Tuesday, 18 August 2015

The Opium of the People


Sam Harris
This is what Karl Marx actually said:
The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Everyone knows Marx was a theorist whose ideas have not come to pass in real life. I like to see myself as a nontheorist—open to what I see before me, rejecting all belief, driven by inner impulse to the point where I cast my fate to the winds. All the same, I can bear witness to some of what he said above. I have known religious suffering, real suffering, and the protest against suffering. As for the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heartless world and soulless conditions, I know them too but mainly as a spectator. I’ve known religion as illusory happiness. When I broke free from religion (a bhakti-meditation cult), it was as if the sky cleared and I could let in real happiness.

Today, in liberal affluent Western society, we have atheists who don’t understand that in this heartless world the poor and oppressed cannot afford man-made care but are forced to rely upon God’s care. If they stop believing in God they won’t have anything at all.

These highly-educated and well-off atheists think of religions as dealers—pushers, in fact—in some form of spiritual “opium”. They may be right, but it doesn’t mean that their customers are stupid or otherwise contemptible. So I address myself to Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, and I say to them: “If you ridicule their God, you are callous to their pain, you take away their only pain-killer.” And I say to them further, and to the late Karl Marx, “Who are you to say their happiness is illusory? You are in no position to say that another person’s pain or happiness is illusory. You take away, but what do you have to offer? Only that which the oppressed creature cannot afford; or, if you lean to the Left, only the promise of fairness and equality—a better future, like Heaven.”

Then Sam Harris, who I’ve never bothered to read till now, astonishes me with his book Waking Up: Searching for spirituality without religion. It doesn’t entirely exonerate him from my accusations, but I find he has been on his own spiritual quest from the age of sixteen. He has done meditation, studied under Gurus, been profoundly impressed by the doctrine of non-duality as embodied in the Indian saint Ramana Maharshi.

With his background in neuroscience, he ponders the “Mystery of Consciousness” and the “Riddle of the Self”, devoting a closely-argued chapter to each. I end up thinking it is not really my kind of book, he has addressed it to a different audience. Yet there was one thing that kept me turning the pages: eager anticipation of his delivering a bridge between science and spirituality, something the world has been waiting for. No, that’s not right. I cannot speak for the world, too many are trying to do that. It is I who have been waiting for something like this, someone with a properly-trained, coherent and structured mind who knows enough to bridge this absurd gulf. Sam Harris does have such a mind. It encompasses a lot of things that don’t mean a great deal to me. I'm happy to set those aside, so as to clear the stage for one big thing, one big accomplishment. He sets the age-old wisdom, the ultimate truth, in a new context, to a new audience, with his own modern kind of proofs that don’t rely on ancient sutras and and mythical Masters. The separate “I” is an illusion, there is only the One. And in his words,
Experiencing this directly—not merely thinking about it—is the true beginning of spiritual life.
And this might be a good place to end, but there is more to say. Harris prefers Buddhism and Non-Dual Vedanta to Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions, which in varying degrees he actively dislikes, especially Islam. Fair enough. But he doesn’t acknowledge that if the people’s opium is actually God, they don’t need a dealer in the form of pastors and suchlike. Indeed, it’s not Christianity’s but America’s fault that most things there, including religion, follow a business model where customer retention matters more than the product itself. It’s not Allah’s fault but history’s and human nature’s, that Allah’s name,
whatever it signifies, has been associated with appalling behaviours. Religions can be magnets for every kind of evil intent. But love of God in the heart is true love to those who can find no true earthly love, and a stepping-stone to the One. Surrendering to the Unknowable is one of the ways, like having a guide-dog for the blind, letting go the illusion of “I”, trusting in new eyes. Whether one believes or not doesn’t matter, but the simple trust does.

Harris’s title is significant: “Waking Up”. His drug of choice is not opium, a pain-killer that gives you dreams, but MDMA, known as Ecstasy, which he seems to approve, along with sensible caveats. As a neuroscientist who has used the drug on himself, he says it released chemicals in his brain which made him love everyone. I don’t endorse his book wholeheartedly, but find much to admire; especially that he talks from his own experience and knowledge. Who can do more than that?

36 Comments:

At 19 August 2015 at 11:16 , Anonymous Nelson said...

You can hear Harris being interviewed about his book here.

