If you can't find a trustworthy companion, then trust yourself.
If you know your friends, then you know what to trust.
Sometimes it is better to endure the company of fools,
then to walk alone.
If the world is full of liars and cheats, then one has to walk alone.
It is better to walk alone, than to walk with anger and fear.
There are some people in this world -- of whom one must steer clear.
The trees are green, then yellow, then they fall to the ground.
The ground is green, then yellow, then painted with white.
It is better to find trustworthy companions than to walk alone,
But it is better to walk alone than to sit on a contentious throne.
When they start fighting, and ask you to choose sides?
How can one reconcile deluded followers?
When people fight over petty issues?
How does one choose between such people?
I walk with the elephants!
Let those who seek peace, find their peace!
Chris
One version of the story:
http://www.wisdom-books.com/FocusDetail.asp?FocusRef=18
"In this period a petty quarrel arose between two monks staying at Kosambi which grew out of all proportion and which threatened the unity of the Buddha’s sangha. It all began when a monk who was a specialist in the Buddha’s doctrinal discourses left some unused washing water in a bowl in the toilet. This was found by another monk who was a specialist in memorising and interpreting the rules, the Vinaya, made by the Buddha for the behaviour of the sangha. Upon seeing the bowl of unused water he asked the former monk whether or not he knew that he that he had infringed upon the rules of the order. When the discourse specialist said that he had not known about that particular rule, the interpreter of rules said that it was therefore not an infringement. The discourse specialist then went away thinking that the matter was settled and that he had not committed an infringement."
Not long after however the Vinaya specialist began telling other bhikkhus that the discourse specialist had indeed committed an infringement. The discourse specialist was therefore asked to acknowledge his infringement but now he refused to do so as he felt that the Vinaya specialist had behaved with deceit by telling the bhikkhus about the incident after it had apparently been settled. This led to the Vinaya specialist convoking an assembly, the result of which was the suspension of the discourse specialist from the order. The discourse specialist refused to accept this. As both bhikkhus were learned and respected teachers they each had a number of their own followers and students. Things therefore became heated as both parties began to squabble and tension and dissension grew.
In time the Buddha was informed of the situation and he said that if this was not resolved there would be a schism in the sangha. He therefore went to see both parties in order to try to make them understand the negative consequences to the sangha of their behaviour. The quarrelling continued however and in fact became worse. When the Buddha was again requested to resolve the situation the followers of both sides requested the Buddha not to interfere. The Buddha requested each side three times to mend their differences but each time they refused to listen to him. He then got up and went away.
The following morning the Buddha got up and went into Kosambi for alms and then after eating his meal he put his place in order and picked up his bowl and outer robe. He realised that the quarrelling monks were obsessed with their argument and that it was impossible to make them see sense. He then uttered the following stanza :
"If you can find a trustworthy companion
With whom to walk, both virtuous and steadfast,
Then walk with him content and mindfully,
Overcoming any threat of danger.
If you can find no trustworthy companion
With whom to walk, both virtuous and steadfast,
Then, as a king who leaves a vanquished kingdom,
Walk like a tusker in the woods alone.
Better it is to walk alone:
There is no fellowship with fools.
Walk alone, harm none, and know no conflict;
Be like a tusker in the woods alone."
"The Buddha then departed and after wandering for some days and meeting and instructing various disciples on the way he came to the Parileyyaka forest and there he entered the thick jungle and stayed for a time in solitary retreat. The Buddha’s only company in the jungle thicket was a tusker elephant who had left the herd, seeking peace from the other elephants who hustled and bustled him."
"After staying at in the Parileyyaka forest as long as he chose, the Buddha wandered by stages to Shravasti where he went to live in the Jeta Grove. Meanwhile back in Kosambi the quarrelling found themselves rejected and without the support of the lay people due to the fact that they could no longer see the Buddha. Finally both the contending factions went to the Jeta Grove and sought to settle their dispute once and for all in the Buddha’s presence. Eventually the discourse specialist acknowledged having committed an infringement which then made it technically possible for the discipline specialist to reinstate him as a member of the community. The Buddha approved the act of settlement between the two sides and the procedure was laid down should it ever happen again in the future."
The version I heard first, linked this elephant to the elephant that Devadatta had tried to use to attack him.
Chris
They Go where they go
They can go where they want,
but I won't go where they go
Like a bad hair, I shave them,
Out to the street with the trash.
I fear no enemies;
just the hair I forgot to shave;
and the keys I forgot to pack.
I have no enemies at my back,
Because I face the mirror.
They can go where they want to go,
Their lies have left me cold.
They can tell all the lies they want to tell,
In the end they only lie to themselves.
If fear no enemies, but those I cannot see,
If I open my eyes, I can see fine.
I have no enemies, just friends of mine.
They have things to teach, though not what they think.
They can go where they want to go,
I have learned all I can from them.
If I want to learn how to push a rock up a wall,
I would keep following them, watching my rock rise and fall.
I fear no enemies. I miss no former friends.
If they want my company I'm still around.
But I won't go where they want me to go.
I want to enjoy life, not live in fear.
I love them still, they taught so much!
How to chant, to read sages and their words,
and think for myself.
That is why I can go where I go now.
When I think with a tear, I fear their fate.
That is why I won't go where they want me to go.
Life is for living, both sharing and giving,
And I don't have time for nonsense.
I go where my guide takes me.
I can walk paths emblazoned with hope.
The sun and the moon are on my side,
And thank heaven I have no need to hide.
Chris, honoring Byrd's persecution
To me the central image of the Lotus Sutra is the Treasure Tower (or Stupa) which appears as the backdrop for the Ceremony in the Air.
The Treasure tower
It's not a literal thing for me, but it could be.
Rising in the air, dominating our sight;
Illuminating the night.
Adorned with Seven Jewels.
The treasure tower is you and I
Standing side by side in the morning sky
Promising to awaken
Awakening with the Sun
While those seated in the place of preaching,
may come and go,
All of us march around, palms together,
hearing the sound,
Of drums, and magical beings singing;
In our hearts.
The treasure tower, may be you and I
Sleeping beneath the evening sky,
While some happy essence floats again together,
listening to those words we so want to hear:
"Well done Child of the Buddha!"
It should be amazing that Nichiren Buddhism jumped the Pacific to the United States, or to anywhere at all. Buddhism has always been good as an "insurgency" as an approach to religion, as a critique of established dogmas and local beliefs, but it has always moved in with those beliefs ultimately. Tibet has Bon, India hinduism, Burma has its local flavor. Thailand also.
