Comments on: The Moral Order http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/ An Eclectic Journal of the Arts Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:42:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Cuchulain http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/comment-page-1/#comment-537 Cuchulain Mon, 03 Aug 2009 04:48:11 +0000 http://www.spinozablue.com/?p=2768#comment-537 Strange, coming from someone like Hegel, who thought there was a Telos, a meaning and goal for history. That he should have missed the beauty in the stars, the strange paradox of their distance and possible death while we see their light, along with their incredible distance from each other. Or, maybe it does make sense. I think Pascal was the greater, deeper thinker. Stars made him feel a lot more than bah, humbug!! Hegel had plenty of time to learn from the likes of Pascal. He missed it all by light years.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('537','Cuchulain'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('537','Cuchulain','Strange, coming from someone like Hegel, who thought there was a Telos, a meaning and goal for history. That he should have missed the beauty in the stars, the strange paradox of their distance and possible death while we see their light, along with their incredible distance from each other. Or, maybe it does make sense. I think Pascal was the greater, deeper thinker. Stars made him feel a lot more than bah, humbug!! Hegel had plenty of time to learn from the likes of Pascal. He missed it all by light years.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> Strange, coming from someone like Hegel, who thought there was a Telos, a meaning and goal for history. That he should have missed the beauty in the stars, the strange paradox of their distance and possible death while we see their light, along with their incredible distance from each other. Or, maybe it does make sense. I think Pascal was the greater, deeper thinker. Stars made him feel a lot more than bah, humbug!! Hegel had plenty of time to learn from the likes of Pascal. He missed it all by light years.
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]]> By: nnyhav http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/comment-page-1/#comment-536 nnyhav Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:10:03 +0000 http://www.spinozablue.com/?p=2768#comment-536 A counterpoint: Moral Chaos: http://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/2009/07/when-reading-roger-scruton-one-can-always-be-sure-that-the-ideas-and-sentiments-expressed-are-being-offered-with-utter-since.html<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('536','nnyhav'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('536','nnyhav','A counterpoint: Moral Chaos:\r\nhttp:\/\/noggs.typepad.com\/the_reading_experience\/2009\/07\/when-reading-roger-scruton-one-can-always-be-sure-that-the-ideas-and-sentiments-expressed-are-being-offered-with-utter-since.html'); return false;">Quote</a></div> A counterpoint: Moral Chaos:
http://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/2009/07/when-reading-roger-scruton-one-can-always-be-sure-that-the-ideas-and-sentiments-expressed-are-being-offered-with-utter-since.html
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]]> By: nnyhav http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/comment-page-1/#comment-535 nnyhav Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:47:27 +0000 http://www.spinozablue.com/?p=2768#comment-535 Stumbled on this, on poetic vs philosophic perspectives, and a mote in the eye of the beamholder:

Heine recalling his meeting with Hegel in Berlin. Heine, expressing his appreciation of the night-sky, was met with this response from Hegel:

‘The stars, harrumph, the stars are only a gleaming leprosy on the sky.’ – quoted in Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History, p. 119.

http://ambientehotel.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/see-you-next-week/#comments

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]]> By: Cuchulain http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/comment-page-1/#comment-534 Cuchulain Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:16:38 +0000 http://www.spinozablue.com/?p=2768#comment-534 Thanks, John, for the story. It is a beautiful picture. I hope some day to see the Northern Lights meself. Would be spectacular. The Great Painter in the sky has a marvelous way with colors, light, shadows, motion. Goethe said colors were the deeds of light. But I think Van Gogh was the painter at the beginning of time, before time, all time. He invented the deeds of light and the Northern Lights from his perch in Saint Rémy de Provence.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('534','Cuchulain'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('534','Cuchulain','Thanks, John, for the story. It is a beautiful picture. I hope some day to see the Northern Lights meself. Would be spectacular. The Great Painter in the sky has a marvelous way with colors, light, shadows, motion. Goethe said colors were the deeds of light. But I think Van Gogh was the painter at the beginning of time, before time, all time. He invented the deeds of light and the Northern Lights from his perch in Saint Rémy de Provence.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> Thanks, John, for the story. It is a beautiful picture. I hope some day to see the Northern Lights meself. Would be spectacular. The Great Painter in the sky has a marvelous way with colors, light, shadows, motion. Goethe said colors were the deeds of light. But I think Van Gogh was the painter at the beginning of time, before time, all time. He invented the deeds of light and the Northern Lights from his perch in Saint Rémy de Provence.
