Monday, February 16, 2015

rule of law and academic political correctness are fin d'siecle american orthodoxy


thefourthway |  Q. Does school stand for self-initiation?
A. What does self-initiation mean? It is all words. What would it mean?

Q. If schools are so important, why do they not have more influence in the world?
A. Schools can only act through people who are interested in them. They can do nothing if they are surrounded by people who are indifferent. The possibility of schools influencing life is conditioned by the general attitude to schools. In order to have influence, schools must have people who are interested and who would obey. But this must come from below, it cannot be produced by schools. Schools can throw B influences into the world, but if people are not interested in them, they can do nothing. They cannot use violence.

Q. Can a school lose by giving away its knowledge?
A. A school can lose in many different ways. We shall come to this question later on. It depends whom it gives to. If it gives just in general and does not receive anything, certainly it will lose. If one has money and begins to give it to everybody, whether they deserve it or not, certainly one will lose one's money.

Q. You said that if we want a school we must take part in building it. How can we do that?
A. You must remember that the level of a school depends on the level of being of the people who constitute it. If there are not enough people with magnetic centre, there can be no school. But it is not simply coming to lectures and accepting what one hears that shows the presence of a
magnetic centre.

Q. Would the spreading of school ideas and school language among other people be of any help from the point of view of the school?
A. Ideas cannot be spread in the right form—it is important to understand that. It would be very good if it could be done, but it cannot. Words would remain, but the ideas themselves would be different. If it were enough to spread them, why are schools necessary? The language will spread itself, maybe even in our lifetime, but the ideas will enter into the general currency in a wrong form. For instance, there would be no distinction between 'doing' and 'happening'.

Q. We talk of schools and different levels. Is it not rather confusing? What do higher levels mean?
A. Why do you find the idea of higher levels confusing? For instance, we can take this idea of levels quite simply in relation to ourselves: using all our mental capacities we can think only up to a certain level, but if we could use higher centres, for instance higher emotional centre which already needs more or less complete self-remembering, then certainly on the same subject we could think quite differently and find many more connections in things which we do not notice now. That shows different levels of thinking, and sometimes we actually have glimpses of a higher level of thinking, so we may have some material for observation, because even now we can think differently on the same subject.

And as regards different levels of people, we meet with results of work of people obviously belonging to higher planes; we cannot say that our experience of ordinary life is limited to results of work of people like ourselves. Take the New Testament, and there are also works of art, esoteric writings, Christian literature and so on which obviously cannot belong to ordinary people. The existence of people of higher development is not imagination, not a hypothesis, but an actual fact. So I do not understand in what way it is confusing; I do not see how one can think without recognizing this fact. It is a definite fact that people live not only on the level on which we are but can exist on different levels.

From this point of view humanity can be regarded as divided into four concentric circles. The three inner circles are called Esoteric, Mesoteric and Exoteric. The fourth is the outer circle where men 1, 2 and 3 live. Schools act as gates through which man No. 4, who is between the outer and the Exoteric circle, can pass. Man No. 5 belongs to the Exoteric circle, man No. 6 to the Mesoteric and man No. 7 to the Esoteric or the innermost circle. The outer circle is also called the circle of the confusion of tongues, for in this circle people cannot understand one another. Understanding is possible only in the inner circles.

All this means there are degrees.

A man who lives in the outer circle is under the law of accident, or, if he has a strongly expressed essence, his life is more governed by the laws of his type or the laws of fate. But when a man begins to work towards consciousness, he already has direction. This means a change, perhaps not perceptible, but nevertheless cosmically a change. Only individual effort can help man to pass from the outer circle into the Exoteric circle. What refers to a man in the outer circle does not refer to a man who begins to work. He is under different laws, or rather, different laws begin to touch a man who begins to work. Each circle is under different laws.

34 comments:

ken said...

I have not been given any honor in academics.

CNu said...