Where Buddhism has been unable to adapt to being part of a free market of religion it has died. It was destroyed in Afghanistan and Punjab -- probably before Moslems arrived and gave it the coup de Grace. China nearly destroyed it, but it adapted and achieved minority status as a strong influence on ethics and world view. What was imported to Japan was Chinese. It was Confucian/Buddhist/Taoist ideas and then given a Shinto spin.
When Nichiren critiqued the Buddhism of his day he was using a Confucian logic and arguing within that logic even as he pushed it back towards a more "Buddhistic" approach. After he died his religion became even more Japanese. During World War II and its lead up the Nichiren Shugi movement tried to make Nichirenism a real National Religion at the expense of making it a violent source of nationalism in the Country. You still see this nationalist strain in Nichiren groups in Japan. Out of the hundreds of Nichiren groups we've only seen the ones who were either fundamentalist enough to reject this nationalism, or eclectic enough to mix it thoroughly with the new-age materials that Buddhism has always been associated with. Nichiren Shoshu Sokagakkai's great rival was so Nationalistic that it was the equivalent of American Neo-Millennialists.
Are end times "destiny" or simply a result of people neglecting the basics of Buddhism? What are the basics of Buddhism? What does the Lotus Sutra really mean?
Buddhism as Millenialism never really worked. Proof of that is that the great statues and source of the Lotus Sutra and Nirvana Sutra are probably both located in Afghanistan -- where being a Buddhist is a prescription for decapitation. If the world is ending, better to go to some supernatural savior than simply accept a nihilistic resignation. The Lotus Sutra has this kind of Millenialist aspect. Much of it is preached to Maitreya, the Buddha to come, but what is to happen in the interim? Somehow the tale of Bodhisattva Never despise doesn't seem to penetrate people -- it is always "the end" and "the beginning" -- ends are beginnings. Nichiren's criticisms of Jodo were spot on -- but Jodo spread Nichirenism didn't.
If Nam myoho Renge Kyo is the cure for all ills, why are so many still ill after embracing it? That is an existential question that has to be answered if Buddhism is to spread in the US.
Are we believers in the Lotus Sutra or in Nichiren the Great Sage? Or do we admire Nichiren because he was a sage with prophetic abilities and a prescription for waking up and transforming our lives?
This post has many questions and kind of is in response to a question Nancy Asked in an email. I'm not offering Answers though I think I'm onto some approaches.
Chris
T Boones Pickens is proposing an infrastructure investment program to build massive numbers of wind turbines and improve our deployment and exploitation of Natural Gas resources. He is right, add in encouraging solar panel use, geothermal energy exploitation, and other technologies and we can get our energy crisis under control.
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/
"America is addicted to foreign oil."
"It's an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our
national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties
our hands as a nation and a people."
"The addiction has worsened for decades and now it's reached a point of
crisis."
"In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil.
Today it's nearly 70% and growing."
Jimmy Carter sought to do some of the things that T. Boone Pickens is proposing. Those ideas were mostly at the "Initial Concept" stage at the time. It is time that some of them move beyond "Research and Development" into "General Deployment." We need to acquire the technology, infrastructure, and tools necessary to compete in the world and to come back from what is surely to be difficult times. All of the ideas T. Boone Pickens talks about were in R&D during the Carter Administration. Gas and Wind are technologically mature. The engineers know what to do. It is time to put them to work.
T. Boone explains
"As imports grow and world prices rise, the amount of money we send to
foreign nations every year is soaring. At current oil prices, we will
send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone — that's
four times the annual cost of the Iraq war."
"Projected over the next 10 years the cost will be $10 trillion — it
will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind."
10 trillion is 1/3 of our current total debt. These projections may not materialize. If our economy collapses they won't.
"America uses a lot of oil. Every day 85 million barrels of oil are
produced around the world. And 21 million of those are used here in
the United States."
"That's 25% of the world's oil demand. Used by just 4% of the world's
population."
Can't we just produce more oil?
"World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an
unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the
last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to
find and there just isn't enough of it to keep up with demand."
"The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone."
"What's the good news?"
"The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power."
"A cheap new replacement for foreign oil."
"Natural gas and bio-fuels are the only domestic energy sources used
for transportation."
Exploiting natural gas would require new piplines and investment, but it can be done.
I finally see what the "October surprise" is for the Republicans. It's
oil.
1. This oil price run-up is intentional. Bush and company could have
prevented it, the housing dust up, and the coming bank collapses
simply by having his Brownies actually enforce the law -- and helping
the States do so as well....
Mideast role:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2008/MediaMyth/Crude_Coverage/CrudeCompany.asp
2. Getting more drilling leases in previously pristine places will not
lead to one more drop of oil for 10-15 years. That is why every
proposal the President has made has been of this nature. He doesn't
want lower prices -- his family is making money here and he calculates
the fear involved in gas prices will win Republican seats in people
panicked into voting for him and more drilling. And if not that same
fear will stampede Democrats into giving him what he wants -- more
leases he and his cronies can sit on. [They are already sitting on
most of the ones they hold presently].
3. Regulation of oil speculation would affect prices 20-50%, but would
possibly push over into bankruptsy banks and investment houses that
presently are already struggling because of bad bets in the Housing
Market.
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/05/oil_speculation.html
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/052008Masters.pdf
I heard him say this:
"What we are experiencing is a demand shock coming from a new category of participant in the commodities futures markets: Institutional Investors. Specifically, these are Corporate and Government Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, University Endowments and other Institutional Investors. Collectively, these investors now account on average for a larger share of outstanding commodities futures contracts than any other market participant...."
"In the popular press the explanation given most often for rising oil prices is the increased demand for oil from China. According to the DOE, annual Chinese demand for petroleum has increased over the last five years from 1.88 billion barrels to 2.8 billion barrels, an increase of 920 million barrels.8 Over the same five-year period, Index Speculators demand for petroleum futures has increased by 848 million barrels. The increase in demand from Index Speculators is almost equal to the increase in demand from China!"
4. The trifecta of oil prices, falling dollar, and collapsing housing
market is pushing more and more companies, banks, and ordinary people
into bankruptsy. This is called "cascading effects" and represents a
first order disaster unless somehow it can be stopped. At the heart of
this is indebtidness. Something like 22 trillion, much of which may
get transmitted to the Federal Government before it collapses too.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/SenatePrint10965MarketSpecReportFINAL.pdf
The fear of this may allow Republicans to draw a rabbit out of a hat.
It's win win for the oil-crats, they'll walk away with all those
futures bets no matter what happens. Watch folks move to Germany,
Britain, London, China, Hong Kong, and Dubai; while they move their
money to unmarked accounts in the Cayman Islands.
