uwot wrote: ↑Wed Oct 03, 2018 9:01 am
Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Oct 03, 2018 2:27 amSimone Weil gets the term "Great Beast" from Plato. Specifically, this passage from Book VI of his Republic
The thing is, Plato's Republic is a manifesto for creating a state which is governed by unelected 'philosopher kings' who are encouraged by Plato to tell 'myths' to the hoi polloi, including that there are three types of human, gold, silver and iron and that therefore, there is a natural hierarchy that keeps the people who have power in power. There's also the blatant lie that men and women's partners will be decided by lot, but the system is to be rigged so that everyone will be compelled to marry whatever misfit the philosopher kings think suitable, thereby making sure that 'good blood' doesn't get contaminated with 'bad blood'. Then of course, there is the Myth of Er, with which the Republic closes. It is a resurrection myth, like Christianity, which describes the medieval vision of hell, that was only introduced to the bible in the new testament, which was written 400 years after the Republic. For the best part of 2 millennia, the political reality in Europe based on the Christianity which Plato largely inspired
was the Great Beast.
Until fairly recently, anyone pointing this out would have been up before the Inquisition, found guilty, tortured and possibly executed. That we no longer do this in the west, I would suggest, is progress, and the idea of going back to that seems like a really bad idea to people like me.
Uwot you refer to the essential philosophical question. In an ideal society is the essential purpose of government to serve Man or does Man serve the government?
Plato describes the human condition as being asleep as if in a cave attached to the shadows on the wall or reflections of reality while oblivious to the forms or the essence of reality the human essence in its normal state is drawn to experience and reflect.
When the state serves Man it provides what is psychologically necessary to aid in Man’s awakening so as to become normal. When Man serves the state he becomes indoctrinated into maintaining and expanding a given conception of abnormality gradually created by and furthering the corrupt human condition.
You are assuming Plato’s myths are aimed at manipulating the sleeping Great Beast and I maintain that Plato’s myths are an expression of human psychology which aids in the process of awakening.
You have adopted the one world secular position and I’ve adopted the universal position which accepts a conscious universal source and structure we can become increasingly aware of.
I know there are lurkers and I do suggest that if you re concerned with this question of the human condition that you read the following link. You will see that the ancient myths further awakening as opposed to indoctrination provided that they are not used for indoctrination. Rather than commenting on what Jacob Needleman explains, I’ll just quote the beginning and invite you ponder the reality of the numinous experience which the Alinsky conception of society is all too eager to crush in favor of creating functioning automatons..
http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=1
Richard Whittaker: Not too long ago I heard Lobsang Rapgay, a psychologist and Tibetan Buddhist from Los Angeles speak. One thing he talked about was "a tremendous fatigue of thinking that prevents us from thinking aesthetically." He said this way of thinking makes it possible "to transform a numinous experience and share it"... To be shared, he said, "it has to be transformed in a way that someone else can understand and learn from." He said further, "What I find most painful, even within spiritual communities, is an inability to translate a numinous experience..." This caught my attention, and it struck me that Rapgay chooses the word aesthetic as the necessary form of transformation. I wonder if you might have some thoughts about that?
Jacob Needleman: [long pause] I think there may be many things to clarify before we can approach this. The question has many roots. One root is that we really don't know what we're communicating most of the time. If I try to communicate to you just in words, even aesthetically—however you want to put it—I don't really know what I am communicating. I don't know on the very simplest levels. You can say something to somebody and then you hear that person speak about what you said and you realize that, just on the level of simple declarative sentences, they haven't heard you, and far less in regard to very subtle or inner experiences. So one of the biggest roots of this big issue is the awareness that we don't know what it is that we are communicating. Of course-as the "communicatee," if you like-I don't know when I am taking in what the other person has said or instead, how much I am imposing my own associations.
So, in a way it is a very profound thing he is saying, but it covers over a lot of other things that have to be unpacked before we can really dig into it. From one point of view it sounds like a great re-expression of the meaning of art, and probably, it is.
What does he mean by a "numinous experience"? In Plato's Republic there is the famous Allegory of The Cave. Socrates says that the person who finally comes out of the cave and sees the Truth—the reality of the sun—is obliged to go back down into the cave and try to help the cave dwellers. He is obliged. That doesn't mean it's nice to do that, it means it's part of the law. You don't keep it for yourself, you must share it. Then that touches on the question of skillful means, which is another root of this question—a big root out there, having to do with the transmission from one person more attained to one less attained. This is matter of communicating in a way that actually helps you feel something, touch something, glimpse something in your heart and your intuition. It troubles you in a right way, intentionally. So skillful means. I'm just trying to expose the roots of this question.
RW: Yes. This is helpful.
JN: The Buddha goes to help people who are suffering in hell, and in order to communicate to those who are living in hell, he has to speak in the form of a lie. He speaks the truth in the form of a lie because they would never understand the truth as it is. A famous example of that is called "the lie of kama" which is love—"The Kamatic lie" which is how you communicate the truth. People are asleep. People are deluded. If you tell them really straight out what the situation is... He likens it to a house being on fire where there are children in the house on the second or third floor. You've got to get them out but they don't know the house is burning. You might try to scare them, you could try to plead with them, but they might not listen to you. You have to say something that will really make them listen. You tell them there are toys in the street. Jump! They would be afraid to jump, that you might not catch them. There are many toys down here! And so they jump and you catch them. They see then that there are no toys, but their lives have been saved. So you have to communicate knowing the levers that you have to press. Skillful means could be called, aesthetic communication. That could be part of the roots of this whole big question. Do you know Kierkegaard's thought at all?..................
I see why as secularist you must interpret Plato as you do. I know why the great ideas are hated in the world with such passion. They question the superiority of secular dualistic reason. But at the same time there is an obligation to keep such ideas alive in the world regardless of how they are hated.
Contemplating Alinsky's aim and techniques is very useful for anyone concerned with why we so easily accept cave life as normal.
