Kıtacı düşmanı olmadan ne güzel anlatmış
Sisyphus, in the ancient myth, is condemned to an existence that is generally acknowledged to be awful. He is condemned eternally to a task that is boring, difficult, and futile. Because of this, Sisyphus’s life, or more precisely, his afterlife, has been commonly treated as a paradigm of a meaningless existence.
The philosopher Richard Taylor, however, in a discussion of life’s absurdity, suggests a thought experiment according to which the gods take pity on Sisyphus and inject a substance in his veins that transforms him from someone for whom stone-rolling is nothing but a painful, arduous, and unwelcome chore to someone who loves stone-rolling more than anything else in the (after-)world. There is nothing the transformed Sisyphus would rather do than roll that stone. Stone-rolling, in other words, fulfills him. Sisyphus has found his passion (or perhaps his passion has found him), and he is pursuing it to his life’s content. The question is, what should we think of him? Has his life been transformed from horribly unfortunate to exceptionally good? Taylor thinks so, but some of us might disagree.
As I have already noted, the reason Sisyphus has traditionally been taken as a paradigm of a meaningless existence is that he is condemned to the perpetual performance of a task that is boring, difficult, and futile. In Taylor’s variation, Sisyphus’s task is no longer boring—no longer boring to Sisyphus, that is. But it remains futile. There is no value to his efforts; nothing ever comes of them. Even if due to divine intervention, Sisyphus comes to enjoy and even to feel fulfilled by his activity, the pointlessness of what he is doing doesn’t change.
Richard
In my own amended Ten Commandments, I would choose some of the above, but I would also try to find room for, among others:
- Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none of your business.
- Do not discriminate or oppress on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species.
- Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.
- Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.
But never mind these small differences of priority. The point is that we have almost all moved on, and in a big way, since biblical times. Slavery, which was taken for granted in the Bible and throughout most of history, was abolished in civilized countries in the nineteenth century. All civilized nations now accept what was widely denied up to the 1920s, that a woman’s vote, in an election or on a jury, is the equal of a man’s. In today’s enlightened societies (a category that manifestly does not include, for example, Saudi Arabia), women are no longer regarded as property, as they clearly were in biblical times. Any modern legal system would have prosecuted Abraham for child abuse. And if he had actually carried through his plan to sacrifice Isaac, we would have convicted him of first-degree murder. Yet, according to the mores of his time, his conduct was entirely admirable, obeying God’s commandment. Religious or not, we have all changed massively in our attitude to what is right and what is wrong. What is the nature of this change, and what drives it?
LAW 1: NEVER OUTSHINE THE MASTER
Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite—inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.
LAW 2:
The limitations of all our perceptions of things and selves manifest themselves when something we can usually depend on in our simplified world breaks down. Then the more complex world that was always there, invisible and conveniently ignored, makes its presence known. It is then that the walled garden we archetypally inhabit reveals its hidden but ever-present snakes.
When things break down, what has been ignored rushes in. When things are no longer specified, with precision, the walls crumble, and chaos makes its presence known. When we’ve been careless, and let things slide, what we have refused to attend to gathers itself up, adopts a serpentine form, and strikes—often at the worst possible moment. It is then that we see what focused intent, precision of aim and careful attention protects us from.
Sayfa 266 - Rule 10Kitabı okudu
The neglect and mistreatment that is part and parcel of poorly structured or even entirely absent disciplinary approaches can be deliberate—motivated by explicit, conscious (if misguided) parental motives. But more often than not, modern parents are simply paralyzed by the fear that they will no longer be liked or even loved by their children if they chastise them for any reason. They want their children's friendship above all, and are willing to sacrifice respect to get it. This is not good. A child will have many friends, but only two parents—if that—and parents are more, not less, than friends. Friends have very limited authority to correct. Every parent therefore needs to learn to tolerate the momentary anger or even hatred directed towards them by their children, after necessary corrective action have been taken, as the capacity of children to perceive or care about long-term consequences is very limited.
Sayfa 124 - Rule 5Kitabı okudu
Cultural Complicities
Academic culture is a fundamental element of the implicit pedagogy implemented by the upper classes. The cultural rally, the first stage of those rallies that bring together exclusively, through the use of closed invitation lists, adolescents who belong to the same world, is one of the social forms of familiarization with works of culture. Indeed,
CONDITIONING - Imitation
Imitation is a factor of social training. In normal “society,” the phe-
nomenon is limited by the multiplicity of choices and models suggested. In the CC (Coersive Cult), choice no longer exists and only one model is offered. Imitation of the other, or of the guru, takes on a character of ineluctability that blends into the process of indoctrination.
Bandura described two phases in the process of imitation: a phase of observation and a phase of performance. Jointly, four sub-processes come into play during imitation. Attention, or sensory recording of the behaviors to be acquired; retention, which results in a mnemonic representation of the elements to be reproduced; physical replication, which has to do with repeating and integrating the behaviors to be acquired; and finally motivation, which influences the three preceding sub-processes.
One can easily see that all the sub-processes are reinforced in the cult. The process of attention is covered by the selection or absence of information. The intensity of cult life is like “being hit over the head,” saturating the follower’s perceptive and sensory system. The processes of retention and motor replication are constantly stimulated by rituals — repeating “holy” words, memorizing texts, reciting prayers — which lead to automatic behavior and thought. Motivation is supported and strengthened by the obligation to produce results.
Sayfa 136Kitabı okudu
My beloved boat
is broken on the rocks of daily life.
I’ve paid my debts
and no longer need to count pains
I’ve suffered at the hands of others.
The misfortunes and the insults.
Good luck to those
who remain.
Sayfa 215Kitabı okudu
11
Gus grunted a painful chuckle. “How do you fight for something that’s already yours?”
“People aren’t property, Gus. You can’t possess her. You can fight for her attention and maybe even her heart, and that’s enough to live out your ’til-death-do-us-part.”
“I kissed you.”
Biting her lips together, she nodded. “Total prick. I can give you womanly
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