Chris
I believe that I can have inner peace while working towards a better world. All that appears to be "evil", "degraded", "miserable", "unfair" is also unworkable, unsustainable, and ultimately is as miserable for the persons standing on top of the King Devil's dance floor as it is for the people holding the floor up.
Arguing for the one (material peace, justice, liberty and equality) requires arguing for the other (self-reliance, confidence, wisdom, patience, emancipation, compassion). Compassion and altruism are just self interest taking a long view. People are blinded by troubles and don't see this is true.
The world is burning because some people insist on running around with flame throwers.
What perspective is longer than eternity? No matter what I do, at some point in the distant future the Sun is going to blow up and Earth is going to die. Too long a perspective is silly isn't it?
How do I get where I want to go except by seeking, acquiring, practicing and perfecting "Superior Practices." Is Superior Practices an individual or an archetype?
To push the limits of my previous understandings to find my true limits and transcend them, isn't that "boundless practices?"
To improve myself, clean out my arrogance, stupidity, ignorance, and delusions -- do we call that "Pure Practices" (or Purifying practices?) How do we acquire all these merits?
We learn from what went before "Firmly Established Practices." We learn from what works, and from what doesn't works.
Long run thinking is "Let us solve this problem together." Short run thinking is "lets use this problem to beat our enemies."
Chris
In my previous post I tried to explain some thoughts about human and natural rights. To get to the point, where I'm going with this is the thesis that the subject of human and natural rights is something creative. It is creative and that creativity derives from the 3000 worlds in a moment of existence. The essence of Buddhahood is creativity -- although not through the path Ikeda explained it -- although close.
Like with all things involving ichinen sanzen, if one sees the world from a "hunger" perspective then one sees a cynical place where the best that government might do -- such as redistribute some wealth to level the playing field for everyone -- will just be reversed in a few years by the skills of those who know how to convert money from one person to another. That is a hellish way to see things. It also is a creative thought. A person who sees life as a poker game plays life like he's playing poker. Understanding Ichinen sanzen causes one to see that life is a poker game -- for poker players. To "raise up" people, one has to recognize this -- and then to teach the Gambler's song as an entry into the path to Buddhahood. But first we have to transform our own perspective.
How we see things doesn't influence things directly. It influences thoughts, words and deeds, and so it influences things indirectly. The bricks and mortar don't change -- but when a shift in perspect occurs, the same bricks that once were reserved for Kings and their pyramids become the stuff of comfortable houses for everyone; or of schools; or of universities. Change the perspective towards the darkside and those same bricks and mortars are good for throwing at people or building prisons with. We decide how to think about them; how to use them, and what to build. "Emptiness" gives us creativity. They aren't equal, but one privileges the other. Once a prison is built it takes a lot of work to change it to a shopping mall. It can be done, but it may be harder.
Perspective is to some degree "not choice" but to some degree it is very much "choice." We can choose to be Bodhisattvas of the Earth -- or we can choose to be jerks. If our present life condition is hell, we cannot but see things like "rights" as a very negative, denied thing. But nothing expresses the longing for heaven like the experience of hell. Our thoughts privilege "freedom and liberty" as a function of the very experience of experiencing hellish states and oppression. These concepts can't be taken away or denied. The very act of denying liberty emphasizes its importance.
The very act of repressing people into poverty stresses the importance of equal opportunity. If all things were reset things might soon reverse back to inequality -- but since people have different skills and abilities -- and much of that is luck -- it would be different people at the end of the next round.
Nobody understands freedom better than someone intimate with repression. It's no accident that the most fiery champions of liberty in our Country all owned slaves. They knew what they were talking about. And in the dark recesses of their minds they knew they couldn't bottle those ideas up and restrict them to the slave owners. The logic of liberty is the logic that abstract ideas cannot be limited only to the abstractors. Once a general principle is established the logic of that principle is "if it is good for the goose -- why is it not good for the gander?"
Once a thought excapes into the landscape it cannot be recalled. I've been studying the history of the "peculiar institution" world-wide. In Charlestown South Carolina it was forbidden for free blacks (much less slaves) to even glimpse the Declaration of Independence. The good citizens of Charlestown kept a militia to defend themselves from uprisings -- and to ensure that defense they operated a strict repression on thoughts, words, and heaven-forbid; deeds. They carried fire arms out of fear of machetes. The fear was justified. You just can't keep an idea locked up. People will try to slip, even the "chains on their brains" that slavers would put there. Their "loyal servants", they knew, would slit their throats in an instant if they didn't keep them under lock and key, whip and chains. The only way to keep servants loyal is to grant them the freedom to choose to work for one or not, and to treat them like they are worth something.
Nowadays there are comfortable old-money black people, old money white people, and they get along with a sense of ease in Charlestown SC that seems deeper than it was when that relationship was enforced with whips and chains. People might not forgive, but they can move on and do business together. Doing business is a creative thing too. For every businessman who is convinced that the path to riches lies in fraud and trickery, there are many who make money simply by being good people who can be trusted and relied on to provide a service that others need. There is no need for slaves, never was. We don't need to fight over bricks and mortar when we can build a better world.
Chris
I listened to the Gun right debate and it set me to meditating.
What is the heart of any right? Some People talk about basic rights in a religious way in my country. They assert that there are natural rights that they should have, everyone should have, and that those "natural rights" are sacrosanct. 10 Commandments? No, for some people it is the 10 rights in the Bill of Rights. Habeas corpus? Fie that anyone should take it away. We take rights for granted. In many countries, rights we consider basic are denied. This isn't a bad thing. The concepts of democracy, natural and human rights are the bedrocks of this country. This is a good thing. But like all good things it can be bent into dogmatic nonsense.
It's a darn good thing that we in the US take rights seriously. In fact I wish most United States citizens (and world citizens) would take principles like human rights seriously.
But what the heck is a "right" anyway. Why would some people insist on liberty as their right -- and have no compunctions about denying it to others?
What I've noticed is that all our rights start out as issues between people. We'd have no defined right to Habeas Corpus if there hadn't been a battle between King John and his nobles -- that John lost.... There'd be no awareness of a right to free speech if it hadn't been written into the constitution -- and if Jefferson hadn't kicked Adam's behind in the polls in 1800.
My opinion is that rights flow from human needs and human issues. There are no rights, or at least awareness of them, without people first having -- and then settling -- issues between themselves. The argument that there is a separate realm of individual rights and group rights is a canard. There is only a separation between rights negotiated by and for individuals and those negotiated by and for groups.
Earlier I got into definitions and noted that liberty equals freedom within a "realm" that was either abstract or literal (property rights for instance equal freedom within borders). This observation about rights and "issues" implies (leads one to infer) that there is no freedom in the context of other human beings without borders being set or eased. There is no such thing as absolute freedom or absolute liberty as long as there is a multi-human context. We negotiate our freedom -- we do it all the time.