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]]> By: Cuchulain http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/comment-page-1/#comment-533 Cuchulain Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:08:20 +0000 http://www.spinozablue.com/?p=2768#comment-533 Good break down of things, Dave. There is a paradox in freeing the self. It takes a focus on the self, oftentimes to the exclusion of others and society at large. Ridding the self, becoming selfless, in the mystical sense, pretty much requires a sort of exclusionary process of the world around us. Exceptions, of course. But there aren't too many mystics who dove headlong into society, embraced crowds, embraced the world, etc. The ethical and the moral means bringing back lessons. So that mystical revelation without connection with the world of humans and nature . . . . seems ultimately rather devoid of that ethical and moral component. "Personal salvation" via Christianity or other religions of that kind have the same conundrum. I've spoken with believers who say that nothing is as important to them as their relationship with their savior. Not family, not kids, not friends. Nothing. As one of those old secular humanists, I can't understand that, really. I try to walk in their moccasins, but I slip and fall a lot.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('533','Cuchulain'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('533','Cuchulain','Good break down of things, Dave. There is a paradox in freeing the self. It takes a focus on the self, oftentimes to the exclusion of others and society at large. Ridding the self, becoming selfless, in the mystical sense, pretty much requires a sort of exclusionary process of the world around us. Exceptions, of course. But there aren\'t too many mystics who dove headlong into society, embraced crowds, embraced the world, etc. The ethical and the moral means bringing back lessons. So that mystical revelation without connection with the world of humans and nature . . . . seems ultimately rather devoid of that ethical and moral component. \"Personal salvation\" via Christianity or other religions of that kind have the same conundrum. I\'ve spoken with believers who say that nothing is as important to them as their relationship with their savior. Not family, not kids, not friends. Nothing. As one of those old secular humanists, I can\'t understand that, really. I try to walk in their moccasins, but I slip and fall a lot.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> Good break down of things, Dave. There is a paradox in freeing the self. It takes a focus on the self, oftentimes to the exclusion of others and society at large. Ridding the self, becoming selfless, in the mystical sense, pretty much requires a sort of exclusionary process of the world around us. Exceptions, of course. But there aren’t too many mystics who dove headlong into society, embraced crowds, embraced the world, etc. The ethical and the moral means bringing back lessons. So that mystical revelation without connection with the world of humans and nature .… seems ultimately rather devoid of that ethical and moral component. “Personal salvation” via Christianity or other religions of that kind have the same conundrum. I’ve spoken with believers who say that nothing is as important to them as their relationship with their savior. Not family, not kids, not friends. Nothing. As one of those old secular humanists, I can’t understand that, really. I try to walk in their moccasins, but I slip and fall a lot.
