[FRIAM] Enlightened Self Interest: was Help for texas

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

Great find.

I was just in DC over Labor Day and experienced the various Monuments, 
the Museums, the Galleries, and the edifices of power in a whole new 
way... more as a tourist than ever before, but also able to take in some 
of the grandeur, not just the grandiosity of it all.   The White House 
with (yet more?) expanded security perimeters looks (yet more!) like a 
bunker.  The extreme multiculturality of Georgetown and the Mall (with 
so many embassies nearby?) was more fascinating than ever.

I didn't come close to visiting Harper's Ferry but the spirit of John 
Brown and that moment was very much with me, and this article and your 
commentary is very relevant to some of my maunderings (most of which I 
won't bother you with here).

I think that violence/non-violence is as much a false dichotomy as 
self/nonself.   I had a bit of a denouement 25ish years ago when the 
Dali Lama visited Santa Fe... he had a few acutely relevant things to 
say (only in response to acute questions) about Nuclear Weapons and MAD 
that really woke my already-awakening self up to my own relationship to 
these dualities.   I was a pacifist who believed in MAD.

I think we often conflate action/inaction with violence/non-violence.   
I think *some* use the paradoxes of action/inaction to motivate/excuse 
their own violence and I think others use the paradoxes of 
violence/non-violence to motivate/excuse their inaction.   I am given to 
both.

- Steve


On 9/13/17 11:51 AM, gⅼеɳ ☣ wrote:
> I found this essay interesting:
>
> Why the Greatest Advocates of Nonviolence Didn't Condemn Anti-Racist, Anti-Fascist Acts of Violence
> http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41902-why-the-greatest-advocates-of-nonviolence-didn-t-condemn-anti-racist-anti-fascist-acts-of-violence
>
> It loops back on our conversation about bringing tasers to protests as well as my question to Merle about Hinduism vs. Buddhism and "Dharma himsa tathaiva cha", or violence in the service of Dharma.  Being of an "interactivist" bent, I don't believe one can understand anything without manipulating it.  The objective observer is a convenient fiction.  This came up quite a bit in relation to the recent "March for Science".  Should scientists really be marching?  What are they marching for?  It's also relevant for politics, this tendency for people to call themselves "apolitical" or to say they don't like or pay attention to politics.  Personally, I think everyone is political, though they may lie to themselves and believe they're not.  That's why I take the opportunity, at every chance, to talk about both religion and politics ... especially when someone proscribes it.  I was playing horse shoes at the neighborhood picnic with a stranger and I made some comment about our Liar-in-Chief Trump.  He said something like "Uh-oh, you just said something political."  So, I took the opportunity to tell him that I don't believe in God, either. 8^)  And he told me his wife is an atheist!  It's rare a thing to get a non-atheist to admit they're married to an atheist.  The trick is to make it clear that Everything is permitted.  Do what thou wilt is the whole  of the Law. >8^D  But don't complain when you get punched for, say, acting like a Nazi.
>
>
> On 09/10/2017 01:26 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> As far as out driving our headlights, yes please.  That's all there is, in the end:  Figuring stuff out.   Everything else is just marking time.