Natural rights, human rights, and "legal rights" are all expressions of our attempts to adjudicate these issues. But what is the basis for asserting any right
Wikipedia has an article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_right
"A natural right is the concept of a universal right inherent in the nature of living beings, one that is not contingent upon laws or beliefs."
The author of the article then offers all sorts of arguments
"The theory of natural law, a law whose content is set by nature and therefore has validity everywhere, derives from the theory of natural rights. During the Enlightenment, natural law opposed the divine right of kings, and became the basis of classical liberalism."
Both the divine "right of Kings" and "Natural law" were theories centered around definitions based on notions that were justified using religious texts, abstract reasoning, and ideas developed over time.
Kings once asserted a "divine right of kings." Their backing for that right? Brute force. They were resisted, in some cases immediately, and in other cases they weren't resisted -- and the absurdity of their assertion was made manifest by the results of them giving themselves the freedom to act arbitrarly, unjustly, and sometimes insanely. The attributes of privileging a "divine right of kings" just don't match any claims of benefits from such a right, or any claims of moral superiority or virtue associated with it.
On the other hand natural law has developed cases, "exemplars" and a body of experience that suggests that its arguments can stand the weight of human experience. Wikipedia goes on:
"The concept of a natural right can be contrasted with the concept of a legal right: A natural right is one that is said to exist even when it is not enforced by the government or society, while a legal right is one created by the government or society for the benefit of its members."
The distinction is semantic and definitional. These are two different, but related animals. Again, throughout history people haven't always been aware of "natural rights" until either those rights were assaulted with negative results, or those rights were privileged with postive results. Natural rights express themselves as unmet needs, but needs are often unmet even when one shouts to the Universe "there ought to be a law!" I have an unmet need to live forever. I don't think any deity is required to privilege that need no matter how often scholars and religious teachers have insisted that a deity has in fact done so.
So it is with the right to liberty. One mans freedom has often meant another mans slavery. That was the case in the United States for most of the first half of its existence. The south even tried to get constitutional amendments passed to protect the liberties of the slave owning classes, and courts, as in the Dred Scott case, upheld laws that were clearly unjust on the grounds that such rights were as natural as the right to breath fresh air. Yet, slaves, seeing that others had such right, felt denied. They looked over their shoulders in despair. The words sounded hollow, their own need for freedom was awakened by this very denial. This assertion that such rights were good for some but not for all. This was an issue that had to be settled. The assertion of an abstract principle, and then its denial, is a cruel offer. Like starving people watching a rich man eat pork.
It took the bloodshed of the Civil war to redefine such liberties, and another year of struggle to privilege the codes. Granting a procedural right doesn't guarantee an effective right. We all have a natural right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. We can demand to privilege our rights to modern health care, equal justice, education, and other important things -- but they remain issues until there is enough consensus for them to be privileged. And then we can talk about them being "Inalienable" -- because somebody fought for them successfully. Sometimes it takes a victory over a "King John" type to make a "natural need" a reality..
"The question of which rights are natural and which are legal is an important one in philosophy and politics. Critics of the concept of natural rights argue that all human rights are legal rights, while proponents of the concept of natural rights say that documents like the American Declaration of Independence, and social contracts like the Constitution of the United States, demonstrate the usefulness of recognizing natural rights."
The author of the wiki article goes on:
"The idea of human rights descended from that of natural rights; some recognize no difference between the two and regard both as labels for the same thing, while others choose to keep the terms separate to eliminate association with some features traditionally associated with natural rights."
The distinction between human rights and "natural rights" is mostly historical. Natural rights represent formulations that have been asserted -- and mostly accepted -- fairly widely. Where-as some human rights represent ongoing and developing issues where there isn't complete agreement yet.
Some people "believe" in Natural rights. For them their existence comes from "God" (sometimes the God Logicos) or some other higher power:
"Natural rights, in particular, are the rights of the individual, considered beyond the authority of any government or international body to dismiss. The idea that animals have natural rights is one that has gained the interest of philosophers and legal scholars in the 20th century."
A need is a need. A "right" has to be privileged. If there is a cost associated with it, somebody has to pay it. Privileging animals with the same rights as humans is absurd. Sure a Tiger has a natural need to kill. Does that mean he should have the natural right to do so? The religious quality of the arguments advanced by the natural rights crowd -- only shows that they still have issues between a "natural need" and a right. Not all rights can or should be privileged. We may have a natural right to health care -- but how we privilige it is politics not "natural rights."
Most rights are meaningless unless there are also duties and limits / boundaries associated with them. My right to property is meaningless without a defined boundary between my property and my neighbors -- or defined rules governing my access to his store, the street in front of it, or sidewalks. The right to property is anti-freedom unless everybody is equally privileged to have it. The reason the notion of the "commons" developed is that ordinary folks were being oppressed by the fact that nobles owned the lands commoners lived on, the air they breathed, the water they drank, and the food they ate.
The right to liberty is meaningless unless the majority (at least) has that right as well. Sometimes that means negotiating easements or areas of sharing that limit the privileges of others. Negative freedoms are meaningless if people don't have the power to exercise them. And privileging tigers to eat people might make sense to some people. But is just insane to most.
Chris
Continuing from posts: 03045 , 003070 .
Milan gets closer to his point on the next page. He writes:
"The politician is dependent on the journalist. But on whom are the
journalists dependent? On those who pay them. And those who pay them
are the advertising agencies that buy space from newspapers and time
from radio and TV stations. At first glance it would seem that the
agencies would unhesitatingly approach all the high-circulation
newspapers capable of increasing the sale of their products. But that
is a naive view of the matter. Sales of products are less important
than we think. Just look at the communist countries: the millions of
pictures of Lenin displayed everywhere you go certainly do not
stimulate love for Lenin. The advertising agencies of the Communist
Party (the so-called agit-prop departments) have long forgotten the
practical goal of their activity (to make the communist system better
liked) and have become an end in themselves: they have created their
own language, their formulas, their aesthetics (the heads of these
agencies once had absolute power over art in their countries), their
idea of the right life-style which they cultivate, disseminate, and
force upon their unfortunate peoples."
"Are you objecting that advertising and propaganda cannot be compared,
because one serves commerce and the other ideology? You understand
nothing. Some one hundred years ago in Russia, persecuted Marxists
began to gather secretly in small circles in order to study Marx's
manifesto; they simplifed the contents of this simple ideology in
order to disseminate it to other circles, whose members, simplifying
further and further this simplification of the simple, kept passing it
on and on, so that when Marxism became known and powerful on the whole
planet all that was left of it was a collection of six or seven
slogans, so poorly linked that it can hardly be called an ideology.
