William Blake stated in one of his poems: Honest indignation IS the voice of God"...
With that in mind, recent events in the financial world and the economy of late have me thinking...
Are we MORALLY wrong to cheat the government and large faceless impersonal corporations in any way we can get away with? Without a doubt, history has shown that there is NOT a direct connection between what is morally right, and what happens to be legal in a given culture.
Some laws are passed for the protection of citizens, but a great many laws and statutes are the result of pressure groups and lobbyists who work for interests that are not the voting majority.
Consider the fact that the large players like banks and credit-card companies do everything in their power and more to cheat consumers and gouge us wherever possible. And they only do this "legally" as a result of millions of dollars spent on "lobbyists" who sway the government to pass laws in direct contrast to taxpayers and voters interests.
Like drug pushers at the local high school, credit companies lure naive and unsuspecting consumers into debt-addiction! The analogy between drug pushers and credit card pushers is a perfect one as far as I can see... The strategy is to get consumers addicted to credit (debt-slavery) as early as possible.
At the same time, we see our government allowing large corporations to avoid taxes, receive bailouts and welfare, and even then, move our jobs to "developing" nations and leave workers here to sink or swim.
And then, these same workers are to be responsible and pay their 25% rates on credit cards and income tax to a government that is by all appearances either impotent to help, or perhaps even working against the interests of its citizens under corporate pressure.
With all of this in mind, it would seem we should have no moral dilemma whatsoever about stealing back what was stolen from us in the first place. Yes, perhaps it is even our moral obligation to fight back and lie, cheat, and steal back wherever possible from the big players. It's the only way to protect what we have left, and to get back some of what was stolen from us in the first place.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Memory, Technology and Phantom History
Consider that as we become more and more dependent upon information storage and the technology that supports it, we are also more vulnerable to it's being re-written and fictionalized in a subtle but retroactive program of fictionalizing history... this is done through very gradual and subtle changes or "interpretations" that are incorporated into each new "update" of the official version of events. After many such instances, and over a long period of time, we end up with a tale of events that is very far removed from the original source.
In other cases, it may even be a case of pure fiction... what is sometimes known as "phantom history" in which events are not recorded or deliberately altered in the official record. These are then passed down through history and taken as actual historical events. As far as I know, this is a theory, and I'm not aware of any proven cases of this.
Or, perhaps it's always been the case... an ancient strategy, with all previous cultures practicing their own form of making up their history on stone tablets and scrolls which have now form most of what we "know" about them, even if untrue!
Anyone who has read Orwell's 1984 will know what I mean when we see special interest groups trying and succeeding in making any alternative view of history (other than the officially approved story) an outright crime!
In other cases, it may even be a case of pure fiction... what is sometimes known as "phantom history" in which events are not recorded or deliberately altered in the official record. These are then passed down through history and taken as actual historical events. As far as I know, this is a theory, and I'm not aware of any proven cases of this.
Or, perhaps it's always been the case... an ancient strategy, with all previous cultures practicing their own form of making up their history on stone tablets and scrolls which have now form most of what we "know" about them, even if untrue!
Anyone who has read Orwell's 1984 will know what I mean when we see special interest groups trying and succeeding in making any alternative view of history (other than the officially approved story) an outright crime!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
We Are But A Spark In An Eternal Flame...
Consider how our lives are so insignificantly small with respect to the passing of time...
Our brief moment in the sun is like a spark engulfed in an eternal fire...
So many people have lived and died before us, and yet each one of them had loves, hopes, troubles, families, children and dreams that lived and died with them... all lost to time.
At times when I have visited a cemetery to pay respects to a deceased loved one, I can't help but gaze at the other grave markers and and wonder about all the thoughts and dreams that person represented, and which are now anonymous, forgotten and completely lost to the vortex of time.
Life is so short, so bittersweet in it's brief moments of joy with those special days filled with meaning that we want to forever remember, and yet cannot hold onto permanently.
I'm reminded of a scene from the movie Bladerunner, in which an artificial humanoid is about to expire, and confronts his "maker" who asks him what he wants: "More time" the android replies. And I like to make the comparison to how we may feel towards our own Creator, whom we would certainly also beg for "more time"... It just doesn't seem fair!
Here's a quote from the final scene in "Blade Runner" that I thought was quite moving, even though spoken by an artificial humanoid about to expire:
"I've seen things you couldn't imagine... (and yet) All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain..."
Every day is a gift, and each moment of every day may possess one of those golden moments that we may treasure up inside for the rest of our lives. Let us all be acutely aware and embrace those moments when they occur, more than life itself...
Our brief moment in the sun is like a spark engulfed in an eternal fire...
So many people have lived and died before us, and yet each one of them had loves, hopes, troubles, families, children and dreams that lived and died with them... all lost to time.
