Very nice essay. And I'm almost on the floor laughing because my next essay is going to about words. It is part 2 of my set 'The Evil of Good and the Good of Evil.'
As to 'logic and reason.' They are 1) Highly overrated as a means to accomplish anything even remotely close to peace and harmony let alone democracy let alone anything approaching utopia and 2) have shown themselves to be the amongst the least reliable because most self-defeating ways the mind has of convincing itself it knows the truth.
Why 1) Because Logic and Reason have been hailed as our God-Savour since at least Voltaire and they have imprisoned us. It was a relief to me when I discovered John Ralston Saul: *Voltaire's Bastared: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West*; *The Unconscious Civilisation* and *The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense*.
How do we know they have failed? Look around us. They have failed and it is insanity to try to use these failed tools to fix what the failed tools have created, to rephrase that famous saw about insanity expecting an outcome to be different while doing the same thing.
2) Logic and reason are secondary phenomena. The do not and cannot create anything new. They rely on something pre-existing and an arbitrary picking up of those crumbs. Thus, even following the well-articulated rules of rhetoric, and even creating words with iron-clad meaning (again, something that has failed humanity for more the several millenia so lets consider down that argument that comes from a logic that has blinded itself to that part of reality), the ability to pick only from what is extant, and then to pick only the bits and pieces required to complete a logical argument, means that reason and logic are inherently self-destructive. They simply cannot work because the reality of reality is that is it bigger than logic, reason, argument and words.
Matin Luther said this rather more colourfully than me. And with far fewer questionably defined words.
“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom” (Martin Luther, Works, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142)
Another philosopher of questionable pedigree put it well:
‘Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophic purposes.’ De Quincey, Thomas. "On The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" from Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 81. (Originally published in 1823.)
And of course Montaigne:
But I leave this subject, which would lead me farther than I would follow. I will add only this, that humility and submissiveness alone can make a good man. The knowledge of his duty should not be left to each man's judgment; it should be prescribed to him, not left to the choice of his reason. Otherwise, judging by the imbecility and infinite variety of our reasons and opinions, we would finally forge for ourselves duties that would set us to eating one another, as Epicurus says.
Of course with Montaigne the obedience was to be towards God. So... At least he provided an alternative to 'reason and knowledge' as sources of happiness, if we understand 'obedience' as being 'trust the truth of your Soul to know what is true and to have the strength to allow curiosity to show you what that truth is.'
Ah so you're rejecting facts, reason AND logic? Nothing like going all-in.
My parents would LOVE your quotes. They weren't literary enough to know them but I've been hearing exactly the same things from them since my argumentative birth (which probably happened sometime after my actual birth but not long after, from what I hear). In fact, I was surprised when my elderly aunt with dementia, when chatting with her before her death, said, "You always were a deep thinker, even as a child." That was a shock, to realize she noticed.
They were all about obedience. Do NOT presume to think for yourself. Do NOT try to contradict the Church with your reason, logic and facts. Who do you think you are?
And Martin Luther! You're really going to countenance the OPINION of someone who thinks of women like that? Should we have a purity test before we open our mouths in public? Make sure that we're not whores full of scab and pestilence who ought to be trod underfoot? What a hateful, hateful man.
It's not logic, reason and facts that brought us the CovidCon. If you were not someone who used those tools, you wouldn't be in Mexico today. You can call it intuition but you pushed back against everything authority was telling you, and you weren't some New Age ninny saying, "I'm just not feeling this, I'm going to uproot my life."
You're creating a false dichotomy, I think, intuition vs. reason. As I think Kathleen is also. You need both, it's the two sides of the brain. Either one on its own is a delusion. In my logic. And I am always happy that you read and think so deeply about these, and care so deeply about me. As I do you, friend Ghee ;-)
Oct 14, 2023·edited Oct 14, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
LOL!
I'm not *rejecting* them. They are kind of like a mind out of control: an enemy to the core. Fact, logic and words have all be used as a *seriously* powerful weapon in all of the various wars against people. And like any weapon, it isn't *the* weapon that is the *problem*.
You're correct that it wasn't logic that BROUGHT us convidiana. They were the tool used though.
And I thought you might find Luther a bit colourful!
Of course, he was actually expressing the Christian religious sentiment of the time. (And which still is a huge part of the unconscious zeitgeist.) From a French Catholic I believe, a century or so after Luther. Cited by Robert Bly:
"The French Priest Bossuet, writing at about the same time as Descartes, expressed in this passage one of the more prevalent Christian attitudes towards nature: 'May the earth be cursed, may the earth be cursed, a thousand times be cursed because from it that heavy fog and those black vapours continually rise that ascend from the dark passions and hide heaven and its light from us and draw down the lightening of God's justice against the corruption of the human race.’” Bly continued: "This attitude was acceptable to the Church Fathers and to developing capitalism. When we deny there is consciousness in nature, we also deny consciousness to the worlds we find by going through nature."
Bly, Robert, ed. News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness. San Francisco: SierraClub Books, 1980, p9.
Next time I'll look to Lao-Tzu or Chuang-Tzu for their take on the ease with which words misdirect us even as the give us the power of discourse! Much less brutal language.
