Posted
12:40 AM
Decided to start a self study in rhetoric.
A day later and already felt that it is a good idea. I'm going through "Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric" by Howard Kahane, and it's teaching me a lot about the structure of arguments. The ideas in it is letting me understand the way the people in my life think, and that's always a good thing.
Some examples seem infinitely familiar; I for myself is guilty of appealing to authority - i.e. agreeing with a person who holds more authority than I do simply because I believe they must know more and therefore most probably right. Truth is, "big people" are still people. Most politician have no idea of what they are talking about most of the time, and become instant experts overnight on subjects that they are expected to cover. Just because they climbed over people to get to where they are doesn't mean they know anything about flying a plane or planning a military investigation.
Time to start learning to read between the lines...
Posted
11:14 AM
I keep a log of conversations in my head. Not quite archived and sorted, but the raw information is sitting there. Sometimes I find myself falling into a silent spell thinking about all that has gone before. Conflicts that I'm not able to solve and just simply sits there like a mystery novel read to a third of its weight.
I often find something of my creation, or at least a part of my creation, completely out of my hands. It just grows on its own, becoming bigger and bigger until I'm finally afraid of it and hides away from it. It often start with a little white lie that snowballs into something completely different from its origin in intent and in form.
Like most, I am guilty of this: to go along with everyone and the major opinion or the louder voice. To agree without actually meaning to. And then to find this turned against us when it doesn't work out - so whose fault is it? Is it always a blame that we have to put on someone's shoulders? My fault for agreeing that it couldn't have worked out any other way? My fault for being weak towards the people that I love and just hoping somehow that everything will work out in the end?
Posted
3:35 AM
My skin is normal again and I'm not as angry. That annoying itch all over your body can be and was a major distraction to everything.
Had a talk with Craig/Iris/Matt separately about God. Probably gonna ask Eric about it as well. People's differing opinion on religion/non-religion is infinitely interesting. Craig and I basically share the same beliefs. But generally we concluded that:
FACT (well, not quite, but generally accepted/reinstated/logical explainations of things that can't be explained):
1. There is a universal creator. There's one for every culture and every religion, no matter how obscure it is. There is always someone who made all the things around us. That is the first cause argument, of course. We can argue that if God can exist inherently, so can the universe. But we can also explain the universe with our multitude of theories but we cannot explain God.
2. Spirits exist. Craig's seen one, and how many of us wants to think that when life is over there is nothing left?
3. There is a general tendency for civilizations to drift towards goodwill. Or, a universal reasoning that "goodwill" is much better for the survival of the civilization than untrust and disruption. It is as natural as survival and reproduction. A nation that extends its goodwill is much more likely to succeed, granted that it has sufficient power, than a nation that is obviously hostile.
In some arguments it is said that a warlike civilization is more advanced and agressive, and more likely to conquer and gobble up ones that are peaceful. This is true in the case of the Spanish meeting the native Americans. The Spanish being the conquerers of the new world, and the Natives being very open, friendly, and accepting, made the new world much easier to exploit, and the Natives never succeeded as a civilization. But looking at the big picture, this behaviour led to more bloodshed, more wars, and more revolutions. Christobal's discovery of the New World could have very much been what led us to the world we are in today - a world in which we still view power as something to be exploited and any nation carry enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world.
4. Religions / philosophy exist to bind people together in a common cause. If we think back to Babylonian times, or, the very first known city-states (call it the beginning of civilization if you will), the temples and their priests and priestesses were the governing system. The king is always below whatever deity is ruling in the state and he must follow the augurs and the omens. This temple, or the city center, is where all decisions are made by the deity (but truly, they were made by the commons). Ever since then religions have been an indispensable part of society itself, the backbone and the driving force, and sometimes the unfortunate scapegoat of wars and massacres.
The very first feminist movement, in my opinion, started back in the time of Caesar Augustus. There was an Egyptian goddess that only women worshipped, and her name was Isis. The next emperor, Tiberius, slaughtered all followers of Isis in Rome. There is power in religions that is a great force to be reckoned with. In this case, the religion binded these women together.
During and soon after the revolution in Russia, religious services were discouraged. There is no sugar candy mountain that we go to after death, and there was no God. It is much easier to control people with no illusions, but later they brought it back because they realized that it is much harder to control the hopeless, to govern people that have nothing to lose. What is there for the poor and oppressed if not hope that life after death would be better?
5. China invaded Tibet. Tibet's religion invaded China. Who won? I don't think there's a thing as winning or losing in this case. In all arguments and in its relations with the world at large, Tibet won.