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]]> By: John A. Abel http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/comment-page-1/#comment-532 John A. Abel Sun, 02 Aug 2009 06:00:44 +0000 http://www.spinozablue.com/?p=2768#comment-532 What a great picture.It looks like a grand cosmic fireworks show.It brings to mind the only time I saw the Northern Lights.It was the summer of 1975 and we were driving back from a friends cottage in the Finger Lakes to surburban Rochester in top down Buick Electra convertible when we spotted the lights.Had to be around 2 a.m. and it was beautiful cruising a country road seeing this cosmic show.Don't know why the Northern Lights showed up that far south that night but it has stayed in my mind.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('532','John A. Abel'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('532','John A. Abel','What a great picture.It looks like a grand cosmic fireworks show.It brings to mind the only time I saw the Northern Lights.It was the summer of 1975 and we were driving back from a friends cottage in the Finger Lakes to surburban Rochester in top down Buick Electra convertible when we spotted the lights.Had to be around 2 a.m. and it was beautiful cruising a country road seeing this cosmic show.Don\'t know why the Northern Lights showed up that far south that night but it has stayed in my mind.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> What a great picture.It looks like a grand cosmic fireworks show.It brings to mind the only time I saw the Northern Lights.It was the summer of 1975 and we were driving back from a friends cottage in the Finger Lakes to surburban Rochester in top down Buick Electra convertible when we spotted the lights.Had to be around 2 a.m. and it was beautiful cruising a country road seeing this cosmic show.Don’t know why the Northern Lights showed up that far south that night but it has stayed in my mind.
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]]> By: nnyhav http://www.spinozablue.com/2009/07/2768/comment-page-1/#comment-531 nnyhav Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:54:03 +0000 http://www.spinozablue.com/?p=2768#comment-531 Back in the days of Meander, I contemplated the Four Miracles: existence (why, there's something rather than nothing!), life (matter of organization, ongoing), consciousness (self-awareness, agency), and society (other-awareness, communication, culture, etc), the last two more loosely defined (yet none of them tightly: e.g. existence being both matter and energy, even dark, and quantum mechanical to boot). Each emerges from its predecessor (again, in the case of existence, nothing) and is contingent upon developmental histories as well. I don't believe that morality can be separated from the fourth level. The problem I have with mysticism is similar to that I have with fundamentalism of whatever stripe, in privileging the third level, consciousness, displaced into The One. (Part of it is understandable as privileged access to one's self, but that is incomplete and unreliable.) My own view is agnostic, pragmatic: there's a lot we can't know in principle, but so much more that we can't know in practice, and it's the latter we can do something about. Even if it means going against the flow.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('531','nnyhav'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('531','nnyhav','Back in the days of Meander, I contemplated the Four Miracles: existence (why, there\'s something rather than nothing!), life (matter of organization, ongoing), consciousness (self-awareness, agency), and society (other-awareness, communication, culture, etc), the last two more loosely defined (yet none of them tightly: e.g. existence being both matter and energy, even dark, and quantum mechanical to boot). Each emerges from its predecessor (again, in the case of existence, nothing) and is contingent upon developmental histories as well. I don\'t believe that morality can be separated from the fourth level. The problem I have with mysticism is similar to that I have with fundamentalism of whatever stripe, in privileging the third level, consciousness, displaced into The One. (Part of it is understandable as privileged access to one\'s self, but that is incomplete and unreliable.) My own view is agnostic, pragmatic: there\'s a lot we can\'t know in principle, but so much more that we can\'t know in practice, and it\'s the latter we can do something about. Even if it means going against the flow.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> Back in the days of Meander, I contemplated the Four Miracles: existence (why, there’s something rather than nothing!), life (matter of organization, ongoing), consciousness (self-awareness, agency), and society (other-awareness, communication, culture, etc), the last two more loosely defined (yet none of them tightly: e.g. existence being both matter and energy, even dark, and quantum mechanical to boot). Each emerges from its predecessor (again, in the case of existence, nothing) and is contingent upon developmental histories as well. I don’t believe that morality can be separated from the fourth level. The problem I have with mysticism is similar to that I have with fundamentalism of whatever stripe, in privileging the third level, consciousness, displaced into The One. (Part of it is understandable as privileged access to one’s self, but that is incomplete and unreliable.) My own view is agnostic, pragmatic: there’s a lot we can’t know in principle, but so much more that we can’t know in practice, and it’s the latter we can do something about. Even if it means going against the flow.
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