May want to tap your brakes on parroting every jealous, low-brow racist jibe you hear on the radio or read in the conservatard press about the Hon.Bro.Preznit and the teleprompter. It's conspicuously obvious to the casual observer that the president is substantially more intelligent than any sitting white politician in the United States at this moment. In fact, I'd bet you any amount you'd care to wager that he is one of the most intelligent men ever elected to high office in the U.S.

The only significant Brookings miscalculation with this presidency here-to-date centers on overestimating the power of his personal magnetism to appeal to the "higher angels" of racists and help unify Americans in any meaningful fashion. That's just not gonna happen.

The good news is that the very same methods of social network analysis that will be used to focus law enforcement on the 3% of irredeemable troublemakers in the hood, will also be turned to proactively marginalize and handle the problem of irredeemably anti-social Americans spread further and wider under cover of whiteness.

lol, case in point - surely you don't suppose the feds have fallen asleep on the curious case of those 500 gunsels who pointed weapons at them around the Bundy ranch in Nevada last year?

ken said...

"The only significant Brookings miscalculation with this presidency here-to-date centers on overestimating the power of his personal magnetism to appeal to the "higher angels" of racists and help unify Americans in any meaningful fashion."


You may want to stop moving your mouth as you read lips of the MSNBC crowd. I am not being motivated by any racism towards the president. And there will be no unity when an opposing point of view is only labeled as racist, or backwards, of uneducated like your attempt is here. And has been universally splattered among all who have a difference of how to solve today's problems.


I am sure the President is intelligent, there are lots of intelligent people who don't perform to the tasks given them. What are his successes? Is it Obamacare that through partisan bully style politics became law, only to have it delayed for its full effect until each election cycle is passed? What was the intelligent strategy of making sure to slam that piece of unifying Obamacare legislation through instead of paying attention to the failing economy at the time, only to delay it because it will harm the economy even more.


Maybe his intelligence has proven strong in his Iraq policy, in fact Biden said Iraq will be one of Obama's greatest achievements. Or maybe it was the strategy of taking out Gadaffi in Lybia. Remember when Obama said: "This counter-terrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”


As for your case and point, you're giving Obama with his intelligence the credit for the April standoff? Great. I hardly consider this a feather he would want to wear proudly in his cap. And sticking on his domestic agenda, how many State of the Union Addresses has he said he wants to give everybody a fair shot? Yet we know less people are in the labor force than in 2000 and we have a population that is more than 20 million bigger in size than in 2000. 14 million more people are not part of the labor force compared to 2000. Obama has talked about the income inequality, but has only seen the gap widen with his policies. Does his intelligence cause him to try something different?


I get he is intelligent, but why does someone offer budget proposals that get totally defeated in congress? What's the point?
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=obama+budget+proposal+voted+down+97-0

99-0, 97-0, 414-0, I mean didn't he even think of discussing what might pass, was this his attempt at creating unity? Let's face it when left to his own devices he is so far out of mainstream thinking he can't be an agent of unity. He depends on the teleprompter, not because he is unintelligent, but because without it he will show totally what he is about. And none of it has any solutions that will help us today.

CNu said...

The president is about reading his prompter and
trying to say as eloquently as possible every word on it. Why
should I bypass all the total mishaps of this article to pull out its
one nugget good and agreeable nugget?




Because I gave you the article's money shot in the few paragraphs I
excerpted. The Catholic Church embarked on the Holy
Inquisition not to do inexplicable violence “in the name of Christ,”
but to rid its “flock” of unclean “sheep” – most notably “secret
Muslims” and Jews, heretics and witches.

CNu said...

As for the rest, what exactly would you prefer we call your strong antipathy toward the president?I am not being motivated by any racism towards the president.

I am sure the President is intelligent, there are lots of intelligent people who don't perform to the tasks given them.

What was the intelligent strategy of making sure to slam that piece of unifying Obamacare legislation through instead of paying attention to the failing economy at the time

Maybe his intelligence has proven strong in his Iraq policy

As for your case and point, you're giving Obama with his intelligence the credit for the April standoff?

Does his intelligence cause him to try something different?

