Controvertial Subjects

Subjects that Rile Folk Up

 * Many find "too hot to handle".


 * Not for us.


 * This is NOT an occasion for "flameing" or ad hominem comment.


 * What IS its focus are subjects / topics for which there are no easy answers.


 * Usually indicative of entrenched opposing camps that would sooner undermine one another than seek common ground.


 * HERE we will aspire to that common ground.

Cod Liver Oil & the Lilly-Livered

 * (A Propos ala Alain, A Riff ala Coltrane)


 * It's good for ya but tastes like crap


 * Both are common knowledge


 * You know both but choose to focus on just the taste.


 * It's god-awful, horrible & only a callus fiend would serve it up.


 * Yes, fiend.... A totally inhuman act & thus a fiend.


 * Banish the fiend for thou would forego bitter Cod Liver Oil forevermore.


 * Lilly-livered, dost thou not know that in ALL relations the ONE you meet is yourself !


 * Clearly the map is not the territory.


 * Mitaguyasin, heyoka.... Rman

The Map is NOT the Territory

 * A basic premise of "General Semantics" & attributable to Count Alfred Korzybski.


 * No matter HOW detailed the map in your possession, when you actually walk the territory that is an experience no map could trully depict.


 * When you follow a principle, like an ethical imperative that places you on the horns of a dilemma, you can feel that your damned if you do & damned if you don't.


 * No matter how acute the insight BEFORE you make a fateful decision it can only give you a partialization of the AFTER fallout, the consequences that follow whatever course you decide.


 * Another vantage to formulating a best course, making decisions, involves 3 premises of far reaching significance.


 * "Ideas have consequences."


 * "We can be cut-down to nothing at any time."


 * "Act AS IF you've a handle on all the variants, all the outcomes, all the forces in play."


 * Out of that matrix decide, act & live.


 * Accept fallibilty, embrace it publically, is the only redemption.


 * Rman

Self-Fullfilling Prophecies

 * An interesting expression.


 * It presuposes "Power" so let me define that.


 * Power:the ability to cause or prevent change.


 * Thus "Self-fullfilling Prophecy" presupposes an extant state of power.


 * This power can manifest in a positive or negative form.


 * Actions to promote change leading to tangible achievement is the positive aspect.


 * A responsible excersise of that form of power entails due acknowledgement of a "greater good" beyond personal gain.


 * In one of its negative forms power is excercised to impede change that would lead to the "greater good" defined above.


 * Obstructions can take many forms but just 2 will be highlighted.


 * Overt acts of deliberate obstruction or attempts to undermine progress. Here you discern the opposition - they're not concealing intent & thus honor bound.


 * Then there are craven modus-operandi such as "Passive Aggressive" stances.


 * In a paradoxical way it is the powerless attempting to excercise power by doing nothing.


 * This is yet another characteristic of a feeble self-delusion that places personal gain above all. As if that alone in any way really mattered to progess in the greater world.


 * "Change leading to tangible accomplishment" is what unmasks a root powerless state & thus the "passive aggressive" defense.


 * Pitiful yes but also a source of dangerous resentments.


 * In some ways the perception is akin to the adage:


 * "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...."


 * To be unmasked as feeble is grounds for perpetuating a course of revenge characterized by exclusive focus on Un-doing.


 * This ilk reside in a true wasteland of mind & spirit I donot envy. More pointedly, it's necessary to guard against enervating influences that are its legacy.


 * The goal of these dark forces is to demoralize or dispirit & in that can be effective but only if granted the power by those who would forfeit a bit of their souls out of timidity.


 * Rman

Comments on Power

 * I'm led to ask:


 * Can Power ever be neutral ?


 * Certainly not in its excercise.


 * But what of a case where "Power" can be wielded but is not ?


 * I'd have to say that this last case is a decision based on a position held & thus it cannot be neutral.


 * So I'm inclined to postulate that power in the possession of a living entity can never be held in neutrality.


 * It is always operating under some principle even when reigned-in.


 * Rman.

Power & Its Meanings

 * "Self-interest" & "Self-gain" are not synonymous.


 * Indeed are often confused as the same in the realm of emotion.


 * What is the nature of "Power" in these 2 distinct arenas: "Self-interest" and "Self-gain"....


 * And where does that intersect the "Greater Good" ?


 * For that matter: What is the "Greater Good" ?


 * More l8r...... Rman.

Power's Dynamic Geometry

 * When "Power" is sought only over oneself & NOT others it becomes transparent.


 * "Power" can be seen as a dynamic equation - a geometry in search of a tetrahedron thru tensegrity.


 * 2 of the 4 aspects, or continuums, that are better known: "Light & Dark"


 * The other 2, less known, are: "Attraction & Repulsion"


 * What I mean by this last is abivalence: peeps want & don't want it - that is "Power".


 * Power entails decisions with consequences that most would prefer someone else take responsibility for.


 * As such the quad dynamic is: Light & Dark..... Love & Hate...


 * Some hold in "absolutes" like black & white.


 * Others hold to "continuums" like shades of grey or fuzzy-sets.


 * Then there is a vast number of "True Believers" (secular or sacred) whose commitment can be seen as an "Escape from Freedom".....