And precisely because the remnants of Marx no longer form a logical
system of ideas, but only a series of suggestive images an slogans (a
smiling worker with a hammer, black, white and yellow men fraternally
holding hands, the dove of peace rising to the sky, and so on and so
on), we can rightfully talk of a gradual, general, planetary
transformation of ideology into imagology."
Chris notes: In Spanish there is no word "advertising" everything is
"propaganda." Having experienced the Spanish Republic, years of
neo-revolutions in Latin America, and Fascism, they know full well
that the tool is the same whether selling an American Flag (and
punishing someone for not wearing it) or selling beer.
"Imagology!! Who first thought up this remarkable neologism?...It
doesn't matter. What matters is that this word finally lets us put
under one roof something that goes by many names: advertising
agencies; political campaign managers; designers who devise the shape
of everything from cars to gym equipment; fashion stylists; barbers;
show-business stars dictating the norms of physical beauty that all
branches of imagology obey."
"Of course, imagologues existed long before they created the powerful
institutions we know today. Even Hitler had is personal imagologue,
who used to stand in front of him and patiently demonstrate the
gestures to be made during speeches so as to fascinate the crowds. But
if that imagologue, in an interview with the press, had amused the
Germans by describing Hitler as incapable of moving his hands, he
would not have survived his indiscretion by more than a few hours.
Nowadays, however, the imagologue not only does not try to hide his
activity, but often even speaks for his politican clients, explains to
the public what he taught them to do or not to do, how he told them to
behave, what formula they are likely to use, and what tie they are
likely to wear. We needn't be surprised by this self-confidence: in
the last few decades, imagology has gained a historic victory over
ideology."
"All ideologies have been defeated: in the end their dogmas were
unmasked as illusions and people stopped taking them seriously. For
example, communists used to believe that in the course of capitalist
development the proletariat would gradually grow poorer and poorer,
but when it finally became clear that all over Europe workers were
driving to work in their own cars, they felt like shouting that
reality was deceiving them. Reality was stronger than ideology. And
it is in that sense that imagology surpassed it: imagology is stronger
than reality, which has anyway long ceased to be what it was for my
grandmother, who lived in a Moravian village and still knew everything
through her own experience: how bread is baked, how a house is built,
how a pig is slaughtered and the meat smoked, what quilts are made of,
what the priest and the schoolteacher think of the world; she met the
whole village every day and knew how many murders were committed in
the country over the last ten years; she had, so to speak, personal
control over reality, and nobody could fool her by maintaining that
Moravian agriculture was thriving when people at home had nothing to eat."
Chris Notes: Moravia was a Communist country during this time. Yet his
grandmother could see through the propaganda. How about our "free"
successor societies? Milan contrasts:
"My Paris neighbour spends his time in an office, where he sits for
eight hours facing an office colleague, then he sits in his car and
drives home, turns on the TV and when the announcer informs him that
in the latest public opinion poll the majority of Frenchmen voted
their country the safest in Europe (I recently read such a report), he
is overjoyed and opens a bottle of champagne without ever learning
that three thefts and two murders were committed on his street that
very day."
Patriot comfortable people, and a "free press" controlled by "Imagogues."
"Public opinion polls are the critical instrument in imagology's
power, because they enable imagology to live in absolute harmony with
the people. The imagologue bombards people with questions: how is the
French economy prospering? Is racism good or bad? Who is the greatest
writer of all time? Is there racism in France? Is Hungary in Europe
or Polynesia? Which world politician is the sexiest? And since for
contemporary man reality is a continent visited less and less often
and besides, justifiably disliked, the findings of polls have become a
kind of higher reality, or to put it differently: they have become the
truth. Public opinion polls are a parliament in permanent session,
whose function it is to create truth, the most democratic truth that
has ever existed. Because it will never be at variance with the
parliament of truth, the power of imagologues will always live in
truth, and although I know that everything human is mortal, I cannot
imagine anything that could break this power."
"I want to add this comparison of ideology and imagology: Ideology was
like a set of enormous wheels at the back of the stage, turning and
setting in motion wars, revolutions, reforms. The wheels of imagology
turn without having any effect upon history. Ideologues fought with
one another and each of them was capable of filling an entire epoch
with its thinking. Imagology organizes peaceful alternation of its
systems in lively seasonal rythms. In Paul's words; ideology belonged
to history, while the reign of imagology begins where history ends."
"The word change, so dear to our Europe, has been given a new meaning:
it no longer means a new stage of coherent development (as it was
understood by Vico, Hegel or Marx), but a shift from one side to
another, from front to back, from the back to the left, from the left
to the front (as understood by designers dreaming up the fashion for
the next season)...."
In other words, instead of coherent ideas, plans, or propositions,
everything is reduced to fashion, sports, drama; and trivialized in
the hands of people whose job is image and who don't really give a
damn what the product is so long as they can figure out how to sell
it. By changing the forms the appearance of change is guaranteed,
while behind that appearance? What? Corruption? Money making? Shopping?
He concludes "The politician is dependent on the journalist. On whom is the journalist dependent? On imagologues. The imagologue is a person of conviction and principle: he demands of the journalist that his newspaper (or TV channel, radio station) reflect the imagological system of the current moment. And this is what imagologues check from time to time when they are trying to decide which newspaper to support."
His book is really worth reading.
http://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Perennial-Classics-Milan-Kundera/dp/0060932384
This refers to this: http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/holte/archives/003045.html
I ran into this while reading Milan Kundera's "Immortality".
> Anyway, who is the most memorable Journalist of recent
> times? Not Hemingway, who wrote of his experiences in the trenches,
> not Orwell, who spent a year of his life with the Parisian poor, not
> Egon Erwin Kisch, the expert on Prague prostitutes, but Oriana
> Fallaci, who in the years 1969 to 1972 published in the Italian
> Journal Europeo a series of interviews with the most famous
> politicians of the time. Those interviews were more than
> conversations; they were duels. Before the powerful politicians
> realized that they were fighting under unequal conditions -- for she
> was allowed to ask questions but they were not -- they were already
> rolling on the floor of the ring, KO'ed."
> "Those duels were a sign of the times; the situation had changed.
> Journalists realized that posing questions was not merely a
> practical working method for the reporter modestly gathering
> information with notebook and pencil in hand; it was a means of
> exerting power.
> The
> journalist is not merely the one who asks the questions but the one
> who has the sacred right to ask, to ask anyone about anything. But
> don't we all have that right? And is a question not a bridge of
> understanding reaching out from one human being to another? Perhaps.
> I will therefore make my statement more precise: the power of the
> journalist is not based on his right to ask but on his right to demand
> an answer."
