The Oil Spill is Only a Symptom

[coberst]

The Oil Spill is Only a Symptom

The Gulf oil spill is a minor skin rash that is of great importance primarily because it signals us of the presence of a disease capable of destroying our civilization.

The herd is stampeding toward the cliffs and there is an unsophisticated horde of riders in the rear shooting and shouting in the attempt to drive the stampeding herd forward faster and faster. Only an intellectually sophisticated citizenry can comprehend and help cure the disease.

Caring is necessary for understanding; caring cannot begin until we first “feel” a necessity for caring. The skin rash of the oil spill can serve as that feeling.

I have for some time been interested in trying to understand what ‘understand’ means. I have reached the conclusion that ‘curiosity then caring’ is the first steps toward understanding. Without curiosity we care for nothing. Once curiosity is in place then caring becomes necessary for understanding. Understanding is a wok of art; it is a creation of meaning.

I suspect our first experience with ‘understanding’ may be our first friendship. I think that this first friendship may be an example of what Carl Sagan meant by “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

I also suspect that the boy who falls in love with automobiles and learns everything he can about repairing the junk car he bought has discovered ‘understanding’.

I suspect many people go their complete life and never have an intellectual experience that culminates in the “ecstasy of understanding”. How can this be true? I think that our educational system is designed primarily for filling heads with knowledge and hasn’t time to waste on ‘understanding’.

Understanding an intellectual matter must come in the adult years if it is to ever come to many of us. I think that it is very important for an adult to find something intellectual that will excite his or her curiosity and concern sufficiently so as to motivate the effort necessary to understand.

Understanding does not come easily but it can be “a kind of ecstasy”.

I think of understanding as being a creation of meaning by the thinker. As one attempts to understand something that person will construct through imagination a model; like a papier-mâché of meaning.

Like an artist painting her understanding of something. As time goes by the model takes on what the person understands about that which is studied. The model is very subjective and you and I may study something for some time and we both have learned to understand it but if it were possible to project an image of our model they would be unidentifiable perhaps by the other. Knowledge has a universal quality but not always understanding.

Understanding is a tipping point, when water becomes ice, it is like a gestalt perception it may never happen no matter how hard we try. The unconscious is a major worker for understanding. Understanding is that rare occasion when there develops a conflation of emotion and intellection.

Often I find understanding waiting for me when I awaken one morning after months of searching and studying.

[coberst]

What is this disease to which I allude?

There is a chain of cause and effect in many things and it is difficult to determine the sui generis of this chain of reaction. I shall just take the present obvious effect to define our (American) disease to be our uncritical faith in laissez-faire capitalism.

An oligarchy controls public policy in America. The oligarchy consists of those who manage the great wealth of American institutions. This oligarchy designs our educational system to graduate good producers and consumers and does not desire independent thinkers.

CA (Corporate America) has developed a well-honed expertise in motivating the population to behave in a desired manner. Citizens as consumers are ample manifestation of that expertise. CA has accomplished this ability by careful study and implementation of the knowledge of the ways of human behavior. I suspect this same structure applies to most Western democracies.

A democratic form of government is one wherein the citizens have some voice in some policy decisions. The greater the voice of the citizens the better the democracy. The greater the intellectual sophistication of those citizens the better the democracy.

In America we have policy makers, decision makers, and citizens. The decision makers are our elected representatives and are, thus, under some control by the voting citizen. The policy makers are the leaders of CA; less than ten thousand individuals, according to those who study such matters. Policy makers exercise significant control of decision makers by controlling the financing of elections.

Policy makers customize and maintain the dominant ideology in order to control the political behavior of the citizens. This dominant ideology exercises the political control of the citizens in the same fashion as the consuming citizen is controlled by the same dominant ideology.

An enlightened citizen is the only means to gain more voice in more policy decisions. An enlightened citizen is much more than an informed citizen. Critical thinking is the only practical means to develop a more enlightened citizen. If, however, we wait until our CT trained grade-schoolers become adults I suspect all will be lost. This is why I think a massive effort must be made to convince today’s adults that they must train themselves in CT.


“Thomas R. Dye, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, has published a series of books examining who and what institutions actually control and run America. to understand who is making the decisions that affect our lives, we also have to understand how societies structure themselves in general. Why the few always tend to share more power than the many and what this means in terms of both a society's evolution and our daily lives. they examined the other 11 institutions that exert just as powerful a shaping influence, although somewhat more subtle: The Industrial, Corporations, Utilities and Communications, Banking, Insurance Investment, Mass Media, Law, Education Foundation, Civic and Cultural Organizations, Government, and the Military.”

