Lacewing wrote: I agree with this... but I am put off when your communication and claims so often seem "intoxicated", in regard to "what is" and "what is needed" and who is "at fault"... along with the judgments you have often made against people here. Not only does that seem too obsessive to maintain clarity, but it shows a lack of respect/understanding for a much larger scope/reality/functioning, beyond your own limited understanding.
I have had the direct experience of the negative expression of blind denial on this board. Is it wrong to point it out? There cannot be any communication with those either trapped in emotional blind denial or blind belief. It benefits me because I can try to understand it.This is not condemnation but I admit that I don’t “feel” the attraction of either blind denial or blind belief. Yet the attraction in the world is obvious because people express it so will. But if this is a part of the human condition, why not try to understand the attraction of such intense negativity on a philosophy site?
There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect those who apparently cannot protect themselves, but the majority of your focus seems glued to claiming what's wrong and who is to blame, while placing yourself on the "right path". If you want to help children... respect them for the capability they already possess, instead of yelling at all of us. They're smarter and more spiritual than many adults at navigating their chaotic environments. In fact, maybe you should be helping the ADULTS! They're the ones who are really messed up.
What is wrong is the many influences that produce metaphysical repression. Whenever kids are perverted by either blind belief or blind denial they lose their connection with the higher which both real philosophy and the essence of religion seek to awaken. I’m not yelling at anyone. I’m only emphasizing a problem which leads to metaphysical repression as described by Jacob Needleman in his conversation with Richard Whittaker.
JN: Eros is depicted in Plato's text, The Symposium, as half man, half god, a kind of intermediate force between the gods and mortals. It is a very interesting idea. Eros is what gives birth to philosophy. Modern philosophy often translates the word "wonder" merely as "curiosity," the desire to figure things out, or to intellectually solve problems rather than confronting the depth of these questions, pondering, reflecting, being humbled by them. In this way, philosophy becomes an exercise in meaningless ingenuity.
I did learn to play that game, and then to avoid it.
My students at SF State were very hungry for what most of us, down deeply, really want from philosophy. When we honor those unanswerable questions and open them and deepen them, students are very happy about it, very interested in a deep quiet way.
JN: Some years ago I had a chance to teach a course in philosophy in high school. I got ten or twelve very gifted kids at this wonderful school, San Francisco University High School. In that first class I said, "Now just imagine, as if this was a fairy tale, imagine you are in front of the wisest person in the world, not me, but the wisest person there is and you can only ask one question. What would you ask?" At first they giggled and then they saw that I was very serious. So then they started writing. What came back was astonishing to me. I couldn't understand it at first. About half of the things that came back had little handwriting at the bottom or the sides of the paper in the margin. Questions like, Why do we live? Why do we die? What is the brain for? Questions of the heart. But they were written in the margins as though they were saying, do we really have permission to express these questions? We're not going to be laughed at? It was as though this was something that had been repressed.
RW: Fascinating.
JN: It's what I call metaphysical repression. It's in our culture and It's much worse than sexual repression. It represses eros and I think that maybe that's where art can be of help sometimes. Some art.
Some people are concerned with this question of metaphysical repression and the harm it is doing to the young. I support them regardless if it angers blind deniers.
I seem to notice when people are more focused on championing an agenda than on actually connecting with those they're talking with. I don't trust people who do that... because agendas that cannot connect are for egos. And that's a clear sign that you're "in it" for something else than what you claim, and you may not even realize it yourself because of the heavy intoxication with ideas and identity.
Becoming aware of a problem and desiring to be part of the solution isn’t an agenda. Would you call being on the side of conscious intellectual and emotional freedom an agenda? If so, then I am on the side of an agenda. IMO it is a far better agenda than the agenda that produces metaphysical repression either through emotional blind belief or blind denial