Potpourri
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Potpourri Contents:
Mozi
Some Sexual Advice
Rant for Pure Mother's Milk
A Pioneer to the Atheists
Mozi
Thank God, it is great to be alive; for with every day that passes the boundless expanse of my ignorance is laid out in ever greater splendor before my wondering eyes. This morning the trigger of my astonishment was Mozi, or Mo Tzu, a pre-Confucian Chinese philosopher that I confess I do not recall every having heard of. He is briefly quoted at the start of the last chapter of Singer's One World, where Mozi asks: "What is the way to universal love and benefit?" and answers his own question, "It is to regard other peoples' countries as one's own." (Peter Singer, One World, The Ethics of Globalization, 196) Here are the Baha'i principles of Oneness of Humanity and Universal Peace distilled as succinctly as ever you could ask for. I looked a bit further into Mo Tzu this morning and discovered the following insight, which seems convergent with the recent discovery (discussed in detail here a few essays ago) that we use the same region of the brain for remembering as we do for imagining future events. The Book of Mozi relates:
"P'eng Ch'ing Shengtse said: `The past can be known, the future cannot.' Mo Tzu said: `Suppose your parents met with misfortune when 30 miles away, and there was just the margin of a single day. If they could be reached they would live, if not they would die. Here are a strong wagon and an excellent horse, and here are a bad horse and a square-wheeled cart. You are allowed to choose. Which would you take?' It was replied that the excellent horse and the strong wagon would of course make for a more speedy journey. Mo Tzu said: `How then is the future not knowable?'" (The Ethical and Political Works of Mo Tzu, tr: Yi-Pao Mei, Arthur Probsthain, London, 1929, at: http://www.humanistictexts.org/motzu.htm)
I found out that the above little aphorism of Mo Tzu quoted by Singer was no flash in the pan. His idea that the way to peace is to erase the "us versus them" mindset by regarding others as yourself and their countries as your own country is inherent to Mozi's ethics.
"For Mo Tzu, Universal love confers `righteousness' on a person; "righteousness" 'or Mo Tzu is merely living one's life in accordance with heaven, which after all regards all humans as equal: `One who obeys the will of heaven will practice universal love; one who disobeys the will of heaven will practice partial love.'" (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHPHIL/MOTZU.HTM#NT1)
In other words, there is no positive evil, everything is good, but some goods are more universal than others. Prejudice is a limited form of love; ignorance is stunted knowledge. This pretty much sums up Mozi's ethical philosophy, which boils down to knowing how our limited minds and hearts establish bounds on love,
"Humane men are concerned about providing benefits to the world and eliminating its calamities. . . . When we come to ask about the causes of the calamities (war, poverty, etc.) that people suffer, from what do these calamities arise? Do they arise from people loving others and benefiting others? Certainly not. We should say that they arise from people hating and injuring others. If we should classify one-by-one all those who hate and injure others, will we find that they are partial or universal in their love? Certainly, we'll find them partial in their love. Therefore, partial love is the cause of all the human calamities in the world. Partial love is wrong." (quoted at: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHPHIL/MOTZU.HTM#NT1)
Some Sexual Advice
Note: Like many, I return from time to time to the question of sex, as yesterday. This essay had "sex" as its subject line. Experience has taught me means that many recipients will not get it because spam filters have a nasty habit of rejecting every email with "sex" anywhere in the subject line. So, if you did not get that essay simply go to my blog, badiblog.blogspot.com and read it there. While you are there, you can probably get the blog to send you the blog version of my daily essay. When I make typos or other blunders, this is the version that gets corrected, so it is preferable that people consult this, rather than my mail-outs. Just do not ask me how you do an RSS feed, because I have no idea.
Rant for Pure Mother's Milk
We desperately need to pray for the left and right wing. Until a revealed prayer turns up, let this little supplication suffice.
"O God, make us into true conservatives! O God, liberate us so we can be true liberals! Lord, spare us from the false imitations of both ideals. Save us from progress made regress, from conservatives who do not conserve, from liberals with no idea what real liberty is. O God, send us real conservatives to protect us from the dangers of science gone mad!"
What prompted this was news that chemicals invented by anonymous developers hiding behind a corporate facade have added to women's cosmetics chemicals so powerful that they penetrate the body and are now turning up in mother's milk. Now there are artificial pheromones so seductive that they defeat the whole purpose of reproduction. Where are the conservatives when we need them?
As if we were not getting enough exposure to chemicals already, now the cosmetics industry takes it to a new level. The corporatocracy has removed from us a fundamental human right, the right to know what we are eating, to know everything that is entering our body. An example is, well, just about everything you eat. Want to know what is in it? Forget it.
Corporations have a sacred right to keep that information from you.
Artificial flavoring and preservatives are protected as trade secrets. This allows them to compete with one another better. A good analogy is this: you are tied down and rival gangs are competing to see who can shoot you first. Does it matter to you which gang finally puts a bullet through your heart? Myself, I do not want anybody shooting at me, I want safety. I want real conservatives in control, for liberty comes from solid protection, and liberalism can only thrive if conservatism is efficacious.
A Pioneer to the Atheists
Lately I wrote of my mission to the atheists. My friend Peter Gardner has a similar calling. He spends much of his time in a lesser known corner of the Web called "Theism Debate." If cyberspace were like geography, most of use would, at best, be travel teachers, but Peter would be considered a permanent pioneer. He writes,
"My favorite forum is http://groups.msn.com/TheismDebate. What I enjoy are discussions with rational-minded people who have objections to mere religious imitation. Most of the members are agnostics or freethinkers. A small number of religious people also participate. There are over a thousand members listed but I don't know how many are active. Each conversation that a person starts often carries on for months, with posts up to a hundred or more. It is a pleasure to respond to difficult questions because it gets me thinking and reading to offer a helpful answer. If you wish to join, follow the instructions on the site (at the above URL) when you get there. Enjoy."
Peter sent me a sample. This is a recent post he made to the Theism Debate discussion group. It is part of a longer conversation.
"An erroneous scientific idea is displaced by an advancing science. An erroneous philosophical idea is challenged within the context of philosophy. What could displace an erroneous religious idea in the hearts of people with a proclivity for religion? Thousands of years of history and prehistory indicate that human beings have a propensity for religion. Our nature may not dramatically change in the next few thousand years, even if we improve our philosophy, our science and our religion. Those mistakes in the realm of scientific inquiry from the past are not likely to gain hold again. They have been displaced. Since, generally, we are scientific, philosophical and religious, is it not likely that we will advance in understanding all of these questions? You and I can have a positive influence on all of these types of dialog, not by arresting them but by contributing to them."
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