His view about the illusion of "I" extends also to the illusion of free will, which he talks about starting after 48min. 50 sec.

This view has relevance to my previous post about a murderer on Death Row. Especially as he talks about how not believing in freewill might affect our attitude to the treatment of criminals, whether labelled psychopathic or not.

 
At 19 August 2015 at 13:12 , Anonymous Davoh said...

Um, cross posting - - er no, not 'cross' (damn you 'englaise') ..
Hi, thanx fer responding - do not get me started about all sorts of philosophical concepts - have enough trouble with practicalities, locally.

 
At 19 August 2015 at 13:49 , Anonymous Michael Peverett said...

Thanks Vincent - much I hadn't heard of here - and I much agree with you, both on conclusions and on your non-theoretical methodology. Theorists are apt to say that people who claim their approach is non-theoretical are deluded or even fraudulent: theory, they believe, must underlie all thinking. Maybe that's logical, but it isn't self-evident. I imagine I half-believe many theories that probably contradict each other. It seems better to pursue the journey than rip up the foundations.

 
At 19 August 2015 at 23:12 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

By "non-theoretical" I took you to mean not ascribing to any particular school of thought, preferring instead to take experience in the raw, without fitting it into its predetermined place in some pre-fab theoretical framework. I can understand and appreciate that, even though, as Michael points out, one might say that SOME kind of theoretical framework underlies all thought, even if only on a subconscious level. Still, I get it. You're not necessarily eschewing theory as such; you're just not tidying up the house to the point that it seems too sterile for human habitation. At least, that's how I took.

As for the rest, I've never really gotten this complaint you always make against atheists. These men you mentioned are atheists. They're vocal about being atheists, and they're vocal about how and why they became atheists, and they're vocal in their disagreements with people who aren't atheists. That's their prerogative. They're allowed to stand up for what they believe in or what they don't believe in, and people can either take it or leave it. The idea that they shouldn't speak up because it might pull the comforting wool off someone else's eyes is silly. You never seem to have a problem with religious people voicing their beliefs. They get a free pass in the big book of Vincent. It's only the atheists who have to keep quiet; they might upset someone. You don't think it's upsetting to hear a preacher tell you that you're going to be burning in hell for all of eternity? I find that far more upsetting than anything I've ever heard an atheist say. Where is the comfort in that? What if some Christian or some Buddhists says something that shakes the faith of some Muslim and takes away that ownwie twing dey hab in dis poor poor world? Should they not be allowed to speak either?

You really seem to have this bizzare impression that religion is like some harmless child-like fantasy, like atheists are going around telling people there's no Santa Claus out of spite. Well, these people are not children. Religion is not completely harmless (and I don't say that to mean that religion is this evil force responsible for nothing but problems in this world; I say that to mean that religion isn't the mere fantasy of wide-eyed wondering children who's precocious delicate faith in a magical world needs to be coddled and protected. These are serious ideas, held seriously by serious people who expects these ideas to have a place at the adult table and a consideration in the ongoing affairs of our planet. They can't have that and insist on being treated like children and handled with kid gloves.) And people shouldn't have to be expected to keep silent just because something they say might be inconvenient for someone else to hear.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 02:23 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

I also find it incredibly insulting to listen to you go on about what you think these atheists supposedly don't understand. I can't speak for these men definitively, but I'm quite sure they're aware of the comfort that people find in religion. Everyone on Earth is aware of that. That isn't news to anyone. It's as if you think that atheists are insensitive or oblivious by nature (or that these men's affluence has some bearing on how vocal they are about their atheism, like if they were poor they'd have a new appreciation for religion and they'd muffle their voices in their sleeves.)

Let's talk about what YOU don't seem to understand. In many places, it MOST places really, there's a huge stigma attached to being an atheist. You often can't even mention it in polite (or impolite) society for fear of being sneered at, ostracized, mistrusted, possibly even physically assaulted. You could risk losing a job even. And I don't say this to plead for the plight of those poor old atheists. No one is asking for sympathy here. I'm just extremely thankful that there are men like the ones you mentioned who are willing to publicly declare themselves atheists without shame or fear, and are willingly to help carve out a place in society where atheists can ALSO have some comfort just living their damn lives. Religious people have HAD the world, oh, for forever. Not long ago a person could be exiled or executed for being an atheist (for less even.) That's changed only gradually BECAUSE there were people willing to stand up and carve out that place. And to sit here and listen to you scold those people and complain that they should shut up and fade back into the woodwork because some peasant or another out there "needs to believe that Jesus is going to bring them their very own chocolate bunny just for them on Easter", I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating that is.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 07:00 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

"Especially as he talks about how not believing in freewill might affect our attitude to the treatment of criminals...."