He depends on the teleprompter, not because he is unintelligent, but because without it he will show totally what he is about.

Let's face it when left to his own devices he is so far out of mainstream thinking he can't be an agent of unity.

when left to his own devices he is so far out of mainstream thinking - in its selection of the Hon.Bro.Preznit as its standard-bearer, Brookings has given you a crystal clear indication of the establishment's main stream. The ball is now squarely in Congress' court. Let's see what your "mainstream" has to offer besides internal rancor and inability to legislate.

lol, let it all out, you'll feel so much better.
http://youtu.be/71Lo4TGR-A8

ken said...

"As for the rest, what exactly would you prefer we call your strong antipathy toward the president?"

I think it would be clear the president is ideological to a fault. He refuses to change or adjust or compromise any of his polices or seek any solutions offered from a political view different from his own. He is hypocritical in that he criticizes his predecessor yet ends up doing at least the same and worse. He has yet to consider any of his actions responsible for the failings all around him. His unchanging failing ideological policies are in opposition to mine.

I don't think antipathy is the right word, as I have only noted his public actions. I think of antipathy as some sort of personal animosity towards someone. I have no idea how Obama would be without his advisers or out of the public eye. He seems like he has a nice family and I like that he has played team sports.


The problem with this man not being able to unify is he is on the extreme of liberalism, he was the most liberal senator in 2007 and then became president after that. And the rest of us are supposed to behave and unify around these failed left side liberal policies or be questioned why we attack these public policies with such energy. It really a very dishonest ploy, and hopefully, Americans are tired of it.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/31/study-obama-most-liberal-senator-last-year/

CNu said...

As a senator Obama voted as and as a president Obama has governed as a moderate republican. The extent to which he has been vilified is altogether out of proportion and out of sync with his record. Further, it is unique in the annals of American history.

That said, he has no more elections to win.

Let's see now whether given its majorities in the Congress and the courts your conservatard contingent has any solutions to offer. We both know the answer to that. The internecine strife within the republican party are about to become the stuff of legend. You all are going to rip one another to shreds and pull a stunning repeat of what Gingrich ushered in in `95, as well as, pave the way for a dynastic democratic slam dunk for the presidency in 2016.

Tom said...

His unchanging failing ideological policies are in opposition to mine.

CNu said...

rotflmbao..., thanks for catching that!

CNu said...

The glorious irony of it all is that no mainstream politician of either of the two-party/one ideology camps is up to the task of devising, selling, and deploying the type of radical social reorganization required to proactively reconfigure a growth-dependent economy to conform with the limitations of a finite world. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/11/14/does-our-military-know-something-we-dont-about-global-warming/

Tom said...

What's incredible is both sides' ability to call each other "ideological" and "partisan" with a straight face.

CNu said...

Lot easier to take though when prefaced with the admission that their ideological policies are unchanging failures...,

ken said...

I don't think it hard to accept everyone has an ideology Tom, and therefore ideological. To not accept you have an ideology would be more incredible. The question at hand here was..hey you must be hiding some sort of racism to point out so many policy failures of this president. Pointing out that this president had an ideology further from the center than any other president, maybe in history, and his negotiation rather quickly into the legislative process was I won, and you guys didn't left him with no bipartisan support, and in any other media, that he holds the sole responsibility of the success or failure of his forced policies.


He now has had his chance to show how his policies work, the talk of job participation, in. come gap, debt, and foreign policy situations are his policies. It is now fair to evaluate them. Great job in catching my poorly worded sentence, good contribution, but because I have an ideology, and a political point of view doesn't discount my ability to evaluate how the current policies are working.

Tom said...

I don't find your criticism of Obama racist, but I do find it an uncritical parroting of foolish refrains that come from certain partisan idealogues. For example Obama is clearly to the right of Nixon, just to pick one president in my lifetime. It's easy to prove that point policy by policy. You're old enough to know that without looking in Wikipedia. Instead you burp out stuff you know is ridiculous misinformation.

makheru bradley said...

