Secular Intolerance

[Arising_uk]

You asked what I would teach. I told you the essentials. It isn't a matter of which religions or which artists but the essence of religion and the essence of art, what it means to know in science, and physical exercises for the body. The rest is details. ...

But the details are important not least because I assume you wish to use tax-payers money to teach your theology. I think it'll also be of much interest to the other theology -isms what you will allow to be taught, so once again, will you be allowing Deism, Theism, Animism, Spiritualism, Paganism and even Atheism, etc, to be taught in your proposed education system?

Will you allow the Arts and Sciences to be taught without interference?

We know what it 'means to know' in science, in the main it's to have repeatable results.

Can't disagree with having PE on the curriculum.

Simone Wei's favorite instructor in college was Emile Chartier. Researching why Simone like him I came across this quote. "There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them." Now i know why Simone liked him. I would do my best to avoid those who hate ideas. They are spirit killers.

That's funny coming from you as it's you who hates certain sets of ideas.

[fooloso4]

Arising_uk:

Always thought this has been misunderstood as back then the Greeks and Romans had to have actual prodigious memories hence the Roman Villa memory technique, they had to remember events, speeches, records, etc pretty much verbatim. So if you Nick wish to truly ape them then stop thinking it's about mystical memory and start training your actual memory …

As I pointed out, this is confirmed by the Phaedrus itself.

[Nick_A]

F4

If we are in the cave then we cannot contemplate truth, only what we might imagine it to be.

No, you are referring to mechanical contemplation which is really analysis. Conscious contemplation isn’t mechanical. It invites remembrance

Analysis is a very useful tool which can also result in imagination. Conscious contemplation begins when a person is willing to submit. You have no desire submit

Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being. ~ Simone Weil

The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit. ~ Simone Weil

You seem to believe that self-knowledge is a matter of retrieving or recognizing or remembering inborn knowledge.

No. Self knowledge is objective knowledge of what we are – not opinions of what we are. It is conscious knowledge of the human machine. This can lead to remembering inborn knowledge because of the quality of consciousness present during efforts at self knowledge.

You seem to think it is a choice between believing what he says or contemplating on what he says. While I agree that it is not a matter of belief it is not a matter of contemplating abstracted parts of what he says either. If the works are to be contemplated they must, in my opinion, be contemplated as a whole, attending to all that he says in those works. The Phaedrus says this and it is worth contemplating. But even if we try to attend to the whole we are only seeing snapshots of a larger landscape and as he says in the Second Letter, his innermost thoughts are not written anywhere.

Again, you don’t know what conscious contemplation is. In order to experience the whole you have to be open to receive what the literal mind limited to duality is incapable of.

Socrates and Plato are a part of the long line of perennial teachers who awaken the inner man. You keep interpreting Plato from the perspective of the outer man - the personality. The “contradictions" serve to bypass dual reason and further conscious contemplation. This is why you cannot understand the New Testament. You don’t know why it is written as it is. You may be closed as are secular intolerants within education who make sure that the young awakening to the reality of themselves not explained by their personalities are psychologically crushed for their efforts

The Gospels speak mainly of a possible inner evolution called "re-birth". This is their central idea. ... The Gospels are from beginning to end all about this possible self-evolution. They are psychological documents. They are about the psychology of this possible inner development --that is, about what a man must think, feel, and do in order to reach a new level of understanding. ... Everyone has an outer side that has been developed by his contact with life and an inner side which remains vague, uncertain, undeveloped. ... For that reason the teaching of inner evolution must be so formed that it does not fall solely on the outer side of man. It must fall there first, but be capable of penetrating more deeply and awakening the man himself --the inner, unorganized man. A man evolves internally through his deeper reflection, not through his outer life-controlled side. He evolves through the spirit of his understanding and by inner consent to what he sees as truth. The psychological meanings of the relatively fragmentary teaching recorded in the Gospels refers to this deeper, inner side of everyone.

- Maurice Nicoll; The New Man

[Nick_A]

Arising

But the details are important not least because I assume you wish to use tax-payers money to teach your theology. I think it'll also be of much interest to the other theology -isms what you will allow to be taught, so once again, will you be allowing Deism, Theism, Animism, Spiritualism, Paganism and even Atheism, etc, to be taught in your proposed education system?

Will you allow the Arts and Sciences to be taught without interference?

We know what it 'means to know' in science, in the main it's to have repeatable results.

Can't disagree with having PE on the curriculum.

The details are important in that they show why a human education is no longer possible. The Great Beast will not allow it so human education devolves into secular indoctrination

How can public education be expected to teach art since it doesn't know what it is? Ask what art is in contrast to expression and you'll get some Oprahisms that sound good but are objectively meaningless.