Meanwhile, on another note, I always love how people who don't believe in free will never hesitate to make prescriptive suggestions about how we should change society. Even though we supposedly have no control even over our own personal actions, we still somehow possess the autonomy to implement these sweeping reforms. Yep, no contradiction there.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 07:41 , Anonymous Nelson said...

It’ll take a while, Bryan, to respond to all your points. I have no intention of defending my ignorance, wrong-headedness or bias. We are who we are. I am sorry to have aroused your frustration and apparent anger. I have spoken critically about America, and thus pressed a red button with expected result. I feel the same when anyone speaks critically about England from a long way off.

I won't take you up on all the points you raise. They are witness to your own views and feelings and I respect them for that. What I ought to do is express myself better, so that what I wanted to say comes out more clearly, or indeed, where I have been wrong, more correctly.

I hope in the course of this further reflection to reach a point where we can shake hands and accept one another's position as worthwhile & useful even if radically different. I don't know how long this will take. Perhaps it will have to be staggered over the next few years, which will give us both the chance to gain in wisdom.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 07:44 , Anonymous Nelson said...

"Don't get me started" - I hear you, Davoh. A wise injunction. I'll try not to, and meanwhile good luck with your local practicalities. From what you've told me, it does seem like a question of luck.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 07:48 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

I had a very interesting discussion with someone about free will a few years back. They basically argued that everything that happens in the physical universe is due to physical-chemical cause and effect, and since our bodies and brains are also part of the physical universe the same principle applies. They said that you couldn't trace the genesis of any physical action back to some microscopic agency of free will (presumably in the brain) that could instigate a chain of physical causality without itself being subject to physical causality, that, in other words, for free will to work there would have to be a "ghost in the machine" that could reach into the physical plane and inact changes in it autonomously, that if I raise my hand, for instance, no matter how much that act may seem initiated by my will to do so, it is irrevocably linked to the same chain of causality that binds every physical thing that's happened all the way back to the beginning of time.

Well, those were tough charges, and I hadn't really thought about it in quite the way they set it out, and honestly I could really refute what they were saying either. In the end though, I had to fall back on how we experience our existence. It is absolutely impossible to abdicate the responsibility that we have over our own actions. You CAN NOT live or act or function without free will. I defy anyone to try. You can tell someone all the live long day that they don't have free will, and it makes not the slightest wit of difference in the practice of actually living a human life. You can tell me all day that I really have no control over making my arm move, but my arm will steadfastly refuse to move until I take control of it. To say that this control is an illusion is like saying that my experience of consciousness is an illusion; it's an idea that collapses into meaninglessness under its own weight. If the control I have over my arm is an illusion, then I hold no hope for disillusionment. In the end, it's just me and my arm, and it's still up to me to move it. I can't relinquish my control over the arm to universe at large, and telling me that it's "really" the universe at large moving my arm means as next to nothing as anything possibly could. It's still up to me to move the arm. We are doomed to be free.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 07:54 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

I see I stepped on your replies there.

I didn't mean for remarks about atheism above to be the opening volley in any kind of argument. I had a piece and I said it. I was annoyed and I express my annoyance. Digest that however you see fit. I said what I needed to say. I'm done with it.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 07:58 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Bryan, thanks for your further comments, which I haven't yet had time to read. I do take your annoyance seriously. There is always something to learn from it.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 08:01 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Michael, I do agree that some sort of theory must underlie all thinking. I've long tended to the view that our thinking mechanisms—brain, entire neural system, endocrine system and so forth—have been designed by evolutionary forces & not necessarily well-adapted for present situations. Which is theory of sorts as to the basis of all my thinking.

I very much like your last two sentences, in that it's plain we live our daily lives half-believing a range of incompatible things; and that it would be folly to rip up the foundations of what we don't fully understand. That folly becomes obvious in the material world, where we have ignorantly disturbed ecosystems and must pay for the result.

