John Adams writes, “The passions are all unlimited. If the citizens of this republic surrender the guidance for any course of time to any one passion, they may depend upon finding it, in the end, a usurping, domineering, cruel tyrant.”
We have witnessed this during the Bush Presidency after 9/11, when all matters were ruled by politics and vengeance. We went to war in Iraq, because the thirst for vengeance was so great, it literally overcame reality.
We have witnessed this also as the desire for vengeance drove the administration to the insane course of instituting a regime of torture, flouting all international norms established by this very nation and its allies at the end of the Second World War.
The passions are unlimited.
Conservatism used to stand for the control of Passion by Reason. Now Reason is the whore of Passion, as we are forced to watch so-called Conservatives speak out in defense of torture.
The decade of the 60's urged Passion and its gratification upon us. It destroyed some by drugs, some by war, but it led this entire nation into the era of unrestrained gratification of even the most base passions.
Both liberal and conservative minds surrendered themselves to the gratifications of their passions, and the resulting political debate between the two sides is a result of the one side infringing upon the debased gratifications of the other.
What is the current economic turmoil a result of if not the Conservative uncontrolled passion for unlimited returns on wealth by dumb, brutal markets they call "free"? Dumb beasts tending not to equilibrium - as they are so fond of saying - but to bubbles and panics.
What Reason restrained the fools who voted for no regulation to be applied to derivatives? And they did so not even ten years after a great deal of damage had been done by those financial instruments.
Even God is a pawn in their battles: Terry Schiavo comes to mind.
Old time Conservatives worshipped God and used money; the modern day conservatives worship money and make use of God.
--
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
8 comments:
"consumable" ideologies, "consumable" practices, leading to the desperation of reason..we can alla understand that..
But, how do you define "passion"? In what sort of way? As the "absence of logic"? If that holds truth then can we cant talk about equation, or is all about reforming practices by excluding and redefining the distinctive,(reformed also) opposite?
Thanks for the comment. You must have concluded at last that I am:
oute kakos out'aphronis
and worthy enough to comment on, so thanks!
(sorry about my lack of acceptable Greek font - and I only do ancient Greek, not modern.)
Now about "passion", I am not at all sure I would define it. Case in point: could I define the passion of Achilles using logic better than did Homer using poetry?
Homer needed the Iliad to portray the passion of Achilles and its far reaching effects.
I might be able to define it on only one page, referring to all the witty philosophers of the past and present.
However, I think Homer does the job better.
And we may probably notice that Homer - although he does end the Iliad - he does not present us to us the idea that he has said all that can be said.
Were not brave Achilles dead, the whole story could begin again tomorrow.
Furthermore, Reason is not merely defining things. Reason is the force by which humanity has reached to the stars, yet we of this present age wish to relegate Reason to the drudgery of defining this or that, and filing them away as if Reason were working in a government office somewhere.
I believe we are way beyond the time of defining things...
as we try and swim and the sharks circle around us, we shall grasp at the life line thrown to us - we shall not pause to consider the nature of it nor its definition.
We shall not even stop to wish that its strength is sufficient to pull us to safety; we shall have absolute faith in that life line tossed to us!
In other words, at my age, I have used logic and reason and faith and passion and emotion...
and now I am ready to leap outside the stable world view I have created, and to find something transcendent.
(I sense that I may have gotten carried away here, and sort of said more than you could ever have wished someone to say about your topic...as well as a number of other things.
I'm sorry if I babbled on.)
:))) it was you that should be complaining about my bad english...Your are not kakos nor afrwn. I can assure you about the second!
Hmmmm.. history, literature, philosophy facing the capacities of lying that the constant endeavour of truth can provide them. Where truth is proclaimed there lies fanatism. Religions are honest enough to admitt that. You only need faith to grasp the truth of the unreasonable. In literature, according to Aristotelis you let the author to portray you what is propable to exist in general, in spite oh history which is only telling you what has happened in paritular and definite way.
Those open possibilities are the universal passionate paths that human soul may follow. But, author is dead years ago. The ultimate God of Odyssey, Homer that is, abandoned the text soon after texts claimed their autonomy. Reason turned out to be hermeneutics in a relative way, as far as truth is not the case.
In the perspective i shall try to understand the example you gave me.
If we see today, as modern readers, Trojan War, as an imperialistic attempt of greek cities to conquer and destroy another greek city over power, wealth, fame, and if we condemn this kind of act, then the denial of Achilleas to fight and to be led by Agamemnonas i not actually a matter of passion, but reason, logic. " Minin aoide thea" says Homer. Minis, anger, passion, lunacy, are in the very core of the text.