“In fact, I'd bet you any amount you'd care to wager that he is one of the most intelligent men ever elected to high office in the U.S.” That would be a moot point, since intelligence is not a requirement for the job. Impressive academic credentials are not necessarily a harbinger for wise political decisions. Case in point--the asininity of intervening in Libya. [Laying out an argument for his emerging foreign policy doctrine, Obama distinguished the U.S. steps in Libya from the invasion and nine-year war in Iraq. He argued that by building a broad international alliance of European and Arab nations against Gadhafi, the United States saved American lives and money and achieved its goal. "Not a single U.S. troop was on the ground," he said. "Not a single U.S. troop was killed or injured, and that, I think, is a recipe for success in the future."]

How did that recipe for success turn out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUa3ELZkpbw

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2957344/ISIS-incredible-force-Europe-s-doorstep-Terrorists-Libya-beheaded-21-Egyptian-Christians-parade-fleet-brand-new-police-cars-cheering-children.html



Intelligent or unintelligent, the only requirement for "success" in American politics is a total absence of ethics, and the willingness to be manipulated to serve the interest of your masters. That means sometimes you look just plain stupid.

CNu said...

That nascent pan-african oil bourse had to be destroyed to preserve petro-dollar hegemony. As for the rest, as with Iraq and Iran, the tale of the tape will be told when we see who has first dibs on that 240 billion barrels of proven reserves of sweet, light crude oil.

CNu said...

Nobody called your policy differences racist. I called your parroted teleprompter jibe and emphatic and serially repeated attacks on the president's intelligence racist. The bottom-line is really very simple Ken. A significant majority of those with policy differences with the President have been on the verge of busting a gut to call him a nigger. Since in the prevailing mainstream orthodoxy, that's a career-ending verboten, they've had to settle for calling him a muslim, a communist, a kenyan, unintelligent, an appeaser, a teleprompter-reader, everything except a child of god.

You're no different. You didn't start with your policy differences, you launched into your tirades with that tired saw about teleprompter-reading, and from there, you devolved down into questioning the man's intellect and yadda, yadda. The purpose of this post was to get people thinking about what the parameters of the prevailing mainstream orthodoxy consist of, and, the extent to which the Hon.Bro.Preznit has demonstrated he's willing to go to rid this orthodoxy of "unclean sheep" and heretics, etc...,

ken said...

Its really not a good way to determine of something is critical or uncritical by if you heard a partisan make the same point. Take for instance your Nixon point, we could say you are just parroting an uncritical foolish refrain, after all Obama made the same point and he is a partisan idealogue.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/02/03/obama_in_a_lot_of_ways_richard_nixon_was_more_liberal_than_i_was.html



So I really think your discounting of my opinion is simply BS. The facts are Nixon did what needed to be done in his time. We barely were out of the era of Jim Crow, we needed stronger enforcement of ERA laws, we needed affirmative action, it was good, it was bipartisan. Our water quality and air quality was bad and getting worse, we needed to make a change to conserve and improve our quality of water and air quality. The changes made by Nixon improved both water and air quality, his changes were bipartisan. We needed better enforcement of work safety, the changes Nixon put forth again were bipartisan.


And even further Nixon did some foreign policy actions that were needed, they were bipartisan, both political parties were with him as he reached out to China.


Can you say the same for Obama, what actions has he taken that have solved any issues of his time? How has he helped? Think of his promises before office and his critiques of the person holding the office and explain how any of us shouldn't be thoroughly disappointed in the results of his Presidency. His policy failures are real, lives are being lost because of them, families are in poverty because of them. Its out there for everyone to see, partisans or moderates.

Dale Asberry said...

This president is preparing for the cull. It's past time to remove the heretics and it is much closer than you imagine. Don't be surprised when they come a' knockin' at your door.....

CNu said...

lol, not quite. This president is signalling that the era of scientific policing is nigh upon us. Stop and frisk, broken windows, and profiling are inherently racist policies and practices. Doesn't mean that those who are tasked with these procedures are klansmen, rather, it's the fact of sifting through 98% of a given type of people in order to try and detect and deter the misbehavior of 2-3% that makes the policies and practices racist.