Fools rush in, etc. But that's us. We're no angels.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 08:06 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

Oh, and one more thing regarding the movement of arms. In the course of having this debate about free will (which lasted a few weeks actually) I looked a lot of stuff up (and came across Sam Harris myself at the time) and one interesting point that someone raised was that we clearly mean SOMETHING when we talk about voluntary and involuntary movements of something like an arm, or when we talk about someone having a mental condition where they can't control of have complete responsibility over some of their actions. There's clearly some distinction about some actual real thing that's being made in these cases, and one that couldn't be made without some notion of control and responsibility.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 08:32 , Anonymous Tom said...

A very interesting post, and I do not intend to get mixed up in the debate between Deists and Atheists. I think you know where my preferences lie. I remember a departed friend of mine - who claimed to be an atheist - saying that he would ban all religion. I wondered whether he could look a drowning man in the eye struggling to remain alive on the war-torn Atlantic (my friend was an ex-WW11 RAF pilot) calling out to his God, and say, "There is no God!" - always supposing my friend could define God.

I do wonder, however, to what degree certain commenters identify with, and attach themselves to, their own opinions. Once again, it would seem, the Ego (or perhaps more exactly, Ahamkara) raises its head, and thus nullifies its own arguments.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 09:00 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Yes, Bryan. Did you follow this link in my first comment above - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j_AtySSV_s&t=48m50s ? It's where Harris talks about freewill and specifically what you have described about arm movements, brain conditions & so forth, if I recall correctly.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 09:12 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Thanks Tom, and I was about to say "I do not intend to get mixed up in a debate about ego", as I felt we saw it differently the other day and I decided to let it it drop. However, I just looked up ahamkara, and found this example:

consider how someone who believed in the fight for peace, and who ordinarily might behave in a non-violent manner, might come to blows with someone who threatened or challenged his notions of peace

Wiki also says that ahamkara is considered an inner organ in the ancient Vedic system, which might correspond to a brain function in ours today.

Or in vernacular English, "a red rag to a bull". Which I'm acquainted with very well, from the bull's eye view.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 09:16 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

Yes, Vincent, thank you for the link. After an ad for popcorn, it dropped me right at the appropriate part. I disagree with him about it not making sense "experiencially." Experience is exactly where it makes sense, for all the reasons I said above. Even he himself, not a minute after doing away with free will, starts resorting to prescriptive discussions about what we should and shouldn't do with our prisons. This presupposes that we are FREE to decide what to do with our prisoners, that we can make choices and have control in the matter. And if his argument against free will DOESN'T preclude our having this control or making these choices, then what's the point? Just much ado about nothing.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 09:34 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

I do agree with him somewhat about the idea of taking a more curative rather than punitive approach to criminal behavior (although I suppose it all sounds a little "Clockwork Orange".) But I don't think you have to discard free will altogether to get there.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 09:41 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Over breakfast this morning I listened to a radio programme with Mary Warnock, well known over here & I have one of her books (Imagination). We checked up and found she is 91, completely undimmed by time. We also discovered, under "Personal life", the following:

"Although an atheist, she is an Anglican and a regular churchgoer."

Not that I was in the least surprised. The Church of England has harboured atheists up to the rank of bishop for as long as I can remember. If you Google "atheist anglican" you'll see much more.

I was brought up in that church & was never required or even urged to believe anything at all. It was a cultural thing like Shakespeare.

So when you say that there's a huge stigma attached to being atheist in most places, it certainly doesn't include England today, or for the last one or two centuries. These days indeed it's the other way round. In public life, you get marked down as suspicious for being a Christian, or mocked & reviled for it, but you don't get a great deal of sympathy. If you say anything against Islam, on the other hand, it's another story. That's where you need courage.

I asked K if there is a stigma to being atheist in Jamaica, which is pretty hot on Christianity. She says most people would be puzzled and some would pray for you.

But she has many friends, some going back to schooldays, who have since emigrated to the States. She keeps in touch with them via Facebook, and has noticed an odd phenomenon, that quite a few who were never religious back in Jamaica, certainly not overtly so, hardly have anything else to talk about now.

Being a theorist when it suits me, I have ideas as to why, but won't indulge them here.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 10:22 , Anonymous Nelson said...

We are aware of course aware of having free will. We can decide to do something or not, etc. And we can say “I could have done something else, and then everything would have been different.”

