Comments on: Like, whoa http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/ A graduate student in mathematics and a modern languages major take on politics and culture with the following aspirational motto: ‘Deregulate your mind.’ Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:53:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Chris http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-513 Chris Thu, 05 May 2005 15:33:06 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-513 <p>I HATE BLOGS...WHAT THE HELL IS A BLOG....GET A LIFE YOU NON-SOCIAL MORONS!</p> I HATE BLOGS…WHAT THE HELL IS A BLOG….GET A LIFE YOU NON-SOCIAL MORONS!

]]> By: Dave http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-510 Dave Thu, 14 Apr 2005 02:05:54 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-510 <p>I certainly don’t begrudge your having a shot at figuring out the world. The most boring thing I find about most people is that they don’t have serious or curious minds. The thing I like about you and your brother is that you are not fanatics. I am an idealist myself, believe it or not. Trying to understand makes it fun even if you never get there. Also life is very long and an active mind precludes boredom and you do make slow progress. Instead of buying into one program I like to look at different times and places and when you do you see patterns. For instance one day I when I was in high school , I was walking down the street and a man had thrown out a pile of books on the street. I picked up some and took them home, and dried them out. One book was entitled “Studies in a Dying Culture” by Christopher Caudwell. 1938 You can actually still purchase the book or thanks to the magic of the internet you can get some chapters on line. But perhaps best of all you can get a lot of information about Caudwell from a site by Hellena Sheehan a Marxist professor from Ireland. This man had some sort of ideological crisis in the late thirties became a Marxist and felt like it brought about some sort of intellectual salvation and renewed purpose. He became an active revolutionary, joined the Spanish Civil War and was shot dead in his first battle. Ms. Sheehans web site is:</p> <p>www.comms.dcu.ie/sheehanh/caudwell.htm </p> <p>www.http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/ </p> <p>Has some chapters from his book. There was a lot of concern on his part about science just a tremendous amount of gobbledygook about bourgeois science vs. Marxist science but it saves his soul. If you do have time to glance at it please let me know what you think. </p> <p>What does this have to do with anything? This man is an archetype for the intelligent young man in search of ideals and finding it through radicalism. But you can see what happened subsequently. You can see how he took the bait and thought he had found answers. Quite frankly I have never been able to figure out what he was talking about. Ms. Sheehan thinks it is some great insight that Marxism provides, as she is still a Marxist. You know as well as I do the damage done by Marxist ideology but the jargon evidently strikes some as profound. But that is not the only path; there are is also the al-Qutb path and others.</p> <p>Maybe there are sensible and moderate way of addressing the perennial issues raised by the philosopher kings but is it too much to ask, given the past’s experiences that we agree to dispense with the tyranny? </p> I certainly don’t begrudge your having a shot at figuring out the world. The most boring thing I find about most people is that they don’t have serious or curious minds. The thing I like about you and your brother is that you are not fanatics. I am an idealist myself, believe it or not. Trying to understand makes it fun even if you never get there. Also life is very long and an active mind precludes boredom and you do make slow progress. Instead of buying into one program I like to look at different times and places and when you do you see patterns. For instance one day I when I was in high school , I was walking down the street and a man had thrown out a pile of books on the street. I picked up some and took them home, and dried them out. One book was entitled “Studies in a Dying Culture” by Christopher Caudwell. 1938 You can actually still purchase the book or thanks to the magic of the internet you can get some chapters on line. But perhaps best of all you can get a lot of information about Caudwell from a site by Hellena Sheehan a Marxist professor from Ireland. This man had some sort of ideological crisis in the late thirties became a Marxist and felt like it brought about some sort of intellectual salvation and renewed purpose. He became an active revolutionary, joined the Spanish Civil War and was shot dead in his first battle. Ms. Sheehans web site is:

www.comms.dcu.ie/sheehanh/caudwell.htm

www.http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/

Has some chapters from his book. There was a lot of concern on his part about science just a tremendous amount of gobbledygook about bourgeois science vs. Marxist science but it saves his soul. If you do have time to glance at it please let me know what you think.

What does this have to do with anything? This man is an archetype for the intelligent young man in search of ideals and finding it through radicalism. But you can see what happened subsequently. You can see how he took the bait and thought he had found answers. Quite frankly I have never been able to figure out what he was talking about. Ms. Sheehan thinks it is some great insight that Marxism provides, as she is still a Marxist. You know as well as I do the damage done by Marxist ideology but the jargon evidently strikes some as profound. But that is not the only path; there are is also the al-Qutb path and others.

Maybe there are sensible and moderate way of addressing the perennial issues raised by the philosopher kings but is it too much to ask, given the past’s experiences that we agree to dispense with the tyranny?

