>From: John Young <jya@xxxxxxxxxxxx> in part:
>refusing to accept responsibility for the adverse consequences of
>your desires and their fulfillment is the drug designers are addicted
>to and push upon others who disdain willful crippling of oneself.
Built up layer upon layer, from Solon to Pericles, the Athenian idea of
citizenship put public service, civic education, democracy and restraint
ahead of wealth, economics, self-interest and emotion. It is what enabled
them, under the leadership of Thrasybus, to drive out the utilitarian
dictatorship of the Spartans who had destroyed Pericles' humanist,
citizen-based experiment. While the disaster lasted they held on to the
idea of the public good and remembered Pericles' exhortation that,
"words are no barrier to deeds; but rather harm comes from not taking
instruction from discussion before the time has come for action."
The Athenian revolt was the first Western context for struggling with how to
live our lives and shape our public good.
Love/hate and happiness when transmuted from the personal characteristics
that they are (desires), into the public realm, become ideologies. They are
amorphous forces, impossible to control.
It is our qualities as humans, our common sense, our reason, our ethics, our
memories, our imaginations. They are the vehicle carrying us as shared
knowledge, transporting us back to the (Periclean) future. The obligation
and opportunity to use our qualities is not a reward for utilitarian
success,
something to be philanthropically added on after we've gotten our own.
Life is equilibrium.
>refusing to accept responsibility for the adverse consequences of
>your desires and their fulfillment is the drug designers are addicted
>to and push upon others who disdain willful crippling of oneself.
Built up layer upon layer, from Solon to Pericles, the Athenian idea of
citizenship put public service, civic education, democracy and restraint
ahead of wealth, economics, self-interest and emotion. It is what enabled
them, under the leadership of Thrasybus, to drive out the utilitarian
dictatorship of the Spartans who had destroyed Pericles' humanist,
citizen-based experiment. While the disaster lasted they held on to the
idea of the public good and remembered Pericles' exhortation that,
"words are no barrier to deeds; but rather harm comes from not taking
instruction from discussion before the time has come for action."
The Athenian revolt was the first Western context for struggling with how to
live our lives and shape our public good.
Love/hate and happiness when transmuted from the personal characteristics
that they are (desires), into the public realm, become ideologies. They are
amorphous forces, impossible to control.
It is our qualities as humans, our common sense, our reason, our ethics, our
memories, our imaginations. They are the vehicle carrying us as shared
knowledge, transporting us back to the (Periclean) future. The obligation
and opportunity to use our qualities is not a reward for utilitarian
success,
something to be philanthropically added on after we've gotten our own.
Life is equilibrium.