or bigger gods (up to universe and beyond) is with us, that we are not alone.
Hmm. What is my point, I wonder? Names are names and no less and for us Jesus/Christ is not the only "enlightened" helper that visits us, just one among many. He comes when chooses and is needed. Hmm. Perhaps humility of being a simple human being has to do with not claiming universal knowledge, gnosis. But just to act along, as well as one can, without claiming to know when we do or don't. Just human size; and shaman/pick your term size, if we should be so lucky to meat one (or more) on our path, dedicated helpers (who, to be remembered, are not beyond our help).
Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 1473 Location: The Post Peak Oil Historian
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
There is a difference between autonomy and separatism. Do you really want a Europe consisting of 1000 versions of Kosovo?
Actually, what they want is a seperatist oil and gas region in Bolivia, and a seperatist oil and gas region in Iraq (and probably eventually one in Iran).
It's easier just to control the parts of the country you want.
Kosovo is just setting the precedent. _________________ In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
MrBean wrote:
"Shamanism" is a creation of western academics (Eliade etc.) and of later more or less fluffy new age wannabes with very little to do with the way of life and world view of certain tribes of northern Eurasia.
Actually shamanism was recognized well before Eliade.
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As for cannibalism, if that and ritual warfare are the naturally evolved means of population control to maintain sustainable population levels in some exotic localities, so what?
It has a few disadvantages, such as promotion of tribal warfare, spreading of disease etc. Funny how you blame Christianity while excusing shamanic cannibalism.
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But of course, there is only one correct Holy Universal Ethics of Cannibalism in the whole universe, namely the "this is Jeebus flesh, have a bite, this is Jeebus blood, have a quaf" version of cannibalism, and all other cannibalisms be damned and civilized whether they want or not!!!
See my remark above
[quote]Do you imply to be speaking with the mouth of "most of academic anthropology"? [quote]
It seems to be well recognized in anthropology that the idea of the "noble savage" (which is an expression of Western guilt) is utter nonsense.
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But Enlightment was born as reaction to something that it in its turn copycated in its version of it. We can call it missionarism, growthism, greedyism etc., and Enlightment certainly didn't invent those isms.
I think that the Enlightenment was quite unique in its proposal of a material utopia and of the idea of linear progress. I doubt that this was a characteristic of the cultures that preceded it.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:02 am Post subject: Re: how will the Empire die?
MrBean wrote:
Greeks exhort men to "know thyself"; gnothi seauton. Both Christian creation myth and Buddhist concept of karma poise the question about origin of alianated or cultural suffering (fleshly pain is not alianeted but very natural and "godly") and it's origin, as if to know the origin of suffering would be the liberation from it.
I think that both Christianity and Buddhism are greatly concerned with knowing oneself. The concept of sin refers to living against life, against truth and in discordance with the identity of self and the world. Anyone who has attempted to look at himself has been horrified by what he has discovered, just as many of us are horrified by what we see in society. Christianity and Buddhism propose answers to this which rely on askesis and compassion rather than mere gnosis.
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