[Better is one's own Dharma, though devoid of merit, than the Dharma of another well discharged. Better is even death in one's own Dharma; to attempt the Dharma of another is fraught with danger.]
I felt that Self-Reliance is a book length homage to this verse. Emerson, while talking loftily of originality seems to have not the slightest compunction in drawing heavily from oriental philosophies to achieve the grandeur that is reflected in his thoughts and writings. Of course Emerson was no stranger to the beautiful verses of Gita nor to the Upanishads. Emerson and Thoreau, both, were greatly drawn by the philosophy of The Gita. As Thoreau says, "In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial." Emerson has also been vocal in his praise - "The Bhagavad-Gita is an empire of thought and in its philosophical teachings Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged monotheistic deity and at the same time the attributes of the Upanisadic absolute."
I just wish that the book itself had a reference to The Gita and did not depend on my memory to make the connections. Self-Reliance is a great and inspirational work, but would have been the better for quoting its own inspirations....more
Having read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, where Lisbeth is identified as a real world Pippi, I have been planning to read the supposed inspiration for a long time. For the first few chapters, it is hard to imagine how Larsson could have based the character of Lisbeth on Pippi. Eventually I learned to warp Pippi's world and squeeze it into the supposedly real world filled with rapists and thieves, where little girls have no super strength to get by on. I could then start to see how Larsson could have imagined, reading Pippi as an adult, that each of pippi's little 'adventures' could have been a tragedy. Out of a thousand, one might survive. He decided to write about that one, a modern-day Pippi. For, you probably still need Pippi's attitude to survive in a modern-day Sweden even if you don't have her super powers - Lisbeth might have been an orphan and a rebel just like Pippi, she might only have her hacking skills as a proxy for Pippi's super-strength, but at the end of the day both could kick some ass.
The review you have just read above is meant to illustrate how my reading of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo influenced my reading of Pippi Longstocking. Is it fair to even think of Lisbeth and of Larsson's interpretation of the tale while reading it? Probably not. I wish I could read it far away from Lisbeth's shadow. Do I blame Larsson now for spoiling some good fun? Probably yes. I just wish I had read Astrid first - of course I might never have heard of Pippi if not for Larsson. This is an issue I have faced with many books where the source is as enjoyable as the book that referred me to it, but less enjoyable for having read the referring work. How to get around this? Shall I drop everything and run to a bookstore the moment the slightest footnote pops up? They better stock up before I read Ulysses then....more
Although this is a very New York specific book, in most of the chapters I could imagine parallels with cities I have lived in by stretching my imagina Although this is a very New York specific book, in most of the chapters I could imagine parallels with cities I have lived in by stretching my imagination to traverse them as the book trolled the depths of New York.
The last chapter titled “The Future� was the most eagerly anticipated. But it turned out to be a complete let down - being the most New York specific of all and almost exclusively focused on future plans (mostly construction/dev plans) scheduled in the city for the near future. While this is a (refreshing?) departure from wild predictions to be just focusing on pending innovations, it was also thereby less applicable outside the area focused on.
The book entertained at times but in the end failed to deliver on the early promise that by understanding "The Works" of a sample city, it will teach me about how cities in general work and can be improved. 3 stars for that.
[Yes, I am very unfair - it is actually such a meticulously researched, well presented and aesthetically pleasing book - almost a collectible to have in your shelf at home]. ...more
A simplistic but sometimes compelling reinterpretation. Of course, points taken away for inserting plot elements to further the ends of the reinterpreA simplistic but sometimes compelling reinterpretation. Of course, points taken away for inserting plot elements to further the ends of the reinterpretation. A better attempt would be to only try and reinterpret existing events and not include new ones just to drive the new plot. 85/100 for the attempt Uncle Orson....more
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!
INNOCENTS ABROAD!
This is history
We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!
INNOCENTS ABROAD!
This is history told through a patchwork of breezy anecdotes � that might not even fit together well enough, but still achieves the objective remarkably well. The narrative flits in and out across the world, now Australia, now India, now Afghanistan, now Congo, and so on. The idea was probably to allow the reader to visualize through these series of picturizations the full magnificence that was the Empire.
More than the anecdotal nature, the selection of anecdotes themselves is curious. They are largely personal anecdotes, dealing with individuals. The historical narrative is stitched together from these short, quick personal sketches.