At times when I have visited a cemetery to pay respects to a deceased loved one, I can't help but gaze at the other grave markers and and wonder about all the thoughts and dreams that person represented, and which are now anonymous, forgotten and completely lost to the vortex of time.
Life is so short, so bittersweet in it's brief moments of joy with those special days filled with meaning that we want to forever remember, and yet cannot hold onto permanently.
I'm reminded of a scene from the movie Bladerunner, in which an artificial humanoid is about to expire, and confronts his "maker" who asks him what he wants: "More time" the android replies. And I like to make the comparison to how we may feel towards our own Creator, whom we would certainly also beg for "more time"... It just doesn't seem fair!
Here's a quote from the final scene in "Blade Runner" that I thought was quite moving, even though spoken by an artificial humanoid about to expire:
"I've seen things you couldn't imagine... (and yet) All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain..."
Every day is a gift, and each moment of every day may possess one of those golden moments that we may treasure up inside for the rest of our lives. Let us all be acutely aware and embrace those moments when they occur, more than life itself...
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Pleasure and Pain
Suffering and Pleasure
Is the meaning of life suffering or pleasure? Which is it? For those with no belief in God, there is no issue I suppose – obviously life is meant to be enjoyed to the maximum, so long as nobody gets hurt… If you believe in God, or are at least troubled in your Soul as to the question of whether or not there is a God and whether He is imminent (he cares) or transcendant (doesn’t care), then of course, you may ask yourself if life’s purpose is suffering.
What do I mean by this? It refers to the notion of noble suffering like the kind of perfect suffering that Christ displayed in giving up His entire being to Crucifixion so that others who follow his example may live eternally. The whole notion of the Pleasure/Pain principle is a fascinating one for me, especially if one considers that in some ways that pleasure, when taken to the extreme takes on some aspects of pain, and conversely that pain, in the extreme has been felt almost as an ecstatic kind of “pleasure” or purging of oneself – again, this can be in a positve religious mystical experience, or in a perverted and masochistic sense.
Ask yourself today, as Aristotle did long ago, what you feel constitutes the “Good” and what is “Evil” in a very honest way, and you may be surprised. Is “good” that which simply gives pleasure, and “evil” those things you just don’t like or enjoy? Or is it more complex? If the “good” is that which makes the world a better place, and evil that which destroys this “good”, then it may result in your being called upon to do acts of charity that indeed do not feel pleasurable at all, while avoiding those things you would truly find physically or materially pleasurable…
So it seems there may be a kind of complex “moral matrix” at work so to speak, a system in which one may find themselves operating in any one of four modes at any given time, even unawares:
You may choose to act in a situation that is both pleasurable (feels nice) while also achieving a selfless act of charity to help another (altruistic good). On the other hand, you may do something that feels painful (giving large sums of money to the needy) while achieving something good (making the world a better place than you found it). It is helpful to examine all of your more important activities of each day in this exact manner. The “moral matrix” can be a simple yet helpful “ethical calculator” that you can input to and receive quick intuitive responses directly from your conscience. Try it today!
Is the meaning of life suffering or pleasure? Which is it? For those with no belief in God, there is no issue I suppose – obviously life is meant to be enjoyed to the maximum, so long as nobody gets hurt… If you believe in God, or are at least troubled in your Soul as to the question of whether or not there is a God and whether He is imminent (he cares) or transcendant (doesn’t care), then of course, you may ask yourself if life’s purpose is suffering.
What do I mean by this? It refers to the notion of noble suffering like the kind of perfect suffering that Christ displayed in giving up His entire being to Crucifixion so that others who follow his example may live eternally. The whole notion of the Pleasure/Pain principle is a fascinating one for me, especially if one considers that in some ways that pleasure, when taken to the extreme takes on some aspects of pain, and conversely that pain, in the extreme has been felt almost as an ecstatic kind of “pleasure” or purging of oneself – again, this can be in a positve religious mystical experience, or in a perverted and masochistic sense.
Ask yourself today, as Aristotle did long ago, what you feel constitutes the “Good” and what is “Evil” in a very honest way, and you may be surprised. Is “good” that which simply gives pleasure, and “evil” those things you just don’t like or enjoy? Or is it more complex? If the “good” is that which makes the world a better place, and evil that which destroys this “good”, then it may result in your being called upon to do acts of charity that indeed do not feel pleasurable at all, while avoiding those things you would truly find physically or materially pleasurable…
So it seems there may be a kind of complex “moral matrix” at work so to speak, a system in which one may find themselves operating in any one of four modes at any given time, even unawares:
You may choose to act in a situation that is both pleasurable (feels nice) while also achieving a selfless act of charity to help another (altruistic good). On the other hand, you may do something that feels painful (giving large sums of money to the needy) while achieving something good (making the world a better place than you found it). It is helpful to examine all of your more important activities of each day in this exact manner. The “moral matrix” can be a simple yet helpful “ethical calculator” that you can input to and receive quick intuitive responses directly from your conscience. Try it today!
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