So one of the points Harris is making, if I understand him, is that our sense of free will is an illusion; as is the sense of “I” as separate from everything else; as is our notion of time; and our notion of God as separate from the creation.

Just as with quantum theory or e=mc2, daily life is unaffected by these ideas of “illusion”. Except in one crucial particular, which is the main point of Harris’s book Waking Up.

He defines spirituality as that which can be reached beyond the usual “I”-consciousness, beyond the sense of free will and beyond time. We can learn to walk through these illusions as if through an open door. This is a goal which has been sought and taught through the ages; whilst being muddled, muddied and corrupted along the way.

 
At 20 August 2015 at 18:34 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just want to say I didn't sleep through this. I stood with injured hawk eye beside my hay bale and didn't say a word. Recircling now I just want to tip my wing to you, Vincent, and say that I understand now why you don't need guns or knives to protect yourself. Also, thank you for making this post personable and relatable to me as an American. False-pride, ego and love for my country aside, there is much I can learn from your lifetime of experience and wisdom to help me survive. Thank You!

 
At 20 August 2015 at 19:16 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Thank you, WBM, especially as I’d given up drafting the post after two weeks’ trying & then tried to tell you why I couldn’t write it—which somehow made it possible to try again & succeed this time.

And now you have astonished me with this comment, as if you have heard the thoughts I was dictating this afternoon whilst walking through the woods in Downley (as in this post)—about pride. I had thought to make those thoughts into a comment here or another place, and refer to ideas like good pride & bad pride. But “false pride, ego and love for my country” helps unlock the ancient conundrum, as does this from Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”:

The pride of the peacock is the Glory of God.


 
At 20 August 2015 at 19:35 , Anonymous Nelson said...

I agree with you BMW that penology remains unaffected by this rather far-out doctrine of non-free will. It would turn the justice system into chaos, given that it's already difficult to establish criminal responsibility when so many factors and psychiatric reports are bandied about already. Effective sentences are those which keep the criminal locked up until he/she is no longer a public danger.

As for the free-will debate, I'm content if it remains open. I hoped to see your views again on "Nuclear Headache", but it's closed its doors.

 
At 21 August 2015 at 01:43 , Anonymous Bryan White said...

You know what crossed my mind while watching that excerpt from that Harris video? I was thinking about James Holmes, alluded to in your last post. If I remember correctly, he had been undergoing some sort of psychiatric treatment prior to his crime, and as far as I know, he had been prescribed medication as part of that treatment, medication which he had gone off of at the time of planning and committing his crime.

So here you have Harris talking about a pill to cure psychopathy. Sure, you can make such a pill, but then you still have to rely on them to take it.

 
At 21 August 2015 at 10:19 , Anonymous Davoh said...

From what you've told me, it does seem like a question of luck.

O, um. "luck". Who among us can try to define the proportion of "luck" - being the right place at a fortuitous time -- and the decision to "act".

A recent case. Had been trolling the "advertisements" for a motorcycle for the past three months. Found one; decided to 'Act' on what could be called a "hunch". Chatted with some friends who, oddly enough, decided to 'help'. Drove me plus trailer the 3 hours into the depths of Sydney city. Good purchase (and an interesting day out ... heh).

 
At 21 August 2015 at 11:22 , Anonymous Davoh said...

(um, BMW heh. Nah, my motorcycle is only a Yamaha ... heh)

 
At 21 August 2015 at 15:24 , Anonymous ellie Clayton said...

Unlike you Ian, I don't 'do' html. Therefore I have trouble communicating with the blogger. Html seems to be giving signals to the blogger about formatting which are contrary to what I am telling it to do. If I am to succeed in what 'I' want to do I have to try to trick the blogger into overriding the html instructions. It may seem devious to someone who studied programming but I use the tools in my toolbox as best I can.

So this is a paradigm of life. We come without an instruction book, the outcome which we hope to attain is not revealed to us, and the signals we receive often lead us in contrary directions. If we can manage to find some guidance on how to proceed - whether its parents, schools, churches, gurus or a philosophical system - we take what seems valuable to us and discard what is useless. It may be best not to look for the final answer but to be willing to proceed in whatever direction the path seems clearest and the light seems brightest. If we realize that no two individuals follow exactly the same path, we try to avoid placing obstructions in the path of others unless they are preventing 'little ones' from growing.