The Middle Path
While enormously interesting, this selection also betrays the by-default-note of imperialistic apology writ large over such an approach. It is hard to talk of individuals without touching the picture up with romanticism, especially when only eulogizing records exist, the crushed ones having not kept individual/personal records, especially when Morris searches out the medium-level players, not the Viceroys, Governor-Generals, Kings and Ministers � the on-the-ground players � who exist now only in British-written annals or diaries/letters and loom larger than life, as they had to.
This is a new method to the rhetoric of imperial defense, at least to this reviewer � the Imperial Progress across the world is shown from a middle view � the view of the decent men and women who participated in the everyday pushing along of the imperial cart.
But why focus on them?
Why leave out the two ends of the spectrum - the Imperial Station Masters and the common men among the imperial subjects?
Because this middle view is surprisingly conducive to showing a decent and forgivable view of the Imperial ‘Progress� � a on-high view would expose the despotism, racism and blatant menace that accompanied the progress; while the bottom view would expose that the word ‘progress� is way beyond an excusable misnaming of the imperial process.
I still do not give the book less than a middling star rating since the language is good, the prose is breezy, and it is a decent reading experience. It is extremely light reading and is a good parlor-table book, enjoyable and non-thought provoking.
It is hard to capture that spirit when tackling a momentous period. The author attempted and captured that brilliantly. She also manages to make me feel defensive and a complete prig for criticizing such a breezy and good-natured account.
That is the strength of the book and the danger. The author does starts with a frank admission of bias, adding to the breezy tally-ho approach, forcing any offended readers to forgive her and just enjoy the journey. I am sorry to report that it can easily work. I was caught off-guard many times, especially when it was the other countries that were the subject of discussion. Only when the focus shifted back to India was I able to detect the prejudices of the breezy account.
[image]
In fact, how Morris would treat the (not mutiny!) was something I looked forward to � I knew that would act as a touchstone to how I would judge the book’s biases. True to expectations, she shows the ‘mutiny� as a bumbling no-show and the britishers as magnanimously outraged avengers. It is treated as a complete farce. That decided it for me and from then on my reading was much more alert to undertones.
I noticed how trivial details are lovingly dwelt on, to convey the full sense of a nostalgic lost world; while tragic events such as the (an event that left such a psychological scar on Chinese history) are passed by with a single breezy sentence:‘a well-placed blow to Tartar pride.'
What is most noticeable, however, is that the only subject people (empires enemies) who are given a semblance of humanity are the and the Australian settlers � both European in origins, of course. The Irish is also given a more personalized picturization but there is a thread of hostility and reductionism detectable there too.
Sample a selection:
... when in 1897 good old Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, the nation made it gaudily and joyously a celebration of Empire. Never had the people been more united in pride, and more champagne was imported that year than ever before in British history. What a century it had been for them all! How far the kingdom had come since that distant day when Emily Eden, hearing upon the Ganges bank of the young Queen’s accession, had thought it so charming an invention! What a marvellous drama it had offered the people, now tragic, now exuberant, now uplifting, always rich in colour, and pathos, and laughter, and the glow of patriotism! In 1897 Britain stood alone among the Powers, and to most Britons this isolated splendour was specifically the product of Empire. Empire was the fount of pride. Empire was the panacea. Empire was God’s gift to the British race, and dominion was their destiny.
Or, consider the excuses set forth in this little passage:
Not many people doubted the rightness of Empire. The British knew that theirs was not a wicked nation, as nations went, and if they were insensitive to the hypocrisies, deceits and brutalities of Empire, they believed genuinely in its civilizing mission. They had no doubt that British rule was best, especially for heathens or primitives, and they had faith in their own good intentions. In this heyday of their power they were behaving below their own best standards, but they remained as a whole a good-natured people.
Their chauvinism was not generally cruel. Their racialism was more ignorant than malicious. Their militarism was skin-deep. Their passion for imperial grandeur was to prove transient and superficial, and was more love of show than love of power. They had grown up in an era of unrivalled national success, and they were displaying the all too human conceit of achievement.
Sure. I buy that. Yeah.
It also has to be said that occasionally she does try to knowingly mock the empire to show detachment but inevitably slips back into a gloating romanticizing of the empire. The account on Irish history also helped me with my reading of Joyce - another positive for the book. Also, THERE IS AN INDEX!
A Non-Intellectual Defense
So in effect, it is a non-intellectual defense of Empire, deftly done by by providing personal accounts, by telling the reader � “but look, see how swell these guys were?� It is emotional manipulation. And quite effective � It is hard to feel anger towards most of the characters on which the book rides. I feel that is quite a psychologically powerful impression that the book can leave. Even more so for being true, most of these middle-level guys in probability really were swell guys.