A person can know scientific facts but unless they reflect a human perspective, what is actually known?

That is why a human education is only possible in a private setting. Sad but true

[fooloso4]

Nick:

No, you are referring to mechanical contemplation which is really analysis. Conscious contemplation isn’t mechanical. It invites remembrance

Does inviting remembrance mean knowing the truth? If it does not then your contemplation is not contemplation of the truth as described in the Republic, that is, it is not seeing the Forms themselves. It a merely a practice you apparently hope will lead to knowledge of the truth. I do not think it will, you do. Neither of us knows. Once again, it is not a question of whether I think the truth is more important than opinion, it is that in my opinion contemplation does not “invite remembrance” of the truth. Your opinion is that it does. We are still in the cave and still arguing opinion.

Conscious contemplation begins when a person is willing to submit. You have no desire submit

That is true. You of course do the same when it comes to submitting to claims other than your own.

Self knowledge is objective knowledge of what we are – not opinions of what we are. It is conscious knowledge of the human machine.

Can one have self-knowledge and still be in the cave?

In order to experience the whole you have to be open to receive what the literal mind limited to duality is incapable of.

I am talking about the whole of the Platonic text. The whole of what is said in the text. It does not a matter of a literal mind but rather a literate mind. It means being able to read the text as it tells us to read it, that is, as a whole. It means being open to the text. You are not open to the text.

You keep interpreting Plato from the perspective of the outer man - the personality.

It is rather that I do not impose assumptions on the text. It is reason and attentiveness to what is actually in the text that guides my reading. The problem is that the assumption renders the text itself irrelevant, except to the extent you imagine it can help awaken the inner man. This prevents you from seeing that Plato like Socrates was a skeptic who relied on what he calls his “second-sailing”, that is, reasoned speech or dialectic. You are not open to the text. Plato reminds us of our ignorance. You are unwilling to submit to the fact that we do not know, that human knowledge is limited.

The “contradictions" serve to bypass dual reason and further conscious contemplation.

I think this is part of the problem. You may believe that contemplation leads to transcendence of human limits, and within your closed insular loop there is no one to contract you. The claim is simply accepted and acted upon. This is exactly the opposite of what dialectic is about. Any contradiction you encounter you bypass, you retreat from it.

The textual contradictions as I see it serve to alert the reader that there is more to what is being said. We are challenged to reconcile differences by thinking through the issues and making connections within the text that resolve the contradictions. If we cannot resolve them then we have to look at why. The point is not to abandon reason but rather to make us aware of our limits, both as individuals and as human beings. To acknowledge that there are things we do not know and why perhaps they may be things we cannot know. To make us skeptical of claims that transcend human wisdom. Reasoned speech, the ability to give an account stands as the measure, not insular contemplation. This is at the heart of Socrates’ criticism of the poets, the claim of being divinely inspirited. There is good reason they were banned from the Republic.

[Arising_uk]

As I pointed out, this is confirmed by the Phaedrus itself.

Ah! Must have missed it, sorry.

[Arising_uk]

The details are important in that they show why a human education is no longer possible. ...

If the details are important why do you refuse to give any?

The Great Beast will not allow it so human education devolves into secular indoctrination

And yet here you are yakking about it?

How can public education be expected to teach art since it doesn't know what it is? Ask what art is in contrast to expression and you'll get some Oprahisms that sound good but are objectively meaningless. ...

How about just teaching people to paint and draw and leave them to get on with it?

A person can know scientific facts but unless they reflect a human perspective, what is actually known?

A scientific fact?

That is why a human education is only possible in a private setting. Sad but true

Cobblers really as what you describe is exactly an indoctrination.

[Belinda]

Arising uk wrote:

How about just teaching people to paint and draw and leave them to get on with it?

That would be great if a little like what Rousseau thought. Trouble is that the kids arrive at school primed with a variety of narratives that don't fit the 'secular' model of critical evaluation which they are suppose to learn at school.

[Arising_uk]

That would be great if a little like what Rousseau thought. Trouble is that the kids arrive at school primed with a variety of narratives that don't fit the 'secular' model of critical evaluation which they are suppose to learn at school.

Sorry but what are you talking about?

[Nick_A]

The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. However, I am also not a "Freethinker" in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition. My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insuffiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature." It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Freethinker mentality. Sincerely yours, Albert Einstein.

One of the best descriptions of a spirit killer I've read. They think there is something valuable and conclusive in their freethinking attitudes concerning superstition. It just deprives them of the humility to ever acquire greater understandings that serve the needs of the heart. It wouldn't be so bad if they just inwardly prematurely died but they feel compelled to take down some innocent kids with them. Who wants to die alone?

