Hard News: Watching the Watchmen
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..Daniel Quinn's argument
I had to look that up to make sure it wasn't some kind of Paul Auster identity confusion performance art. After reading some of the Ishmael site I'm still not sure. (No pun intended)
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Sorry the Fall of Man, is a biblical fantasy. We are the way we are because of our lowly origins, we are monkeys. Not because of we did something wrong somewhere and fell out of favour with some celestial dictator.
Not sure what the apology is for. Both Daniel Quinn and I would surely agree with you.
The urban/rural divide has been the bane of humanity since foreva.
Ur, no it just hasn't. Agriculture was only invented 10000 years ago. Humans have been around for a bit longer than that.
Reading metaphors into biblical narratives is a mugs game. The whole Daniel Quinn/Ishmael thing just looks dodgy.
Well whatever. He's actually arguing that the conventional reading of Genesis is a chinese whispers developed metaphor.
Regardless of what you think of religion, the bible and Daniel Quinn, his theory on The Fall of Man story is worth a read.
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My theory was this: Like Cain (and us), the Caucasians began to encroach on the territory of their neighbors -- the Semites being their neighbors to the south. They began to water their fields with the blood of the Semites.
His theory sucks. He makes too much out of monkeys fighting over a waterhole.
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We are the way we are because of our lowly origins, we are monkeys.
You, sir, might be a monkey. I am and always will be proud of my status as an ape. A great ape, if I were to brag.
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Some interesting development on the Wikileaks story. They have posted a new file on their site called insurance. It's encrypted so it can't be read, but there's speculation that it may contain the remaining material.
More about it here (Wired.com)
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Sorry the Fall of Man, is a biblical fantasy. We are the way we are because of our lowly origins, we are monkeys. Not because of we did something wrong
This has always been my favourite biblical concept as it sums up, neatly, the whole idea of authority. That there is a belief among those that seek to hold religious authority that knowledge is a bad thing for the "masses" and, in fact, wisdom will tell us it is true. Without knowledge we would not be destroying our own habitat.
The ultimate irony. -
I am and always will be proud of my status as an ape. A great ape, if I were to brag.
Makes monkey-like grovelling gesture.
Without knowledge we would not be destroying our own habitat.
Or maybe in that other universe where we didn't get wheels and fossil fuels, humanity still a few millions years of life left in it. Or maybe the smart pricks haven't turned up yet.
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Or maybe, when the next human-type comes along - what are we up to now? Iota version? -it will be considerably saner than we are-
which is not say that H. ergaster/heidelbergensis/forensis et al were saner than we are* - just, they're extinct just now.
*No, since you ask, I dont think we are a sane species: there are many sane folk among us, but I'm not even sure we're- 8>) - anything but rare...
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Oops, editing time-window shut:
"which is not say that H. ergaster etc. were NOT saner than we are-"
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-it will be considerably saner than we are-
Our Problem if I may be bold is wildly disparate cultural adaptations in various stages of evolution, which are all rubbing up against each other. No getting away now. No siree bob... i like to make light of such things. Perhaps I'm a sad bastard.
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Nah, not a sad bastard: I figure if you cant fight human nature, giggle.
It's better than continually weeping eh? -
I forgot the individual variations thrown in the mix.
Now some of them are funny... in all kinds of ways. -
Speaking as an asexual Maori/Pakeha, who's extreme shortsightedness & dominant eye (left)* is totally against most opthalmologists' experience and whose hearing ability is still at teenage level - what can I add except, Yeah!
*because my left eye is SO dominant it took only the one cataract operation to give me vision better than I have ever had. Maybe those quirks are useful *individually* (obviously, in my case, not for the survival of our species...except I am a good & useful family member.)
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From the Daniel Quinn link:
I learned, for example, that the subjugation and slaughter of the aboriginal peoples of the New World bore an uncanny resemblance to the story of Cain and Abel. Cain the tiller of the soil "watered his fields with the blood" of Abel the herder (a metaphorical way of saying that he killed Abel in order to gain the territory he wanted to farm). This is of course exactly what we did on coming to the new world. All our fields were watered with the blood of hundreds of thousands (perhaps even millions) of hunting-gathering Abels.
This is completely wrong. The vast majority of the population that was destroyed by the European invasion of the Americas were agricultural people. They grew maize, squash, tomatoes, and potatoes. On the back of that they built massive empires that covered all of Central and South America. Or are we meant to believe that the Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilisations were built on the back of hunting and gathering?
Beyond that though, since when are herders hunters and gatherers? They're not. Shepherding and the raising of flocks is a form of agriculture. The story of Cain and Abel can't possibly be the story of the defeat of evil agriculturalists over peaceful non-agriculturalists because both Cain and Abel were agriculturalists.
So I don't think we need to read any more of that nonsense.
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(obviously, in my case, not for the survival of our species...except I am a good & useful family member.)
Methinks we need more of the good & useful than genes. But the physical aside, its the quirks in consciousness that really tickle me.
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I figure if you cant fight human nature, giggle
The bleak humour that is usually the result of experiencing the darker side of human nature is usually the funniest, in my opinion. Although audiences need to be chosen carefully.
Family and friends from outisde the loop were not particularly appreciative of the numerous 'dead baby' jokes I acquired after a stint working as IT support in Peckham social services.
Jimmy Carr's joke about the UK's 2012 paralympic team caused quite a fuss amongst civilians, but I've heard that squaddies in Afghanistan found it quite funny.
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Family and friends from outisde the loop were not particularly appreciative of the numerous 'dead baby' jokes I acquired after a stint working as IT support in Peckham social services.
I had a psych-nurse friend who had to do intervention work with paedophiles. He had kiddy-fiddler lines. You'd bloody have to.
Jimmy Carr's joke about the UK's 2012 paralympic team caused quite a fuss amongst civilians, but I've heard that squaddies in Afghanistan found it quite funny.
It actually wasn't a bad joke -- and I think Carr had earned the right to use it through the time he'd spent with injured and disabled soldiers.
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I'm genuinely interested to know what you think about Article 51 Russell. Do you see it as invalid? A mistake? An inconvenience maybe?
Tony Blair, our favourite liberal interventionist, has certainly been arguing as much: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/01/tony-blair-military-intervention-necessary
What do you think about the lessons of WWI and WWII? Are we to sweep them under the carpet and go back to a world where powerful states unilaterally invade others without any threat of accountability?
How do you imagine we will avoid WWIII in such a scenario?
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Moving Tony Blair's book into the crime section: the wave that is sweeping a nation.
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