[ -As Japan apologizes to Korea, a group of people from other colonized nations wonders when their colonizers will issue a similar apology. ]
[image]
Even though cringe-inducingly triumphalistic throughout, this is good historical time-pass. It is recommended in that spirit. As long as the readers stay alert against taking an ideological impression away from the reading of the Empire as a good natured, well-intentioned beast that never knew that it was doing anything wrong and got up and left as soon as it realized.
The problem with all such defenses of Empire is that they are inevitably operating on the premise of a false dichotomy � that of being able to separate (or even prove the existence of) positive and negative sides to colonialism. Which is just the wrong way to look at subjugation and exploitation � it does NOT matter if positives were there. Mistakes were made, deal with it. Denialism will get us nowhere. Imperialism was not genial bumbling. Sorry.
“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.�
Here is the review I had planned in my earlier rambling. I had half-hoped that I would brood over it, and in due time, some blazingly originQualifier:
Here is the review I had planned in my earlier rambling. I had half-hoped that I would brood over it, and in due time, some blazingly original understanding of the book would shine through in a review (as it usually does!). Now enough time has passed and I have even given the book a second go-over. I am still lost. So here, for your reading pleasure, is the second-hand review, the old mish-mash of familiar thoughts, the dusty talk about beauty and about confused morality and vague hints at some hidden depth. It is just table-talk as far as Lolita is concerned. Do you really want to read it? Why don't you read a more intelligent counter-analysis here? I warned you --
Review:
Lolita should probably be read with a french dictionary in one hand and a glass of wine on the table side and even that doesn't guarantee that you will understand the full beauty of the prose.
Only the beauty of the language distracts one enough to get through the head-over-heals atrocities that litter the pages. At times I felt strongly that it is more of a study in beauty and aesthetics than is it about morality or on examining the pathos of society - as we want every literary book to be.
The fact that it doubles as a weird post-apocalyptic parent-daughter road-trip, where they cruise on against the dark landscape of a morally devastated world was for me only a backdrop to the exquisite ode to beauty that the book was. But, the road-trip nevertheless occupies a central position in the narrative. The Appalachian roads are the witness to the worst of the perversions - the dark moral descent. And then the tide reverses and the same roads are traversed again in a mad descent of the intellect into madness. But somehow, in that second journey Humbert gains a surer knowledge of what the relationship between beauty and innocence is and about what appreciation should be tolerated and what terminated.
The most disturbing factor about the whole reading experience was the dawning sense that the poor Lolita whom you are to pity is not so innocent after all.
She represents the modern youth - who knows all the worst secrets of earth and indulges them without any sense of the absurd or evil. The innocence lost is regained due to a lack of angst at what an earlier generation considered morally base. What is not acceptable in this post-apocalyptic moral world? Apparently nothing, the worst transgressions are treated as matter of fact and the two interlopers are never discovered and even murder is committed in the midst of mad jocularity. It’s a comedy roiling in depravity, masquerading as a confession. It is as darkly-funny as ‘darkly-funny� can get. Post-modernism marries Absurdist literature in Nabokov's Lolita.
The fabricated foreword too gives tantalizing clues on how to decipher the novel and the protagonist - but as you finish the novel you realize that the foreword was an example of how someone who just doesn't “get it� would view the novel. It is a negative signpost to guide you on where not to go. The afterword is very factual and gives a better understanding of the book.
As the B&N site says, Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written... that is, ecstatically. The novel is indeed too perfectly crafted, you want to scream at it in disgust and you want to coo at it in adoration. It is like one of those abhorrent but so-perfect marble statues - it is beautiful enough to be feared but your eyes can never look away once fixed on its perfect form. As a fellow goodreader has said, you may not enjoy reading this book but you might enjoy having read it. Reading it is worth the time, just to marvel at what our mundane, every-day language can become in the hands of a true artist.
Forget what it describes, go with the music, dance a little....more
I so wanted to launch into an outraged invective against the temerity of the author - but find myself in reluctant agreement with most of the argumentI so wanted to launch into an outraged invective against the temerity of the author - but find myself in reluctant agreement with most of the arguments. Let me read and research the period even more before any attempt at a conclusion.
Mmm Hmmm. McCarthy gone done it. He gone eclipsed Beckett hisslef. Desolation, I like them sound of that trickbag. Yess.