The fact of sophisticated and pan-optic surveillance technology renders those old-fashioned practices obsolete, if you apply those technologies to the cause of law enforcement. (which here-to-date are presumed to have only been applied to military intelligence activities) Now, instead of sifting through 98% of a given group to try and get at the 2-3% of the bad apples, you can instead pinpoint the bad actors and their immediate social networks and focus all your efforts very specifically on addressing them. Not quite pre-crimes, but close enough and jarringly enough that it will be perceived as a seismic shift both in civil society, in law enforcement, and in the criminal justice system.

Once you apply this technology and these methods to the task of dealing with pedestrian crimeys, which btw many would argue a so-called terrorist is, i.e., a non-state actor and a criminal rather than an enemy combatant soldier - then it's a very short step from there to dealing with those at greatest risk of ideologically motivated violent political behavior. In the specific cases considered, there's no way you don't go from rounding up Drayvonte'an'em violent drug crew, and NOT loop back and pick up the gunsels who pointed weapons at federal law enforcement officials last year out in Nevada.

Tom said...

Without charging into this new cloud of distracting verbiage, what you actually said was the President is far off to the left. Now it turns out we agree that he's to the right of Nixon.

Tom said...

Do you expect people to believe that repeating something true is the same kind of behavior as repeating something absurd that you yourself disagree with?

ken said...

I am having trouble here understanding what you are calling right or left. We all saw the need to even the playing field for race issues...is that a left or right issue, I think its both. We all saw the need to conserve and make our environment cleaner...is that a right or left issue. I can certainly say, a conservative is about conserving and protecting his environment and concern for life and freedom for all. Certainly, enforcing having clean water and air and freedom and equality for all are traditional values. Nixon was still more to the right than the majority of Americans for his time, you can't say the same for Obama.


Do you consider rule of law a left or right issue? Or maybe worded differently, is law and order a left or right issue?

ken said...

Mostly, I think if the person makes a point, he has taken the point on as his own and is sincere about it and it should be responded.. If you think what someone says is absurd, it should be relatively easy to point out why rather than hiding behind someone else that you disagree with said it so it shouldn't be considered. In a setting like this, there is room to point out the obvious absurdities rather than jump to unsubstantiated descriptive insults of the person's comments.

Tom said...

Since I did exactly what you're saying "there is room to" do, I'll take this as a pat on the back.

Tom said...

I am having trouble here understanding what you are calling right or left.

Ken, a friend of mine, Greg, used to shoplift a lot when we were 10. He had this idea: when you get caught, just say "Oh, is stealing illegal these years? Nobody told me." He insisted that would get him off scott free. "What can they do? They can't prove you knew stealing was against the law!" By the time he was 15 there were four police cars at his parents' house, asking why their garage was full of the neighbors' stereo speakers. I don't know whether he tried that line on them.

Now go ahead and tell me: You have no idea why I think this story is relevant to our discussion. That's what Greg would tell me.

ken said...

I was responding to someone who had no further effort in making a point than saying WTF..what are you talking about you don't still get...blah, blah, blah. The guy took no risk to correct or explain to me what he thought it was all about. My comment was discussing the article, and made a quick pass at something everyone notices in a passing response.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/us/politics/06web-baker.html?_r=0
Or
http://www.hindustantimes.com/newdelhi/obama-to-use-teleprompter-for-hindi-speech/article1-622605.aspx

It is ok to note these things even if the person is black, it doesn't blanket criticize the whole black population. You did not see me one time question his intelligence. I simply stated many people who are very intelligent still don't rise to the task before them.

"The purpose of this post was to get people thinking about what the parameters of the prevailing mainstream orthodoxy consist of, and, the extent to which the Hon.Bro.Preznit has demonstrated he's willing to go to rid this orthodoxy of "unclean sheep" and heretics, etc...,



Perhaps if you wouldn't get so defensive of clear and true critiques of the President, the thread might have delved in to why or what makes certain people feel they have to rid themselves of any deviation or opposing perspectives.

ken said...