I disagree with you about the false dichotomy. 🤔☯️🤨
For example, the reason collectively we in the western world especially are unconscious eugenicists is because we have subscribed to the down stream logic of the postulate 'evolution is the movement of matter from a lesser state to a higher state.' The current manifestation of the eugenics program is simply the logical extension of helping nature improve itself. And was one of the logical reasons forced sterilisation of the 'unfit' continued with very little debate until the 1980s! Logic without soul spirit heart is as easily, and perhaps more easily, the generator of more death and destruction than anything. The church used 'logic' to burn witches and logic to rig the trials. And while some of that logic may have been guilty of one or more logical fallacy, most of it was not once an initial premise was accepted. That premise didn't come from logic, logic is the descendent of the premise, is limited by first or boundary conditions. I've reference it before: Eugenics: Flawed Thinking Behind Pushed Science | Alex Story | EP 294
In an ocean of 'facts' of all sorts, most of the them fake, facts lose their validity and are easily used by logic to achieve any purpose desired. Again, convidiana has exemplified that to such an extent that we, the once partially awake at least, are having our eyeballs peeled back into our heads! For example, the facts and the opinions citing those facts in the media weren't all fake. And yet, they became irrelevant, all of them, because there was absolutely no logical way to figure out the true from the false. Logic couldn't and can't do it. Nor can reason. Impossible, so I simple stopped watching the news, etc. And this has slowly come to pass for the majority of people who in increasing numbers recognise that the facts of media, science, experts et al are wrong, even if couched in reason and logic.
Reason is simply a heartless tool that will as easily rationalise world wars, propaganda and misattribute facts to achieve that golden yellow brick road of good intentions by those in power to impose those intentions on the lesser.
That goes back to yoga and thousands of years of maybe wisdom: The mind is a terrific tool to a balanced/integrated yogic individual, and a devouring enemy to anyone who isn't. (My paraphrase.)
These two essays of yours I've commented on came with absolute perfect synchronistic timing for me! Thank you. I'll likely be including some elements of them in my next essay 'The Evil of Good and the Good of Evil part 2'. You have, as usual, provided me with great food for thought and the impetus to deep dive. Muchas gracias.
Hola, Tereza.
Very nice essay. And I'm almost on the floor laughing because my next essay is going to about words. It is part 2 of my set 'The Evil of Good and the Good of Evil.'
As to 'logic and reason.' They are 1) Highly overrated as a means to accomplish anything even remotely close to peace and harmony let alone democracy let alone anything approaching utopia and 2) have shown themselves to be the amongst the least reliable because most self-defeating ways the mind has of convincing itself it knows the truth.
Why 1) Because Logic and Reason have been hailed as our God-Savour since at least Voltaire and they have imprisoned us. It was a relief to me when I discovered John Ralston Saul: *Voltaire's Bastared: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West*; *The Unconscious Civilisation* and *The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense*.
How do we know they have failed? Look around us. They have failed and it is insanity to try to use these failed tools to fix what the failed tools have created, to rephrase that famous saw about insanity expecting an outcome to be different while doing the same thing.
2) Logic and reason are secondary phenomena. The do not and cannot create anything new. They rely on something pre-existing and an arbitrary picking up of those crumbs. Thus, even following the well-articulated rules of rhetoric, and even creating words with iron-clad meaning (again, something that has failed humanity for more the several millenia so lets consider down that argument that comes from a logic that has blinded itself to that part of reality), the ability to pick only from what is extant, and then to pick only the bits and pieces required to complete a logical argument, means that reason and logic are inherently self-destructive. They simply cannot work because the reality of reality is that is it bigger than logic, reason, argument and words.
Matin Luther said this rather more colourfully than me. And with far fewer questionably defined words.
“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom” (Martin Luther, Works, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142)
Another philosopher of questionable pedigree put it well:
‘Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophic purposes.’ De Quincey, Thomas. "On The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" from Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 81. (Originally published in 1823.)
And of course Montaigne:
But I leave this subject, which would lead me farther than I would follow. I will add only this, that humility and submissiveness alone can make a good man. The knowledge of his duty should not be left to each man's judgment; it should be prescribed to him, not left to the choice of his reason. Otherwise, judging by the imbecility and infinite variety of our reasons and opinions, we would finally forge for ourselves duties that would set us to eating one another, as Epicurus says.
Of course with Montaigne the obedience was to be towards God. So... At least he provided an alternative to 'reason and knowledge' as sources of happiness, if we understand 'obedience' as being 'trust the truth of your Soul to know what is true and to have the strength to allow curiosity to show you what that truth is.'
Again, thank you. Good stuff.
Ah so you're rejecting facts, reason AND logic? Nothing like going all-in.
My parents would LOVE your quotes. They weren't literary enough to know them but I've been hearing exactly the same things from them since my argumentative birth (which probably happened sometime after my actual birth but not long after, from what I hear). In fact, I was surprised when my elderly aunt with dementia, when chatting with her before her death, said, "You always were a deep thinker, even as a child." That was a shock, to realize she noticed.