[fooloso4]

Nick:

They think there is something valuable and conclusive in their freethinking attitudes concerning superstition.

Einstein too was opposed to “naive superstition”. If opposition to naive superstition is spirit killing then Einstein too was a spirit killer. He says nothing about anamnesis or Forms. Perhaps he saw them as superstition. He does not believe that subjective states of consciousness that you call objective stand as truth. Now you can trot out the quotes on intuition both those falsely attributed to Einstein and actual quotes but nowhere does he mean intuitive knowledge. Einstein’s intuitions are not insights into the truth. Intuition is not self verifying. He follows intuitive hunches but they can turn out to be wrong.

Einstein was not a freethinker but he was a secularist. A spirit killing secularist? By your standards he was.

[Nick_A]

Nick:

They think there is something valuable and conclusive in their freethinking attitudes concerning superstition.

Einstein too was opposed to “naive superstition”. If opposition to naive superstition is spirit killing then Einstein too was a spirit killer. He says nothing about anamnesis or Forms. Perhaps he saw them as superstition. He does not believe that subjective states of consciousness that you call objective stand as truth. Now you can trot out the quotes on intuition both those falsely attributed to Einstein and actual quotes but nowhere does he mean intuitive knowledge. Einstein’s intuitions are not insights into the truth. Intuition is not self verifying. He follows intuitive hunches but they can turn out to be wrong.

Einstein was not a freethinker but he was a secularist. A spirit killing secularist? By your standards he was.

A secularist cannot be open to the experience of awe and wonder. It is the experience of something greater than ourselves and those who experience it cannot be secularists believing in the Great Beast as their God.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” ~ Albert Einstein

Dedicated secular intolerants are as good as dead on the inside. Secular intolerants in secular education strive to crush "this feeling is at the center of true religiousness." Praising such egoistic ignorance and the resulting metaphysical repression it produces is truly an ugly form of psychological child abuse.

[fooloso4]

Nick:

A secularist cannot be open to the experience of awe and wonder.

Einstein was a secularist.

It is the experience of something greater than ourselves and those who experience it cannot be secularists believing in the Great Beast as their God.

Forget the labels and the endless loop playing in your head, open your eyes and your mind, and start thinking. You have closed yourself off and instead of conscious awareness of others you fixate on a fiction you have created. You cannot see into the mind and soul of others.

[Belinda]

That would be great if a little like what Rousseau thought. Trouble is that the kids arrive at school primed with a variety of narratives that don't fit the 'secular' model of critical evaluation which they are suppose to learn at school.

Sorry but what are you talking about?

I thought that "Just teaching------ to paint and draw and leaving them to get on with it" referred to children at school following their own immediate desires with no urging from teacher to apply themselves to something difficult, new, challenging, and necessary for their future success and happiness such as maths, science,logic, physical education.

To expect the child's inherent possibilities to be sufficient to educate the child is what Rousseau tried with Emile, according the the story which I vaguely recall. This childish freedom from cultural influence stemming from family, geography, climate, social class, wealth or poverty, availability of fresh air, etc etc. is a myth, a thought experiment with no facts to justify it.

The following quotation from Rousseau chimes with Nick:

"Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man".

The child arriving at school is required, or should be required to learn critical thinking in science and life events. This can't be accomplished in many cases until the child learns the way of thought of learned people which in many cases is opposed to popular ideas. Popular religion, popular scorn for abstract ideas and vocabulary , social class loyalty, for instance, have to be, not so much unlearned, but retained alongside the novel insight of objective and critical reflection.

Family influences are particularly strong, and rightly so. However family influences have to be set aside and sometimes discarded if the child is to become educated. I cannot see that drawing and painting accomplish anything more than emotional catharsis unless drawing and painting are accompanied by ideas including scientific ideas, and at least some ideas about uses of paint, pencils,and perspective, and introduction to famous artists' uses of same.

Nick's insistence upon one particular set of ideas is not unlike the 'secular' educational model in that both Nick's m odel and the 'secular' model instill ideas into the child. My point is that the child is not a tabula rasa but is already primed with ideas from infancy, and skill with drawing and painting or any other technology is not enough, either for Nick or for 'seculars'.

Apologies, if the above reads like a lecture. I am just trying to be as concise as I can. Arising_uk has already written to the effect that the curriculum should include difficult stuff.

[Belinda]

Nick wrote:

A secularist cannot be open to the experience of awe and wonder. It is the experience of something greater than ourselves and those who experience it cannot be secularists believing in the Great Beast as their God.

The above seems to be Nick's definition of a secularist. Perhaps Nick simply chose the wrong word and means insensible, unresponsive , and unsympathetic, which I think describes someone who is not open the experience of awe and wonder.