Comment Re:Flamebait, but the perfect opportunity (Score 2, Insightful) 178
I dont' know what flamebait is, and what it is not. I always feel a good debate is relevant, and that flaming can be artistic, as when William Buckley and Gore Vidal go at it, or Alex Cockburn and Chris Hitchens.
Let me instead address a couple of small points here, in hopes the poster really wanted some insights, rather than merely rhetorical venting only (which is their right, of course).
1. "Then I grew up." Well, being what I consider a sorcerer (in the Alan Moore/Grant Morrison sense of the term, or if you like, the Evrett/Wheeler/Graham model, grin), I think it is crucial to make distinction between childish and child-like behaviours. I would hope to lose the former, and never, even at teh advanced age of 48 here, ever, lose the child-like wonder and magick I still find when I visit the worlds of Kiki and Totoro and yeah, even Pooh. Those are nice worlds, utopian, and we maybe ought to try to make OUR world more like them. As to showing these things, as Goedel says, when we show things as they ARE, we make them LEss than they are.
2. AS to the xenophobic views, and the hideous work till you drop culture, i am in accord with disagreement with those values. However, and this puzzles me, the anime I speak of, Kiki's Delivery Service and Totoro, say, seem to me to teach toleration, tolerance, and the value of dolce fa niente, to mix cultural metaphors.
3. Use that energy to create? Yes...and no. By all means anyone who ONLY consumes and does not create is not doing all they could be doing to make our world better and more aesthetic. However, what good is a gift with no recipient, as my sifu would say? We must each be both creator and audience, in our turns, so that we may all make magick, and all EXPERIENCE it from others, and thereby inspire and draw inspiration by turns.
4. Obsession. By all means, anyone who obsesses about anything needs to broaden their horizons. HOwever, I would forgive obsession with sweet utopian benign materials before i would forgive obsession with vindictive acts, for example. Triage sir, triage!
Thank you for this forum. I am aware that the internet is a place for flaming and debate, and I love those. But I also love discourse of a gentlemanly and noblesse oblige nature. I hope that some of these observations might engnder some reasonabl replies, or rebuttles, as well as any flames. Thanks again, Zanvil
Let me instead address a couple of small points here, in hopes the poster really wanted some insights, rather than merely rhetorical venting only (which is their right, of course).
1. "Then I grew up." Well, being what I consider a sorcerer (in the Alan Moore/Grant Morrison sense of the term, or if you like, the Evrett/Wheeler/Graham model, grin), I think it is crucial to make distinction between childish and child-like behaviours. I would hope to lose the former, and never, even at teh advanced age of 48 here, ever, lose the child-like wonder and magick I still find when I visit the worlds of Kiki and Totoro and yeah, even Pooh. Those are nice worlds, utopian, and we maybe ought to try to make OUR world more like them. As to showing these things, as Goedel says, when we show things as they ARE, we make them LEss than they are.
2. AS to the xenophobic views, and the hideous work till you drop culture, i am in accord with disagreement with those values. However, and this puzzles me, the anime I speak of, Kiki's Delivery Service and Totoro, say, seem to me to teach toleration, tolerance, and the value of dolce fa niente, to mix cultural metaphors.
3. Use that energy to create? Yes...and no. By all means anyone who ONLY consumes and does not create is not doing all they could be doing to make our world better and more aesthetic. However, what good is a gift with no recipient, as my sifu would say? We must each be both creator and audience, in our turns, so that we may all make magick, and all EXPERIENCE it from others, and thereby inspire and draw inspiration by turns.
4. Obsession. By all means, anyone who obsesses about anything needs to broaden their horizons. HOwever, I would forgive obsession with sweet utopian benign materials before i would forgive obsession with vindictive acts, for example. Triage sir, triage!
Thank you for this forum. I am aware that the internet is a place for flaming and debate, and I love those. But I also love discourse of a gentlemanly and noblesse oblige nature. I hope that some of these observations might engnder some reasonabl replies, or rebuttles, as well as any flames. Thanks again, Zanvil
