sophiaserpentia | Response to seraphimsigrist

If the primary motives behind the war were as they have been stated to be in the media -- the deposing of a cruel regime -- then I would agree that the best outcome to hope for now that war has begun would be a quick victory for the US.

But I keep coming back to my conviction that the primary motivation for the war was not to protect the people of Iraq but to establish a global military hegemony, to feed the military-industrial complex, and to "clear the way" for American businesses to gain advantages they do not already have in world markets. By "following the money" it's possible to explain every nation's stance in favor of or opposition to, the war.

That it all boils down to bucks and self-interest on every side makes this situation intolerably cynical for someone like me, who strives above all else to be a person of conscience and compassion.

Perhaps though, in its own way it is a blessing that governments and corporations (archons in every sense) have been forced to tip their hands. Without the charade of beneficence to hide behind, we can see them and their actions for what they really are.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The only thing I can come up with is that momentum plays
a large part in corporate as well as in personal life, things
continue to move once set in motion and develop their own
reasons which are not sufficient...

Though I agree with basically all that

sophiaserpentia has said, I see those items as being essentially symptomatic of far deeper movements and currents, and what you've stated above - especially as regards the use of the term "momentum" - I think begins to address these deeper causes, rooted for me as they are in a more or less "Traditionalist" (as in Guenon, Evola, et al) conception of the cycles of time and their tendency toward increasing "mass" (hence, the appropriateness of the term momentum in my estimation). I don't know if this is at all what you were driving towards, but that's my take on it at least.

well that is a large question and requires I think
to be discussed over a beer or something and
perhaps not, by me ,here--the quick response would
be that I do not accept a Jainist view of history
and not a good deal of the traditionalist dogmatic
(their dislike of the Renaissance etc) probably
closer to a Teilhardian sense of things but
really these are all myths and images, well and
have nothing useful to say on em just now or
if you will excuse me in this forum(by private
email if anything further came to me as I said
to Anthony)...else my best move might be to
withdraw rosary from pocket and say a prayer
if I did the rosary prayers which I dont really
but the durn thing as a whole represents prayer
to me so I keep one around pretty much and
might best say some sort of prayer as so mote
(not mote and beam but mote of masonic use)
we all maybe...this to your interesting note...
+Seraphim

Thanks; I'm still trying to make up my mind about alot of the Traditionalist dogma myself, though their application to the cycles of time seems at the very least self-consistent as well as consistent with some of my own learning and observations. "The whole thing represents prayer" is something I will have to meditate on. The larger questions, for all their apparent impersonality, do I agree require a good deal of personal interaction among individuals to offset the very often stale medium at hand; and I wholeheartedly agree even larger doses of beer to chase it with :-)

a self consistent thing can become a real
mental trap, look at the poor anthroposophist
seeing everything in terms of the lunatic ideas
of Steiner, a Goethe gone awry, and how self
consisitent it is and how positive on interpretation
of history in terms of this guy being that
character in parsifal and je ne sais pas quois.
or marxism or freud taken without some water etc
so self consistency can be a sign one is getting
into a dead end street can't it?

I think I get what you're saying - self-consistency as the surest slippery slope to false dogma; something which purports to hold all the answers within itself can be an easy refuge for the person who can't be bothered to examine and question. This is the most seductive aspect of a great deal of what Guenon and his "disciple" Evola propound, that's for sure.

However I would also say that some manner of self-consistency is a necessary condition for a maintenance of ideals, something which is tied intimately to the question of what is honorable and what isn't; but I suppose then that this pertains more to the personal aptitude for creating cosmos out of chaos rather than allegiance to a more or less "complete" set of beliefs.

Hmm. More food for though, that's for sure.

At this point I don't really have an opinion about concepts such as this. I can see how it would be reasonable to suppose "larger forces at work" in the collective organism of human history. But I can also see how a case might be made for a more "dynamic" conception of these larger forces analogous to wind currents or water turbulence, etc.

Not really an area I have spent much thought on and I can really only idly speculate.

Response to seraphimsigrist

Re: motivation

cycles of time

Re: cycles of time

self consistent

Re: self consistent

Re: motivation