[mata]

Originally Posted by coberst

The Oil Spill is Only a Symptom

The Gulf oil spill is a minor skin rash that is of great importance primarily because it signals us of the presence of a disease capable of destroying our civilization.

The herd is stampeding toward the cliffs and there is an unsophisticated horde of riders in the rear shooting and shouting in the attempt to drive the stampeding herd forward faster and faster. Only an intellectually sophisticated citizenry can comprehend and help cure the disease.

Caring is necessary for understanding; caring cannot begin until we first “feel” a necessity for caring. The skin rash of the oil spill can serve as that feeling.

I have for some time been interested in trying to understand what ‘understand’ means. I have reached the conclusion that ‘curiosity then caring’ is the first steps toward understanding. Without curiosity we care for nothing. Once curiosity is in place then caring becomes necessary for understanding. Understanding is a wok of art; it is a creation of meaning.

In my humble understanding, I agree ‘Understanding is a work of art.’ Curiosity leads & then desire feeds the flames. Respecting all of Life & then, maybe more simply, Life is lived & lived for its own sake. One would hope the living would lead to greater understanding? I like what the following says about the inter-relationships between ...

He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees. ... The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love. ...

Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes.
- Paracelsus

Originally Posted by coberst

I suspect our first experience with ‘understanding’ may be our first friendship. I think that this first friendship may be an example of what Carl Sagan meant by “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

I also suspect that the boy who falls in love with automobiles and learns everything he can about repairing the junk car he bought has discovered ‘understanding’.

I suspect many people go their complete life and never have an intellectual experience that culminates in the “ecstasy of understanding”. How can this be true? I think that our educational system is designed primarily for filling heads with knowledge and hasn’t time to waste on ‘understanding’.

Understanding an intellectual matter must come in the adult years if it is to ever come to many of us. I think that it is very important for an adult to find something intellectual that will excite his or her curiosity and concern sufficiently so as to motivate the effort necessary to understand.

Understanding does not come easily but it can be “a kind of ecstasy”.

I think of understanding as being a creation of meaning by the thinker. As one attempts to understand something that person will construct through imagination a model; like a papier-mâché of meaning.

Like an artist painting her understanding of something. As time goes by the model takes on what the person understands about that which is studied. The model is very subjective and you and I may study something for some time and we both have learned to understand it but if it were possible to project an image of our model they would be unidentifiable perhaps by the other. Knowledge has a universal quality but not always understanding.

Understanding is a tipping point, when water becomes ice, it is like a gestalt perception it may never happen no matter how hard we try. The unconscious is a major worker for understanding. Understanding is that rare occasion when there develops a conflation of emotion and intellection.

Often I find understanding waiting for me when I awaken one morning after months of searching and studying.

For me, the living of this life is sometimes a "kind of ecstasy”. Life is the greatest gift & the living of Life is performance art. A person who is generous in mind, heart, body, spirit & more may often seek to share this understanding with others. The results very often become like the finger pointing to the Moon.

This relation between words & meaning, or between syllables & reality, or between teaching & truth, is like that between the finger & the moon. The finger is needed to point out the moon but it ought not to be taken for the latter.
… When there is no correspondence between words & meaning, the teaching itself will lose its sense. … The idea is, “Do not cling to words!”

Words are to be treated like the lunar reflection in water as far as they are related in meaning. The reflection is there, though the moon itself has not entered into the water; nor is it to be considered as standing in no relation to the water, because the latter has something in it to reflect the moon.
from Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

Looking around me, I see very little correspondence between words & meaning (just a whole lotta same o lame o political sophistries & mental masturbation techniques) it sometimes make me think of the Tower of Babel.

[anewhope]

Why does something as simple as an oil leak turn into a full blown out crisis? Part of the reason is that British Petroleum (BP) denied world wide help until BP realized that the oil leak was much greater than they had anticipated. Rebecca Costa discusses in her book “The Watchman’s Rattle”, how difficult it is to get people, businesses and governments to work together to solve problems. Even though we have access to the technology to prevent global epidemics like famine and starvation, they still occur despite our best efforts. What might start off as a simple problem can quickly escalate into a natural disaster if the appropriate response doesn’t happen immediately.

Rebecca Costa | Facebook

Rebecca D. Costa: The Watchman?s Rattle