Every reader carries a baggage of prejudices, believes, and so on. And not just that. Dear Moragn, we can read the same book 3 times each decade, and we never understand it in the same way. Literature, and i am happy you brought into discussion this topic, is the only area where the reader has every right to redife meaning as free as he likes. Religion, politics, philosophy, are full of borders, of lines, of sharks. Metaphysics are center oriented and every discourse is infected by that.
Freedom against reason. This is what is all about. Faith in the case of religion. " Truth" in philosophy. " manipulation" in case ff politics.
Thanks, and sorry for my english...
First, let me say that I have 3favorite authors, whose imaginations I love:
(1) Nikos Kazantzakis
(2) Amos Tutuola
(3) Zakaria Tamir.
I love them because - in my opinion - they let everything come to light: body and soul.
So I have an enormous respect for ancient and modern Greece, as well as Africa and the Middle East. I came across Kazantzakis when I was 16 years old, and it was like being struck by lightning.
So, when I say "passion", think of Nikos Kazantzakis. Whatever he says, I agree with.
If I do not agree with Kazantzakis about the passion of life, then I have obviously made a mistake somewhere.
Passion is not opposed to Reason. The great emotions have given mankind enormous gifts, just as logic and reason have.
Zorba! Kazantzakis' Zorba sums it up: the passionate life contrasted to the reasonable life, and the beneficial effects each has on the other.
"minin aoide thea"
It is the "thea" which haunts me as a modern man. How odd it is to hear the goddess called upon!
For now, let me say that in the present age of man, we have spent great effort, time, and money to keep the Holy separated from the World.
I feel they are naturally mixed together. So it is perfectly natural for me to say not only "...sing," , but "...sing, goddess." There is song, there is the goddess: what could be more natural?!
I feel Kazantzakis would say that the Holy penetrates and mixes into the world.
So there are more players than just freedom and reason on the "old soccer team".
I was going to write more, but as I wrote it down, there was so much we are talking about! So much.
As I write more, I shall add it here in the future, unless we choose some other place.
Hey there...concerning the examples you brough i only know the Kazantzakis and what i understood of is that you're referring on how the holy merges into the unholy, the personal myth into the collective one, the myth itself into thw maltifaced reality. Do you mean passion here, as what we Greeks mean when saying, ηδονή; or just euphoria ( ευφορία). I am not in the position to locate any of them in the authors you've mentioned, but let me say that the very pleasure of the text, lies during the act of reading.
Hehe, of course you came upon Kazantzakis when you were 16 years old. Me too. The passion of adolescence the constant daydreaming of every teenager, the first discovery of sensations and frustrations as well. I believe this is the passion you are referrnig to..does this passion exclude reason, progress, mentality?? Hmm, romanticists argued a lot on that but the answers were given in theis very literary works and artifacts. And almost all, claimed to be conservatives too.. in a universal way...
Hi.
I try to mean what Kazantzakis means.
Nikos K. was Greek, ancient and modern, but he was more, too. He was a flourishing of Greek and human ideals in the 20th century, influenced by many different philosophies.
No, passion does not exclude reason. But, reason should not exclude passion.
Reason recognizes passion and tries to keep it in order.
Passion does not recognize reason, seeing it merely as an impediment.
So it seems they must have their own separate areas where they exist.
I think we might see it when we try to solve a problem:
we reason and think and reason over it,
then suddenly an answer appears in front of us, and we say, "Ah-ha!! That's it!"
Passion is the working in the dark of the soul - what is not yet conscious - and is striving to be made conscious.
The "Ah-ha!" that we exclaim when the answer suddenly appears to us is like radioactivity left after an atomic blast - it is the evidence of passion: a sudden outburst.
A sudden outburst is an "ejaculation", meaning "to throw out from"...and for some of us, our only sense of passion is ejaculatory.
Passion explodes as did the answer to our question: a sudden awareness of what was hidden and unconscious.
It may also burst forth as our desire to go on a great quest, or our passionate euphoria.
Once it explodes, what do we do with it?
The answer which burst forth, well, we keep it and work it into our reasonings.
What do we do with - oh, for example - our passionate erotic love after it has burst upon the world?
Some people use it to create the future, bringing children into the world, working for a better world.
In this sense, the future relies on both passion and reason: passion creates life;
reason seeks way to improve the quality of life;
passion drives us to implement what reason has discovered...and so on
Passion is the volcano, bringing up material from the depths;
Reason is the farmer who much later farms the slopes of the rich volcanic soil and brings forth great harvests.
O.K. Enough. I'm not sure I meant to say this. But I did say it. So I guess we'll see what happens, eh?
More than enough...excellent! i am amazed....:)))
Post a Comment