]]> By: Curt http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-509 Curt Wed, 13 Apr 2005 20:15:55 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-509 <p>I don't necessarily disagree with your view of al-Qutb's philosophy, though I'm not sure whether you are implying all "attempts to find meaning and closure to all life’s mysteries and discomforts and to redress all of life’s real or imagined grievances" are fanatical or whether there are any that don't rely on ideology in a broadly construed sense of the term. But in any case I think you may underestimate the need to offer an explicit philosophy to counter such a set of views as al-Qutb's. I don't doubt that it's easy enough for you to dismiss it all as nonsense instigated by "fanatical" youth, but being an aforementioned disaffeted youth myself it's not so easy for me to do so before thinking out the arguments on both sides and, I would suspect, the same is true for many of my age and inclinations who have not yet cast very deep roots in the soil yet. I don't think al-Qutb's philosophy will or was meant to appeal to those that have already lived through the 60's and become disenchanted with the curative powers of ideology, but every generation will have its radicalisms, and for them it is quite important to have something which will prove more appealing than al-Qutb's on an intellectual as well as social level. I have already suggested that all the ideas are there in our society, but when it comes to articulating them it seems we are speaking a different language than al-Qutb and hence will not be heard by those who listen to him. I may not like the solutions that he offers, but the problems he voices are real, and the longer people in the West continue to ignore them or consider them as stupid, quite apart from the potential alienation of people that may later resort to a philosophy like al-Qutb's, we miss the opportunity to improve our own society.</p> I don’t necessarily disagree with your view of al-Qutb’s philosophy, though I’m not sure whether you are implying all “attempts to find meaning and closure to all life’s mysteries and discomforts and to redress all of life’s real or imagined grievances” are fanatical or whether there are any that don’t rely on ideology in a broadly construed sense of the term. But in any case I think you may underestimate the need to offer an explicit philosophy to counter such a set of views as al-Qutb’s. I don’t doubt that it’s easy enough for you to dismiss it all as nonsense instigated by “fanatical” youth, but being an aforementioned disaffeted youth myself it’s not so easy for me to do so before thinking out the arguments on both sides and, I would suspect, the same is true for many of my age and inclinations who have not yet cast very deep roots in the soil yet. I don’t think al-Qutb’s philosophy will or was meant to appeal to those that have already lived through the 60’s and become disenchanted with the curative powers of ideology, but every generation will have its radicalisms, and for them it is quite important to have something which will prove more appealing than al-Qutb’s on an intellectual as well as social level. I have already suggested that all the ideas are there in our society, but when it comes to articulating them it seems we are speaking a different language than al-Qutb and hence will not be heard by those who listen to him. I may not like the solutions that he offers, but the problems he voices are real, and the longer people in the West continue to ignore them or consider them as stupid, quite apart from the potential alienation of people that may later resort to a philosophy like al-Qutb’s, we miss the opportunity to improve our own society.

]]> By: Dave http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-508 Dave Wed, 13 Apr 2005 14:58:33 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2005/04/12/like-whoa/#comment-508 <p>"It seems to me that, rather than simply dismissing them (al-Qutb’s views) as nonsense, if one cannot find compelling grounds for dissenting from them and for upholding one’s own views, then one’s own views are not worth upholding." Curt The reason I find it easy to dismiss these views is that I sees them as fanatical attempts to find meaning and closure to all life’s mysteries and discomforts and to redress all of life’s real or imagined grievances by relying on ideology. “Brilliantly” complex and internally consistent, yet lacking in common sense or simple humanity these movements attract all kinds of malcontents, brainy neurotic youths, naive believers, idealists, opportunists, phony charismatic psychopaths and thugs. The latter two groups end up running these organizations. These movements are a dime a dozen and range from Nazism to various extreme nationalistic, nativist, primitivist or religious dogmas and various brands of Communist or socialist doctrine. Devotes these ideologies get temporary personal benefits and special dispensations including relief from a meaninglessness, social cohesion and status, relief from the depressing need to think independently and permission to have fun brutalizing, dehumanizing, and violating other humans while maintaining a clear conscience. Inevitably these movements come under the personal dominance of some Stalinesque figure and devour their own, split into factions that war with one another or become groups of common criminals. (For the Muslims you already have an irrevocable schism between the Shia and Sunni. And guess who is attracted to the Muslim religion in this country, criminals.) It takes little intelligence to see the commonalities between these groups, but it seems that many idealistic, unhappy people are attracted to this kind of autocratic, twisted thinking and as a consequence there is much unnecessary human suffering. I was reading somewhere about a campus radical in the Sixties who finally realized the true insanity of the “Students for Democratic Society” group he was involved with when there were dead serious discussions concerning what to do with any surviving white babies after the revolution. Should they reeducate them or kill them? Whose life view is superior to that of al-Qutb? In my opinion the man who decides to make a living by becoming the best damn cake decorator in town has a better philosophy. </p> “It seems to me that, rather than simply dismissing them (al-Qutb’s views) as nonsense, if one cannot find compelling grounds for dissenting from them and for upholding one’s own views, then one’s own views are not worth upholding.” Curt The reason I find it easy to dismiss these views is that I sees them as fanatical attempts to find meaning and closure to all life’s mysteries and discomforts and to redress all of life’s real or imagined grievances by relying on ideology. “Brilliantly” complex and internally consistent, yet lacking in common sense or simple humanity these movements attract all kinds of malcontents, brainy neurotic youths, naive believers, idealists, opportunists, phony charismatic psychopaths and thugs. The latter two groups end up running these organizations. These movements are a dime a dozen and range from Nazism to various extreme nationalistic, nativist, primitivist or religious dogmas and various brands of Communist or socialist doctrine. Devotes these ideologies get temporary personal benefits and special dispensations including relief from a meaninglessness, social cohesion and status, relief from the depressing need to think independently and permission to have fun brutalizing, dehumanizing, and violating other humans while maintaining a clear conscience. Inevitably these movements come under the personal dominance of some Stalinesque figure and devour their own, split into factions that war with one another or become groups of common criminals. (For the Muslims you already have an irrevocable schism between the Shia and Sunni. And guess who is attracted to the Muslim religion in this country, criminals.) It takes little intelligence to see the commonalities between these groups, but it seems that many idealistic, unhappy people are attracted to this kind of autocratic, twisted thinking and as a consequence there is much unnecessary human suffering. I was reading somewhere about a campus radical in the Sixties who finally realized the true insanity of the “Students for Democratic Society” group he was involved with when there were dead serious discussions concerning what to do with any surviving white babies after the revolution. Should they reeducate them or kill them? Whose life view is superior to that of al-Qutb? In my opinion the man who decides to make a living by becoming the best damn cake decorator in town has a better philosophy.

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