They were all about obedience. Do NOT presume to think for yourself. Do NOT try to contradict the Church with your reason, logic and facts. Who do you think you are?
And Martin Luther! You're really going to countenance the OPINION of someone who thinks of women like that? Should we have a purity test before we open our mouths in public? Make sure that we're not whores full of scab and pestilence who ought to be trod underfoot? What a hateful, hateful man.
It's not logic, reason and facts that brought us the CovidCon. If you were not someone who used those tools, you wouldn't be in Mexico today. You can call it intuition but you pushed back against everything authority was telling you, and you weren't some New Age ninny saying, "I'm just not feeling this, I'm going to uproot my life."
You're creating a false dichotomy, I think, intuition vs. reason. As I think Kathleen is also. You need both, it's the two sides of the brain. Either one on its own is a delusion. In my logic. And I am always happy that you read and think so deeply about these, and care so deeply about me. As I do you, friend Ghee ;-)
LOL!
I'm not *rejecting* them. They are kind of like a mind out of control: an enemy to the core. Fact, logic and words have all be used as a *seriously* powerful weapon in all of the various wars against people. And like any weapon, it isn't *the* weapon that is the *problem*.
You're correct that it wasn't logic that BROUGHT us convidiana. They were the tool used though.
And I thought you might find Luther a bit colourful!
Of course, he was actually expressing the Christian religious sentiment of the time. (And which still is a huge part of the unconscious zeitgeist.) From a French Catholic I believe, a century or so after Luther. Cited by Robert Bly:
"The French Priest Bossuet, writing at about the same time as Descartes, expressed in this passage one of the more prevalent Christian attitudes towards nature: 'May the earth be cursed, may the earth be cursed, a thousand times be cursed because from it that heavy fog and those black vapours continually rise that ascend from the dark passions and hide heaven and its light from us and draw down the lightening of God's justice against the corruption of the human race.’” Bly continued: "This attitude was acceptable to the Church Fathers and to developing capitalism. When we deny there is consciousness in nature, we also deny consciousness to the worlds we find by going through nature."
Bly, Robert, ed. News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness. San Francisco: SierraClub Books, 1980, p9.
Next time I'll look to Lao-Tzu or Chuang-Tzu for their take on the ease with which words misdirect us even as the give us the power of discourse! Much less brutal language.
I disagree with you about the false dichotomy. 🤔☯️🤨
For example, the reason collectively we in the western world especially are unconscious eugenicists is because we have subscribed to the down stream logic of the postulate 'evolution is the movement of matter from a lesser state to a higher state.' The current manifestation of the eugenics program is simply the logical extension of helping nature improve itself. And was one of the logical reasons forced sterilisation of the 'unfit' continued with very little debate until the 1980s! Logic without soul spirit heart is as easily, and perhaps more easily, the generator of more death and destruction than anything. The church used 'logic' to burn witches and logic to rig the trials. And while some of that logic may have been guilty of one or more logical fallacy, most of it was not once an initial premise was accepted. That premise didn't come from logic, logic is the descendent of the premise, is limited by first or boundary conditions. I've reference it before: Eugenics: Flawed Thinking Behind Pushed Science | Alex Story | EP 294
https://youtu.be/ZAaY0gbis4s
In an ocean of 'facts' of all sorts, most of the them fake, facts lose their validity and are easily used by logic to achieve any purpose desired. Again, convidiana has exemplified that to such an extent that we, the once partially awake at least, are having our eyeballs peeled back into our heads! For example, the facts and the opinions citing those facts in the media weren't all fake. And yet, they became irrelevant, all of them, because there was absolutely no logical way to figure out the true from the false. Logic couldn't and can't do it. Nor can reason. Impossible, so I simple stopped watching the news, etc. And this has slowly come to pass for the majority of people who in increasing numbers recognise that the facts of media, science, experts et al are wrong, even if couched in reason and logic.
Reason is simply a heartless tool that will as easily rationalise world wars, propaganda and misattribute facts to achieve that golden yellow brick road of good intentions by those in power to impose those intentions on the lesser.
That goes back to yoga and thousands of years of maybe wisdom: The mind is a terrific tool to a balanced/integrated yogic individual, and a devouring enemy to anyone who isn't. (My paraphrase.)
These two essays of yours I've commented on came with absolute perfect synchronistic timing for me! Thank you. I'll likely be including some elements of them in my next essay 'The Evil of Good and the Good of Evil part 2'. You have, as usual, provided me with great food for thought and the impetus to deep dive. Muchas gracias.
All the best!
🙏❤️🧘🏿♀️🙌❤️🙏
What jumps out at me, is that it's not Dis- Mis- information that is of utter concerns.
It is Information that is being hunted down and skinned out like some trophy for all to see.
But that's just a Readers Digest version I had to grow up with. Hahahah! Randall S.
I adored watching Mary Poppins over and over again with 3 kids. Fabulous English backdrop.
Along comes some ding dong Biden twit to run roughshod all over it. Dang!
One favorite part... Jane and Michael cause a run on the Bank! Gimmee back my Tuppens!