[A full comparative review migMmm Hmmm. McCarthy gone done it. He gone eclipsed Beckett hisslef. Desolation, I like them sound of that trickbag. Yess.
[A full comparative review might happen, though I am not sure I am up to it - Was that the cry of an angel at the end? Was that a re-enactment of Eden, with an angel substituted for the devil? Will man fail in either case? I am not up to it, as I said. All aboard The Sunset Limited. Please.]...more
Could not consider the experience complete without reading Heaney's acclaimed translation. The acclaim was well deserved. This version was much easier Could not consider the experience complete without reading Heaney's acclaimed translation. The acclaim was well deserved. This version was much easier to read, less choked by stylistic anachronisms and more alive in every sense. Gummere's translation has an elegance and presence that intimidates and exalts the reading but Heaney brings it home, makes it as familiar as Homer's epics and somehow makes us at ease with the strange manes and the stranger tides....more
Däniken must have won some mighty awards for this one, right? Right?
I have to admit that it was seriously entertaining though, mostly in imagining whoDäniken must have won some mighty awards for this one, right? Right?
I have to admit that it was seriously entertaining though, mostly in imagining who it was who played the practical joke on Däniken each time he sticks his neck out on an imagined 'fact'.
Just to sum up the book: how can anyone imagine a concept like Time Travel without having experienced/seen it? Surely Victorian England was visited and ruled by the Time Lords who then vanished. leaving us to roil in our longing stories. People who have read the book, please laugh along with me...
This is not to deny that there are mysteries in the past, but then so are there in any field of human study - that does not mean that we have to postulate such excesses based on so little evidence. I can't resist going off on the same vein again - How can anyone imagine talking animals? Surely ancient India was home to intelligent (and highly literate) animals as well as the sporadic aliens, all conspiring to befuddle the poor humans into worshiping them and then mythologizing them.
The mistake is to rigidly try to classify the myths as facts or stories. If only Däniken had taken the time to understand the power of symbolism in myth-making... hell, he could have done that purely by reading a few comic books!
By the way, was it only me or was Däniken's usage of the word "utopia" just all over the place and far away from the accepted meaning?...more
Ragnarok: The End of The Gods � A Re-view or Ragnarok: The Twilight of the Reader
While the others in the Cannongate series re-imagined the stories, Byat Ragnarok: The End of The Gods � A Re-view or Ragnarok: The Twilight of the Reader
While the others in the Cannongate series re-imagined the stories, Byatt reread it. And then told the tale of reading it. Underwhelming? To an extent, yes. But, the Norse myths are magnificent enough to come alive of themselves even when the author decides to color them distant.
Byatt gives her reasoning for this approach in the end - saying that she believes myths should not be humanized and the experience of imbibing the story of a myth, of how the story permeates the life, of how myth shapes an individuals and then a society's internal life is what gives a myth its true meaning.
She wanted to mythologize this process - of how a myth can shape a life. And through her Thin Child, she might have done this to an extent, though she let me down on my expectations of a fun and thrilling adventure in the frigid, intimidating and exhilarating strangeness of the Norse landscapes....more
The review I really have in mind will be attempted for this book only after I finish reading Claudius the God (to quench the burning curios Yo, Claudio
The review I really have in mind will be attempted for this book only after I finish reading Claudius the God (to quench the burning curiosity of how this ‘Clau-Clau-Claudius�, a man, who in the first shock of being made emperor had this outrageous thought come rushing to his mind - "So, I'm Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now.�, will conduct himself as a God-Emperor), The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, so that I can apply the same criteria for reviewing any work of history, as suggested by Claudius (original source for much of Pliny's work) himself, through Livius and Pollio (all works unfortunately lost).
Meanwhile, have a short and enjoyable snapshot sampling of the book by going through the-easy-to-follow family tree given below. Ah, the tales that can be told while tracing those lines�
The subtitle pretty much sums the book up. Some interesting remedies are suggested but nothing radical. The premise of the book is WYTIWYG - What You The subtitle pretty much sums the book up. Some interesting remedies are suggested but nothing radical. The premise of the book is WYTIWYG - What You Test is What You Get - If you implement shallow tests and metrics to measure the young generation, they will evolve into that and beat you at the same game, in the worst ways imaginable.
Introduce deep reading and a love for learning instead of artificial measures; test for understanding, not for mere retention of facts - facts change and when they do, it is the ability to understand and process them that will count above mere retention. We need to teach the right things in schools but more important we should test for the right things. To repeat again, WYTIWYG....more
On Free Will & Crime: How should society react to violent crime?
