I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
January 08, 2012 - 11:41 a.m.
I didn't go out yesterday which gives me some time to catch up with some ideas I wanted to write about. I like keeping a balance between idea and event editions of Wise Madness.
I always talk about how good my cooking is but yesterday I screwed up and I don't know how. My baked plantain came out far too tough and not tasty enough. This was the first time I was disappointed with it. It might have just been the fruit. I didn't like the way it looked but it was the best they had. On the other hand the jerk chicken came out perfect.
I didn't accomplish anything yesterday. I hardly read. The sing thing I spent the most time was playing on turntable.fm with Carey. We spent three hours doing that. And that accomplished something, it was fun and weird. Too bad the record on the room doesn't go back far enough but we managed to have an argument with song titles that should not have been possible to go on so long. It was something along the lines of:
You're a vampireCarey if you remember any of the titles let me know.
I'm not a vampire
Yes you are a vampire
No I'm really not a vampire
We also played a set of David Bowie songs without realizing that today is his birthday. It's also Elvis's birthday; shows how much there is to astrology.
Now it's time to get serious and talk about thoughts inspired by Terry Pratchett's Nation. Yes I said serious and Terry Pratchett in the same sentence.
Nation is not a Discworld novel. The tone is different. It isn't as silly. I of course love silly and I think that silliness is part of his overall message. Even in Nation the point is that so much of what society thinks of as normal or expected is silly. The book manages to be great even with the less absurd tone. The protagonists Mau and Daphne are clearly related to Tiffany Aching. They are just entering adolescence facing challenges that would thwart most adults. The story takes place in an alternate history 19th century where a tsunami has destroyed the island home of Mau. Everyone that Mau knows is killed. Daphne is shipwrecked there. They are the only survivors though they are soon joined by others. They face it as Tiffany would, by thinking. They know the difference between what everyone knows and reality. They use reason and knowledge. They also have what might be called courage but is without pride. They do what has to be done because there is no one else to do it. It's a Young Adult novel and they are exactly the kinds of role models kids should have.
When Leah recommended the book to me I checked the reviews online and found one that started by talking Phillip Pullman. It made me angry as it referred to his Dark Materials Books as atheist. Did the reviewer read the same book I did? God's a character in it though an offstage one. It all takes place in something very close to the Judeo-Christian cosmology. The difference is that God didn't create the universe but took credit for it and Satan is the hero that opposes him. It isn't atheist, it's Satanist. Pullman doesn't say there aren't divine beings. What he objects to is Judeo-Christian morality which he says is designed to stop people from reaching their potential. That anyone could confuse the two is frightening. I wonder if that's how many people think. It would explain why so many people don't trust atheists and feel they are immoral. I just read that Santorum in his book says that advocating gay marriage is not about the rights of gays but about laying the foundation to replacing lifetime marriage with temporary cohabitation relationships. That would fit in with Pullman's thesis that biblical morals have an evil purpose. I've actually never met anyone that thought like that but it makes a great straw man.
To my mind Pullman just replaces one religion with another that is no more rational or fact based then the ones he objects to. It is as far from atheism as you can be.
Pratchett on the other hand tells stories that manage to follow an atheist philosophy even though there are gods. When Granny Weatherwax rails against believing in gods someone objects by saying that the gods exist. Granny's response is to say, "I know but you still shouldn't believe in them. That just encourages them." The gods exist but they are not to be taken seriously.
I have never read anything that fits my notions of religion and atheism as well as Pratchett. Religion is one of the things that is just silly.
There is a passage in Nation that highlights a common religious way of thinking that always baffled me and tells it from my point of view. An old man and a baby find their way to the Island and he tells Mau that he should thank the gods for being spared.
I will not! To thank them for my life means I thank them for the deaths. I want to find reasons. I want to understand the reasons! But I can't because there are no reasons. Things happen or do not happen, and that Is all there is!"That's what I always think when I hear survivors thanking god. It's what I thought when I read the Pilgrims thanked god in the first Thanksgiving after most of the colony died. If you believe there's a god you should be angry not thankful. Is it Stockholm Syndrome? Are they identifying with their captor who has total control of them? It's a mindset I can't get understand. If terrorists take hostages and kill most of them and then let some free do we thank them? But if God kills other people and spares us we are supposed to.
Notice that here I'm discussing the hypothetical case of God existing even though I don't think he does. So yes I spend time thinking of the morality of a situation that I don't think exists. Hey I also got mad at Darren on Bewitched for being domineering and not allowing Samantha to use magic.
Pratchett gets it just right. It's so nice to see what I believe taken as common sense, not something unusual. Does that mean that his millions of readers agree with him and by extension me? I'm afraid not any more than the Pullman fans are Satanists that reject all Judeo-Christian morality. But it could mean they do; At least some of them. In any event I read Pratchett and know he'll be on the mothership taking us back to our home planet.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile January 08, 2012
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