Good to hear from Tor again! Hopefully
well-fare for people is still alive and
well in the land of the midnight sun!
Tor Forde wrote:
[snip]
> May be the reason is that persons often tend to seek their identity in
> what they are missing.
I think there is truth/value on *both* sides here: If
one is missing something really important, that is really
important. However, on the other side: Real human
companionship with peers -- "the conversation we are"
made flesh and dwelling among us -- is surely the best
salve for suffering we cannot put an end to, as well
as being the greatest source of joy when we feel good.
> There was some time ago a rather strange debate here.
> Some blind persons wanted to have an operation which might give them
> back their ability to see. But then organizations of blinds protested to
> this surgery. They said it removed the dignity of blind people. Blind
> people were now developing their own culture based upon blindness, and
> those who wanted to leave the state of blindness were traitors to their
> culture.
This is a "lovely" (even if not *felicitous*) parable.
It is real "food for thought".
>
> When people are deprived of something they will often think about it all
> the time. I have read about persons who were in concentrations camp
> during the war, and they were thinking about food all the time. They
> were talking about food all the time in the day and dreaming about food
> in the night.
Anybody remember *Maslow's hierarchy* of needs? Until your
stomach is reasonably full that's your focus in life.
Next comes a roof over your head. Next comes physical
health (try living all your life with a sore dead-center
in your mouth, e.g.!). Etc. -- all the way up to (why be
shy?) Husserl's vision of a humanity transfigured in
the eternal self-accountable re-creation of the world.
On the other side is the famous John Adams quote which
goes something to the effect that "I have been a businessman
so my children could be doctors and lawyers, so their
children could become artists and philosophers...."
>
> Like this sexuality can cause problems, and Freud met people with
> problems that Freud interpreted to be sexual problems, and since that
> time it has been populare to reduce everything to sexuality.
> This might be the case for people living in a sexually deprived
> environment, like food is what all is about for other people.
Amen!!!!!!!!!!!!(etc.!) The solution to a good many problems in
our social world is to throw off the sexual taboos which,
if analogously applied to alimentation, would make anorexics look like
paragons of health.
>
> But it is too arrogant to say that sexuality in the end is all that
> matters for everybody. I have read that americans have a strange
> relationship to sexuality, (and many others too.)
Back to Freud! In _Civilization and its discontents_, he
wrote one of the most beautiful passages in all utopian
literature (quoting from memory):
So far we can imagine a society of double
individuals, libidinally satisfied in themselves
and united by bonds of common work and
common interests....
But such a society has never existed, because
[existing] societies use all the means at
their disposal [esp. sexual repression]
to libidinally buind the individual to the
community.... (Sec. V)
But Freud may have been wrong. Al Lingis,
in _Excesses_ writes of a medieval Cambodian
(Indian?) society which was culturally
advanced and *did not repress sexuality* --
Khajuraho. And we know that man's closest
biological relatives, pygmy chimpanzees,
employ sexual gratification liberally as
a socially bonding agent (Darwin does have his
uses sometimes and in moderation...)
>
> All the best
>
> Tor Forde
> email:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You too!
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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