Glancing at the cover might have been more than enough to guess the full contents of t On Free Will & Crime: How should society react to violent crime?
Glancing at the cover might have been more than enough to guess the full contents of this one...
Harris is right to an extent, but as many have already done, his argument is too easy to poke holes in. This is primarily because the argument depends on the definition/boundary that he imposes on it. It makes for a good argument in a monologue but will fall apart in a dialogue.
This is not to say that there is no merit in what he concludes on the basis of his hypothesis. He uses it to identify the true nature of crime and how society should react to it:
If sneezing was a crime and someone violated it, can we become riled enough about it to conduct mass protests? What if all (or most) violent crimes are like that at a fundamental level - involuntary? Can we move our justice system away from a system based on punishment to one based on correction/isolation. Can we start feeling fear and pity to offenders instead of anger and revenge? These threads make the book a must read, especially in the light of the mass hysteria that has gripped Delhi (and the whole nation) in the wake of the poor unnamed girl's unfortunate death. Maybe I will elaborate on my thoughts on this subject at a later date, coward that I am....more
Eco Barons is a well-written and profoundly moving collection of inter-linked real-life stories that is surprisingly dramatic and engaging in its conc Eco Barons is a well-written and profoundly moving collection of inter-linked real-life stories that is surprisingly dramatic and engaging in its concise chronicling of the lives of these heroes who are making it their life’s work to save the planet in their own outrageous, touching and sometimes idiosyncratic, but always genuine ways.
There are thousands of environmentalists and activists doing important work in America and around the world. But a few of them go farther—these dreamers, schemers, moguls, and coupon clippers; these eco barons. There are others out there, certainly, more all the time; this book is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is an inspiring selection. The eco barons depicted here stand out because they are game-changers, accomplishing something extraordinary, raising the bar of the possible, usually after being told that what they are attempting is impossible. They have undertaken an epic project: to set an example for the rest of us.
Their actions are their message: that there is a clear choice, a difficult choice, a right choice, and to make it is to express the faith that it is not too late to save the world—and that a new way of living can be better, healthier, smarter, and more prosperous.
The first and probably the most inspiring is the story of how the legendary DougTompkins, millionaire and the founder of Espirit, abandoned his sprawling fashion empire, found a rugged cabin in the middle of Eden (read Chile), and started saving and restoring paradise, one plot, one fence, and one tree at a time, conquering government antagonism, lobbyists and big industry that wanted to make concrete jungles out of these majestic old-growth forests.
The second story elaborates on two naturalists and lawyers who lived like monks and found a way to use the law to save forests, species, and clean air when no one else could.
Then is the techy tale of a professor and his students building magical cars that burn no gas and trying to redefine the doomsday trajectory plotted by Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Coal and the other leviathans and to set us on a new course. His cars are cleaner, cheaper, faster, more enduring, gives more mileage - how many more boxes do you want your dream car to tick?
Also, there is the story of a cosmetics queen who, like Doug, sold her empire and is spending her fortune to save the last great forests of Maine and having to fight every inch of the way to do it.
Not to be forgotten is the Media Mogul who gave us CNN and Cartoon Network and numerous other entertainments, who owns more land than anybody else in the country and is devoting his real estate might to trying so hard to return the land to its pristine state before humans arrived to despoil it, working step-by-step to re-wilding the lands and to reintroduce native species and to preserve a heritage fast vanishing.
Last, and seemingly the least, but still an eco-baron, is the “turtle lady� who walks along a beach inspecting turtles and single-handedly saved a species - As good a story as the traditional rags-to-riches story that makes for a newspaper headline? Shouldn’t it be?
These eco-barons see, clearly, that what we’re doing as a society is not working. Their response is not to shout about it, or lobby about it, or generate self-aggrandizing headlines about it. Their response is to do something about it, and their results have been spectacular.
Some Resources for the interested/concerned:
To Know more on the Eco-barons:
For the Internet supplement to this book, including photos ofthe eco barons and their projects, maps, background information, links to their individual Web sites, and more resources, visit .
For general environmental information, news, and advice:
Grist: Environmental News and Commentary: and the related blog, .
Greenwash Brigade: .
The Sietch Blog: .
Green Options: .
Climate Debate Daily: Get all sides of the global warming debate at .
For advice on ‘living like an Eco-baron�:
Terrapass: Calculate your carbon footprint and find green products at .
NativeEnergy: Learn about and purchase carbon offsets at .