>
> "Please note that Moses did not include among God's Ten
> Commandments; "Thou shalt not lie!"
There is a bit of a slight of hand here. Milan Kundera knows that the
commandment number 9 against "bearing false witness" against your
neighbor is usually interpreted as "thou shalt not lie", but he is
making a larger point.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buddhist_dialogue_group/message/44139
> That's no accident! Because the one who says,
> 'Don't lie!' has first to say, 'Answer!' and God didn't give anyone
> the right to demand an answer from others. 'Don't lie!' 'Tell the
> truth!' are words which we must never say to another person
> insofar as we consider him our equal.
God gave a more nuanced commandment "thou shalt not bear false witness
against one's neighbor." One can tell the "truth" and still break this
commandment. One can lie and really uphold the intent of the commandment.
> Perhaps only God has that right, but He
> has no reason to resort to it since He knows everything and doesn't
> need our answers."
He is talking about the raw power that comes with the power to demand
answers. And he is talking about the corruption and trivialization of
journalism as it exercises this power. The power to judge the truth is
the power to destroy.
> "The inequality between one who gives orders and one who must obey
> is not as radical as between one who has the right to demand and
> answer and one who has the duty to answer. That is why the right
> to demand answers has, since time immemorial only been accorded
> in exceptional circumstances. For example to a judge inquiring
> about a crime.
He then goes on to show how this right was appropriated and debased by
fascist and communist states. If he drew on history he could
demonstrate the history of this power and trace it back to witch hunts
and the inquisition against Jews and other "infidels" in the dark ages
of European History.
> It was precisely this sanctified imperative, 'Tell the truth!',
> this Eleventh Commandment, whose force they were unable to
> withstand, that turned them into a throng of infantilized wretches.
This power, to force people to confess their innermost secrets is not
only the power to compel truth, but because it is associated with
authority is the power to define and compel people to believe in an
"orthodox" or "correct" truth -- and to punish people for individual,
heretical, or rebellious thoughts, words and deeds.
The fear of being exposed as actually thinking is so powerful that it
puts "chains on the brains" and causes people to circumscribe their
own thinking. That was the purpose of Authoritarianism (whatever
brand) and it has succeeded to such a point that people have
infantilized themselves.
Milan blames the eleventh commandment, but it is the acceptance of the
ownership of "truth" by others, by authorities, that gives it its
power. We have police, judges, "journalists", "pundits" and others,
who claim to own truth, goodness, judgment, and "expertise" in the
same way that the Church fathers who ran the inquisition "owned" the
definition of what was orthodox and what was heterodox. Orthodoxy
punishes people for "thinking outside the box." No matter whether that
orthodoxy is labeled "left" or labelled" right.
But orthodoxy is incredibly arbitrary. People were punished for taking
the new testament too seriously in the middle ages (and even today).
Jews were punished for trying to be both Jews and Christians.
Scientists were punished for being too popular about their
discoveries. When authority rules, it always ends up ruling arbitrarily.
Those who have the right to demand the truth, usually exercise the
right to decide what that truth is, and to keep their own ideas
separate from what they require for others to profess. And they do so
arbitrarly. Thus the inquisitor often has a heterodox heart himself,
covered by dogmatic energy or not, any observer can note "methinks he
proteth too loudly." If the inquisitor has a heterodox heart, so do
the leading edge people of society. So the power of the inquisitor
lies in his power to discover the discrepancy between established
orthodoxy and reality. Orthodoxy switches from the profession of
truths, to the profession of what most people secretly come to believe
are lies.
If people are forbidden to lie, and people have to lie to cover their
heterodox hearts, then all society has to do is to find what they are
"Really thinking" to punish them for it. Hence eavesdropping and
surveillance are aimed at enforcing orthodoxy, as they did in Fascist
and Leftist Dictatorships. The inquisitor with his secret agents is
supplemented by police with listening devices:
> But the police were aware of this and secretly installed listening
> devices in his apartment. The police did not do so
> from any disreputable motives, but only to arrive at the truth which
> the liar C was concealing. They merely insisted on the right to
> demand an answer."
And the corruption is that C is either a liar because he's concealing
his genuine feelings about what he regards as public lies, or he's a
liar because he's talking privately what he genuinely feels. Kundera
isn't talking about "thou shalt not lie" -- but "thou shalt not be
seen as lying." Two very different things.
And when, as happened in his home country and in Itally, we have a
return to Democracy. Who will be the "arbiter of truth" when the
courts and police have stepped back from exercising that power, or
been discredited?
> "In democratic countries anyone can thumb his nose at a policeman
> who dares to ask what he talked about with A, or whether he has
> intimate contact with B. Nevertheless, even here the authority
> of the Eleventh Commandment is in full force. After all people
> do need some Commandment to rule over them in our Century, when
> God's Ten have been virtually forgotten!
Journalists, Senior Spies, Military Commandments, etceteras... all
claim elements of authority based on their profession that they have
custody over the real truth. Modern societies have evolved past
fascism and communism to be ruled by esoteric principles owned by
people who are privy to secrets or knowledge the rest of us don't have
access to. When someone is arrested on the basis of secret evidence,
we are told that we should trust the government because they "know"
things the rest of us don't know.
> The whole moral structure of our time rests on
> the Eleventh Commandment; and the journalist came to realize that
> thanks to a mysterious provision of history he is to become its
> administrator, gaining a power undreamed of by a Hemingway or an
> Orwell."
Eric Blair (Orwell) understood this. He acknowledged this sort of
motive in his essay "why I write."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clergyman%27s_Daughter
Hemingway? Who knows. He killed himself.
> ...the truth elicited by the Eleventh commandment
> is not connected with religion or philosophy, it is truth of the
> lowest ontological storey, a purely positivist factual truth:
> what did C do yesterday? What is he really thinking deep in his
> heart?..."
http://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Perennial-Classics-Milan-Kundera/dp/0060932384
But the author is getting at something else...
Earlier I posted a take on the "four dictums." This is what I was talking about:
Using religion to justify patriotism and triumphalism is the ruin of the nation!
This refers to Nichiren's criticism of Shingon, which claimed that using Mudras and Mantras and the "secret wisdom" of the Shingon patriarchs those priests could effectively pray for the welfare of the country.
Teaching dumbed down religion is the path to the hell of incessant suffering!
This is based on Nichiren's criticism of Honen for teaching "dumbed down religion" and the notion that only the intercession of Amida could permit a person to enter the path of enlightenment and only by grace at the moment of death.
Using religion to pray for health and secular wealth is the path to sickness and starvation!