Oh Tom, I know your on line persona to know why you think it is. And if you felt good telling that story I think that's about all that can be accomplished for this conversation. And I am happy I was here to help.

Tom said...

That's good. Stay strong. Remember what George Costanza said: "It's not a lie if you believe it."

CNu said...

lol, move out the way so whoever you brought along with you that's both knowledgeable and unbiased can impart the collective benefit that a clear and true critique of the president has to offer. Oh, yeah, save yourself the keystrokes aimed at after the fact whitewashing of the anti-Obama ad hominems you came traipsing in here with.

Ken, are you aware of the percentage of police shootings perpetrated over the past 30 years by white nationalists? Yet we don't profile white nationalists do we? Don't you find it interesting that great pains are being taken to reset governance relations with racial and religious minority populations around the issues of community, law and order, and countering extremism, yet no such meeting of the minds has been attempted or is even being considered with white nationalists?
http://nbclatino.com/2012/08/06/opinion-why-dont-we-profile-white-nationalists/ Instead, we should think small, in part because in the West the problem involves small numbers of potential terrorists: thousands, not millions. The focus should be on high-risk communities, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Prisons, for example, are breeders of terrorists, and ensuring that radicals do not dominate religious instruction behind bars and that there are programs (and intelligence agents) in place to stop terrorist recruitment is vital. Particularly important is targeting what terrorism expert William McCants calls “law-abiding supporters” — those who embrace extremist ideas on social media or are otherwise clearly at risk of joining a terrorist group, but have not yet broken the law.

ken said...

I think the only ad hominems has been directed towards me. Certainly, my criticisms would not have you making these implications had Obama been white.

As for your other point from the link who the guy said he wasn't serious at the end of the article, no I haven't heard what the percentage is of shootings of police officers by white nationalist.

Your cited paragraph from this link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-violent-extremism/2015/02/13/2dc72786-b215-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html



wasn't expanded, but I do agree with Holder, I don't see why so many conservative keep talking about trying to make sure this is labeled Islamic extremism. It really doesn't matter.

Vic78 said...

Forbes is part of the problem. They finally decided to take DOD seriously after 20 years? Forbes will never let science get in the way of their rich slurping.

CNu said...

but I do agree with Holder, I don't see why so many conservative keep talking about trying to make sure this is labeled Islamic extremism. It really doesn't matter. priceless comedy gold....,

Up top, quoth Ken; Why should I bypass all the total mishaps of this article to pull out its one nugget good and agreeable nugget? "It is not up to the president or any other government official to pronounce on the artists’ motives. In drawing their images, they were not so much acting “in the name of free speech” as exercising their lawful right to free speech. This in no way constitutes an “attack” on anyone. Obama’s use of the word implies that they deserved what they got. Such clever verbiage really signals one thing: capitulation. Easier to pay false homage to the ideals of multiculturalism than to state the politically inconvenient truth: Islamists murdered cartoonists for their cartoons.

And neither President Obama nor anyone else in the government should dare tell us that we are “obligated to use our free
speech” to denounce anyone for insulting religion. The First Amendment contains no proviso regarding insults, let alone excluding them from its protection; that would eviscerate the very right the amendment proclaims. To be free, speech must be free to offend. Even less are we required to show solidarity with “religious communities” of any stripe, no matter what the issue. Rather, we should stand for rationalism and the values of the Enlightenment, not bolster pernicious, backward-looking belief systems out of misbegotten notions of “tolerance.” At the beginning of this thread, the white nationalist stupidity of stereotyping terrorists as "Islamic" was the one good and agreeable nugget, but now, miraculously, it has become a matter of "no great consequence"?


Ken, if you didn't exist, I swear we would have to make you up!

CNu said...

We been on this one for a minute http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2008/01/wizard-of-oz.html