There is a price-tag on everything even if it not revealed. If there is any justice, those who pay the highest price will be rewarded accordingly. Those of us who accept the benefits which others have paid for can't claim much virtue.

 
At 22 August 2015 at 08:08 , Anonymous Nelson said...

If everything is pre-ordained, Davoh, then being at the right place at a fortuitous time is cut from the same piece of cloth as the “decision” to “act”. Indeed you always find something “relevant” to say though the BMW reference is pushing it . . .

If we multiply current notions of cosmology - Big Bang and so forth - by Darwin's theory of evolution, and again by the discovery of self-replicating DNA (squared), what do we get?

bb x dte x DNA(2) = “LUCK”

I don't as yet have a QED, though.

 
At 22 August 2015 at 08:21 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Yes, Ellie, it's very tricky. I discovered a way to get rid of the annoying thing that comes up about cookies. When you find it on someone else's site, the only way to get rid of it is to press the "got it" button, whether you've got it or not.

You may notice that it doesn't come up on this blog. There's a way to disable it and I can email instructions to anyone who wants to do so, so long as they don't have sponsored ads on their site.

As for your other observations, they are provocative and intriguing. I should like to know more. Is there any justice? How do we pay the price? With money? Effort? What is the reward? I think I am always accepting benefits that others have paid for, and feel that virtue can look after itself, so long as I remember to express gratitude as best i can. It depends on what we are talking about of course.

 
At 22 August 2015 at 16:58 , Anonymous ellie Clayton said...

In the back of my mind was the price John is paying for his misdeeds, and for ours. We 'throw away' children who can't fit in and who succumb to the temptations we build into our system, (which works just fine for the advantaged.) Often the costs of our errors in judgment are so far removed from the initial benefits that we refuse to acknowledge any connection. For instance, if a teacher establishes a competitive atmosphere in his classroom instead of a cooperative one, will the child who is ostracized wind up as one of our ever-expanding prison population? We mandate 'performance based education' without accommodating the variety in learning strategies, backgrounds, or the contributions of diversity: at what cost to the children and to society.

The price-tag thought must have come from Enion's Lament in Night II of the Four Zoes,which contains some of Blake's most discerning and hard-hitting lines:

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 34, (E 324)

"What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain"

http://ramhornd. blogspot.com/2015/07/price-of-experience.html
http://ramhornd.blogspot.com/2015/07/not-so-with-me.html

Sorry I wandered so far from the original topic.



 
At 24 August 2015 at 07:28 , Anonymous Davoh said...

bb x dte x DNA(2) = “LUCK”

Will hafta think about that equation a bit. .. um.

On the other hand (dexter/sinister) ... one'self never really KNOWS - for sure ....

 
At 24 August 2015 at 07:43 , Anonymous Davoh said...

Um, - depends on the definition - the words - defining "LUCK'
We are ALL born into this world, onto this planet ... by multiple conjunctions -
from the earliest unicellular 'life' ---- to where "humans" think; believe, they are 'today'.
The ultimate arrogance.

 
At 24 August 2015 at 07:58 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Your wandering was worth it for the resonant quotation, Ellie. Resonant because I seem to know it from somewhere and would have put it down to an Old Testament prophet.

Your remarks about education are well-made but controversial, in the sense that our imperfect societies are indeed based on competition, and some children thrive on academic challenges and the sense of "Per Ardua ad Alta" - which was my university's motto. The problem was solved in England & perhaps still is, within the State system, by "streaming" - separating the pupils into different groups according to academic ability; or in some counties by selection for secondary education into Grammar Schools for those who pass the 11+ exam, as in Buckinghamshire where I live, as opposed to Comprehensive schools in most counties, where all abilities mix, except in classes where streaming is operated.

 
At 24 August 2015 at 08:02 , Anonymous Nelson said...

Wise words, Davoh—the not-knowing, the general doubt, the arrogance which must be transcended.

 
At 24 August 2015 at 08:28 , Anonymous Davoh said...

"transcended"? Worldwide? Nup. At this point, am suggesting "controlled" - but that, perhaps, is a 'fantasy' of mine.

Can only DO what i do; within the parameters of what i can control.

 
At 24 August 2015 at 09:06 , Anonymous Nelson said...

not worldwide, individually by the few perhaps

 

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