This is a reference to Nichiren's argument that if people don't practice Buddhism correctly, (In his argument that meant embracing the Lotus Sutra), their prayers are ineffectual. It is also a reference to the fourteen slanders Gosho.
And the next is too:
"Slandering others in the name of religion is the way to block enlightenment!"
All this refers to the 14 slanders Gosho:
http://nichiren.info/gosho/14Slanders.htm
In your letter you write, "Since I took faith in this sutra [the Lotus], I have continued to recite the Junyoze and the Jigage and chant the daimoku without the slightest neglect. But how great is the difference between the blessings received when a sage chants the daimoku and the blessings received when we chant it?"
To reply, one is in no way superior to the other. The gold that a fool possesses is in no way different from the gold that a wise man possesses; a fire made by a fool is the same as a fire made by a wise man.
However, there is a difference if one chants the daimoku while acting against the intent of this sutra. There are many forms of slander that go against the correct practice of this sutra. Let me sum them up by quoting from the fifth volume of the Hokke Mongu Ki:
"In defining the types of evil, the Hokke Mongu states briefly, ‘Expound among the wise but not among the foolish.’ One scholar enumerates the types of evil as follows: ‘I will first list the evil causes and then their effects. There are fourteen evil causes:
(1) arrogance,
(2) negligence,
(3) arbitrary, egotistical judgment,
(4) shallow, self-satisfied understanding,
(5) attachment to earthly desires,
(6) lack of seeking spirit,
(7) not believing,
(8) aversion,
(9) deluded doubt,
(10) vilification,
(11) contempt,
(12) hatred,
(13) jealousy and
(14) grudges.’"
Since these fourteen slanders apply equally to priesthood and laity, you must be on guard against them.
Bodhisattva Fukyo of old said that all people have the Buddha nature and that if they embrace the Lotus Sutra, they will never fail to attain Buddhahood. He further stated that to slight a person is to slight the Buddha himself. Thus, his practice was to revere all people. He revered even those who did not embrace the Lotus Sutra because they too had the Buddha nature and might someday believe in the sutra. Therefore, it is all the more natural to revere those priests and lay people who do embrace the sutra.
I ran into this while reading Milan Kundera's "Immortality".
"At one time journalistic fame was symbolized by the great name of
Ernest Hemingway. His whole work, his concise, matter of fact style
was rooted in the dispatches he sent to the Kansas City newspapers as
a young man. In those days, being a journalist meant getting closer
to reality than anyone else, exploring all its hidden crannies,
getting one's hands grimy with it. Hemingway was proud that his books
were so close to the earth and yet so high in the heaven of art."
"But when Bernard pronounces the word 'Journalist' to himself (and in
France nowadays that word also includes radio and TV editors and even
press photographers)
[this story is set in France], he is not thinking
of Hemingway, and the literary form in which he longs to excel is not
reportage. Rather, he dreams of publishing editorials in some
influential weekly that would make his father's colleagues tremble. Or
interviews. Anyway, who is the most memorable Journalist of recent
times? Not Hemingway, who wrote of his experiences in the trenches,
not Orwell, who spent a year of his life with the Parisian poor, not
Egon Erwin Kisch, the expert on Prague prostitutes, but Oriana
Fallaci, who in the years 1969 to 1972 published in the Italian
Journal Europeo a series of interviews with the most famous
politicians of the time. Those interviews were more than
conversations; they were duels. Before the powerful politicians
realized that they were fighting under unequal conditions -- for she
was allowed to ask questions but they were not -- they were already
rolling on the floor of the ring, KO'ed."
And of course this corrupted both politics and journalism
"Those duels were a sign of the times; the situation had changed.
Journalists realized that posing questions was not merely a practical
working method for the reporter modestly gathering information with
notebook and pencil in hand; it was a means of exerting power. The
journalist is not merely the one who asks the questions but the one
who has the sacred right to ask, to ask anyone about anything. But
don't we all have that right? And is a question not a bridge of
understanding reaching out from one human being to another? Perhaps.
I will therefore make my statement more precise: the power of the
journalist is not based on his right to ask but on his right to demand
an answer."
"Please note that Moses did not include among God's Ten Commandments;
"Thou shalt not lie!" That's no accident! Because the one who says,
'Don't lie!' has first to say, 'Answer!' and God didn't give anyone
the right to demand an answer from others. 'Don't lie!' 'Tell the
truth!' are words which we must never say to another person insofar as
we consider him our equal. Perhaps only God has that right, but He
has no reason to resort to it since He knows everything and doesn't
need our answers."
"The inequality between one who gives orders and one who must obey is
not as radical as between one who has the right to demand and answer
and one who has the duty to answer. That is why the right to demand
answers has, since time immemorial only been accorded in exceptional
circumstances. For example to a judge inquiring about a crime. In our
century fascist and communist states have appropriated this right, not
only in exceptional circumstances but permanently. The citizens of
these countries have known that at any time there might come a moment
when they would be called to answer: what they did yesterday, what
they think deep down in their hearts; what they talk about when they
get together with A and if they have an intimate relationship with B.
It was precisely this sanctified imperative, 'Tell the truth!', this
Eleventh Commandment, whose force they were unable to withstand, that
turned them into a throng of infantilized wretches."
"Occasionally, of course, some C could be found who would steadfastly refuse to reveal what he and A had talked about, and as an act of rebellion (it was
often the only possible way of rebelling), he would lie instead of
telling the truth. But the police were aware of this and secretly
installed listening devices in his apartment. The police did not do so
from any disreputable motives, but only to arrive at the truth which
the liar C was concealing. They merely insisted on the right to
demand an answer."
"In democratic countries anyone can thumb his nose at a policeman who
dares to ask what he talked about with A, or whether he has intimate
contact with B. Nevertheless, even here the authority of the Eleventh
Commandment is in full force. After all people do need some
Commandment to rule over them in our Century, when God's Ten have been
virtually forgotten! The whole moral structure of our time rests on
the Eleventh Commandment; and the journalist came to realize that
thanks to a mysterious provision of history he is to become its
administrator, gaining a power undreamed of by a Hemingway or an Orwell."
Orwell could probably have imagined it.
"This phenomenom became unmistakably clear when the American
journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward uncovered the sordid
dealings of President Nixon during his election campaign, forcing the
planet's most powerful man to lie in public, then to admit publicly
that he had lied, and finally to leave the White House with bowed
head. We all applauded because justice had been done....Of course we
may ask just what the word 'truth' means to the administrator of the
Eleventh Commandment...the truth elicited by the Eleventh commandment
is not connected with religion or philosophy, it is truth of the
lowest ontological storey, a purely positivist factual truth: what did
C do yesterday? What is he really thinking deep in his heart?..."
http://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Perennial-Classics-Milan-Kundera/dp/0060932384
http://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Perennial-Classics-Milan-Kundera/dp/0060932384
Of course politicians aren't complete idiots, and neither are the companies that employ Journalists. They soon learned the manifold ways to use these new powers, exploit the vanity of those who had possession of them, and confuse people totally about everything.