Service trips: Earthwatch Institute and the Sierra Club maintain lists of volunteer vacations that put you to work on conservation and public lands projects.
Earthwatch: .
Sierra Club: .
Treehugger: This environmental Web site’s How to Go Green guide offers tips on green home buying, green dishwashers, green gift buying, greening your sex life, and more at .
On “driving like an Eco-baron”�
EPA Green Vehicle Guide: Learn about the greenest cars in America at .
Plug In America:
Green Car Congress: News, reports, and information on sustainable transportation at .
The California Cars Initiative: .
Drive Green: Calculate and offset the greenhouse gas emissions for your travel at .
On “eating like an Eco-baron�
Green Daily Green Eating Guide: .
Eat Well Guide: Find, cook, and eat sustainable food at .
Sustainable Table: Another excellent resource for local and sustainable food is ....more
The slips and the streams, they drain, and they drain,
He is left alone, possessing not even his own;
With it the stream of words cease to flow,
With it all voices of melody turns mute �
... I do not wish to make me a laughing-stock,
Before these throngs ofidle listeners.
...Let not sloth dim my horrors new-begot,
Let me discoveranewsilence wherever I turn.
Help me find that silent thief,
Who steals from me my most precious treasure --
Procrastination,thatthief of Time,
Let me collar him and hammer the stake!
I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat,
Andsneakin with my silent words �
"And form yournoose around that neck,"
Said She, in the same hurried passionate whisper,
"And hang him till the fleeting breath flits no more".
Composed on
:,in collaboration with, , , , , and . So a few quotes from these writers make up some lines here and there, all the better parts actually.
PS. Do share your own collaborations below if you find them interesting......more
All the poems are so well translated and seems to keep true to their original innocence and wonder. Each piece in this collection should be repeated m All the poems are so well translated and seems to keep true to their original innocence and wonder. Each piece in this collection should be repeated multiple times to feel its true resonance - like the humming and the mumbling that these poets talk of when they talk of chanting poetry.
The gibbons chattering, the moonlight flowing over you, the soft wind caressing, the lofty mountains for friends, the white clouds playful all around and the other minute yet infinite details of a secluded life take special meaning in each repetitive but strangely innovative verse.
And of course, the boats keep drifting, empty, alone; filled only with the silver moonlight.
My favorite one:
River. Snow.
A thousand mountains. Flying birds vanish. Ten thousand paths. Human traces erased. One boat, bamboo hat, bark cape � an old man. Alone with his hook. Cold river. Snow....more
So it is then established that Gods, Religious concepts and Rituals are natural effervescences of the kind of Non-scholarly musings on a Scholarly work
So it is then established that Gods, Religious concepts and Rituals are natural effervescences of the kind of mind that we posses, parasitic on our cognitive processes. It (our minds) is uniquely suited to imbibe them.
Mark though: We cannot (yet) make a claim that our minds WILL produce Gods and Religions and Rituals if left to themselves (though historical evidence might indicate that this could well be the case) but only that our minds cannot avoid the God Meme once exposed to it. Our society is very efficient at ensuring that.
An Atheist or an Agnostic is in this way, in this fundamental cognitive aspect of the nature of our cognitive construction, indistinguishable from a Theist - once exposed to a God concept they cannot but let their mind's velcro stick to those burs forever.
The Theist adheres to a theological notion, the Agnostic to a scientific/skeptic's credo and an Atheist to his own brand of faith in a new-found Religion of Science (reminding one of the Buddhists who tried to go nuclear (agnostic) and ended up as theistic in daily life).
But, we do have two brains inside us (yes, that is quite a 'new' finding too) as Daniel Kahneman elaborates in his new book (Thinking, Fast and Slow) and only our rational brain system (read pathway) can entertain these abstract concepts. Our emotional/instinctive (read pathway) brain will still repeatedly resort to the God Concept we are familial (thus familiar) with in most of our our “on-line� thinking - that is in our daily (non-abstract-thinking) life.
"Deal with it", the message is: We are all the same - Theists, Agnostics, Atheists or whatever we call ourselves, we are all in the same boat believing in the same agencies “on-line� and professing different versions of our pet abstractions “off-line�.
Not even managing to fool ourselves.
Disclaimer:
The above review is not a summation of the book but more a running with the ball tossed by it. The book is a study and an overview of the new Science of the Cognitive Study of Religion and deals with Religion in a new way - as a cognitive by-product of our psychology and our evolution. It is thoroughly fascinating and can lead to all sorts of ideas just as any new science should. ...more
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