P
purba
Guest
The following SOTT comment was offered in relation to the above article posted 1/25/06:
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/chains/signs20060125_Iranq.php#1c9ab484ecf9aaf1cd601591afe
First off, I am really glad to see this message board up and running. I think it is a very much needed bridge between the environment of rigorous analysis over at casschat and the information contained in the literature and work presented by SOTT in general. So thank you very much for this.
Secondly, analyzing evil in an objective and intentional way (not to mention systematic and scientific) in the context of current events is the only way to make sense of what's going on in the world. It may be that what makes life livable in our time and place is not being free from discomfort or anxiety, but rather in simply being able register the presence of evil in the world for what it is, at any level it appears. Understanding the objective presence of evil in the world seems to me, in this sense, prerequesite for having a fundamental sense of reality at all. To understand evil in the context of a forum like this removes us from the difficult isolation that the recognition of systemic evil might otherwise leave us in. When you suggest that Douglas Barber might "have been able to convert his suffering into positive work for the promotion of that which is good, decent, and normal," this to me points to the essential difference between self-empowerment and suicidal despair, a difference SOTT is demonstrating in increasingly bold and energizing ways.
Thanks again for going public one step more.
purba
Link to original article:To talk about evil as though it were a REAL concept is something we have been programmed to NOT do!
We clearly need to study this problem of macro-social evil in our world in a systematic and scientific way. And we need to get over the idea that thinking only good thoughts, thinking about happy and "nice" things is the way to good psychological health.
It's clear that trying to think "happy thoughts" did no good for Douglas Barber; his observations and experience were in conflict with this plausible lie. But it is so plausible that millions upon millions of people are taken in by it.
Who knows? If Douglas Barber had known about SOTT, if he had known about our work with the Quantum Future Group, if he had known about our studies in psychopathy and Ponerology, perhaps he would have been able to come to a resolution about the fact that Evil does exist, that it rules this world and has done for millennia, and then he would have been able to convert his suffering into positive work for the promotion of that which is good, decent, and normal.
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/chains/signs20060125_Iranq.php#1c9ab484ecf9aaf1cd601591afe
First off, I am really glad to see this message board up and running. I think it is a very much needed bridge between the environment of rigorous analysis over at casschat and the information contained in the literature and work presented by SOTT in general. So thank you very much for this.
Secondly, analyzing evil in an objective and intentional way (not to mention systematic and scientific) in the context of current events is the only way to make sense of what's going on in the world. It may be that what makes life livable in our time and place is not being free from discomfort or anxiety, but rather in simply being able register the presence of evil in the world for what it is, at any level it appears. Understanding the objective presence of evil in the world seems to me, in this sense, prerequesite for having a fundamental sense of reality at all. To understand evil in the context of a forum like this removes us from the difficult isolation that the recognition of systemic evil might otherwise leave us in. When you suggest that Douglas Barber might "have been able to convert his suffering into positive work for the promotion of that which is good, decent, and normal," this to me points to the essential difference between self-empowerment and suicidal despair, a difference SOTT is demonstrating in increasingly bold and energizing ways.
Thanks again for going public one step more.
purba