The point about the concept of Commons is not to say that a commons can't be owned. What I'm saying is definitional. Any common property is a "commons" at least to the extent and time period where it is functioning.
But more importantly any system is a commons for the people who are in it. That includes Government, business, communications, and trade systems. The system itself is a commons regardless of who owns it. And the system owner governs that system -- which means ownership of common property is synonymous with government.
That is why people so want to own systems; Carnagie, Rockefeller, Edison, Gates; all developed their power by owning key subsystems that gave them control over key parts of a system -- or by crafting and owning a system.
Finally this implies that the debate is whether people really want democracy or not -- not between "free enterprise versus Nanny State." If bureaucrats govern a system, they own it (hence bureaucracy). If a private equity company owns a system then it is governed as if it were a monarchy. If it is governed in an arbitrary and self serving manner this is not "free enterprise" this is tyranny.
And finally when people seek and acquire systems they are engaging in rent seeking.
Chris
One way to modernize the concept of the Commons and apply it to our present time is to consider that there are really only two kinds of property; simple property; property we own by ourselves and for ourselves -- and common property. Ownership gives power, and power gives one the right to govern. A person can own a commons and it is still a commons. All it takes for something to be a commons is that the owner grants legal access to others. "The legal right of a person to use the lands or waters of another, as for fishing." A Mall open for business is a commons until the moment it closes and the workers there go home. Expanded generally, a place of business is a commons while folks are working there.
But more importantly every system is first and foremost a commons -- no matter who owns it. Every system, whether it is a distribution system, an economic system, a business, or a governmental system is a commons. A market is a commons. Who owns it is immaterial to that definition.
Ownership therefore grants governmental rights over a commons. As in "Administration or management of an organization, business, or institution."
A commons is also a collective. "Of, relating to, characteristic of, or made by a number of people acting as a group." Again it doesn't matter how it is run. We are talking about the fact that it involves functionality that requires people two work together.
Any common system fits the definition of socialism as "Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy."
Given the above truths, the only question when talking about social gatherings, common systems, or other places where people work and live, is whether they are run democratically, with consent of the governed, or as a tyranny.
The issue is not whether they are owned collectively; they are all collectives; but how they are governed. Socialistic states make the mistake of assuming that because an abstract collection "the people" own assets that those people do in fact own and govern those assets.
But anyone observing the reality will soon see that local governments; systems, markets, malls, Cities, States, Counties, all face the same issues. A tyranny is a tyranny, even if it is set in place by the majority. A person under the illusion that he can escape socialism by privatizing common systems is simply creating aristocrats. For a system to operate well, it has to be run safely, orderly, transparently, and with consent of all the players.
Free markets are impossible without common ownership of the market. The temptation to game the market, keep out players, prevent entrants, is built into them. Unless both buyers and sellers, debtors and creditors have governing rights and there is transparency enforced, they revert back to their origins as Carnivals of vice and kleptocracy. Running a common system, a corporation, a community, a church; all are government. The notion that one is "private enterprise" and the other "socialism" is a false comparison.
My latest version of the four dictums:
Using religion to justify patriotism and triumphalism is the ruin of the nation!
Teaching dumbed down religion is the path to the hell of incessant suffering!
Using religion to pray for health and secular wealth is the path to sickness and starvation!
Slandering others in the name of religion is the way to block enlightenment!
Chris
Continue in next post on same subject
I've read some interesting things about the origins of Israel. According to one narrative before there was an Israel there were Egyptian and Aramaic settlers in Canaan. The Aramaic settlers were poor, mostly landless and were called "Apiru" (homeless) by others, but may have called themselves "Habiru" (brothers).
Many stories in ancient (and modern times) relate history by turning it into family story. Whole countries are named after family founders, and sometimes stories of those founders are used to illustrate political realities. Many of them are talking about princes, chiefs or kings of families. If Abraham has children as many as the stars, it is probably because he started out as a kind of prince of some local people. The legend at the heart of Genesis is of a "wandering Aramean" who arrives in Canaan. His grandson becomes a "visier" or right hand man of Pharaoh. Then comes Moses. The bible was edited hundreds of years after the stories were first written an multiple hundreds of years after the stories were first told. It is put in some kind of order, but the stories behind it don't always come in chronological order. Thus line by line it can be recounting more or less "true" events, while the order in which those events can be very different from the order recounted.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob go to great lengths not to intermarry with the local people. Their Sons do the opposite. Most importantly Joseph becomes an Egyptian. Manassas and Ephraim were Egyptians. Modern historians haven't identified Moses very well, but Joseph is identified with a tale found on pyramids. Moses is depicted as the child of a Levite Woman, but the father is never identified. Israel was a client state of Egypt for much of its existence. Hence my own theory is that the tribes of Manassas, Ephraim and maybe Benjamin started as Egyptian Settlers, while the other tribes were "their brothers" by alliance. They acquired their lands by connection with the Pharoah. The God promising them Israel speaks through a Pharoah. When the concept later evolves and hostility to Egyptians made it inconvenient to recall the origins of the idea -- they changed the story ever so slightly. If the Pharaoh referred to is Akhenaton then they didn't even need to change it much. Akhenaton spoke for God.
Taking these stories literally one can still find a basis for this story. Looking at the archeological record and historical parallels it becomes obvious. When the Hebrews moved to northern Egypt, only some of them did. They went there as a "labor tax" the Egyptians charged all their vassals. Later, when the Hittites conquered Canaan from the Egyptians, that is the beginning of the story. Some remained, but many had to flee. Where did they flee? To Egyptian strongholds in what became the property of the Tribe of Ruben, and to the edge of Desert in what would later be the home of Simeon. Ruben and Simeon are the oldest tribes.
When Moses leads his people out of Egypt, it could be seen as the result of a failed bid to become Pharoah, or as an effort to reconquer lost territory in Canaan, or both. He doesn't wander in the desert for forty years, he's leading an army plus some refugees on a march to his refuge in the territory of Ruben. He didn't have the power or resources to reconquer Israel, but because his disciples didn't want to blame him for the failure the fault is put on his soldiers.
Thus the chapter that depicts Korah's revolt, which also represents a revolt by Ruben, is depicting discontent with Moses' management of their common issue; which was keeping their sliver of land and eventually reclaiming lands they'd lost to the Hittites. They couldn't do this until the Hittite rule weakened. Just a theory.
Chris