[MD] Hippies in Sodom and Gomorrah

[khaled Alkotob]

The little Buddha

well said.

I am re listening to ZMM ( i do a bit of driving so this is a great way
to pass the time, and I just referred the unabridged Lila on tape) and
hence the quotes in some of my response. As you revisit pirsig you
re-realize a few things.

1. We don't know everything
2. There are no absolutes
3. Our methods of thinking are OBSOLETE.

Some of our methods still belong to the Flat Earth society way of
thinking. it's no longer cause and effect.

I would like us to get to what I want to coin "Spherical Thinking".

Years ago, Interpol wanted to do a hierarchical chart of the crime
families in Europe, and a tree with branches was not sufficient. then
they hit on the idea of a circle with colored lines connecting the
families on the inside. I would like to take that idea further and make
the circle a sphere, with inner connecting spokes. Now it's really
complex, and you can't move one, without causing a ripple effect to the
rest. It's that new quantum leap we need to start reasoning in this day
and age.

Khaled

[Rebecca]
> Hey Kids,
> 
> I just had a thought about something.  Perhaps these partisan 
> alignments
> have a little bit to do with peoples' inability to say "I don't 
> know"... or
> "I'm not sure".  The ideological spectrum gives you a 'camp' to play 
> in -
> you need not do any research or thinking of your own (there are a 
> lot of
> issues and we're busy people after all) just find out what your 
> party seems
> to believe, broadly, and voilà: instant convictions.  Because of the 
> speed
> of our information and communications technology, there are a lot of 
> issues
> that one has to be morally righteous about these days.  Where do you 
> stand
> on abortion?  There's a biggie.  What about the Zapatista rebels in 
> Southern
> Mexico; sweatshops in central China; coral reef bleaching in the
> Carribean?    Do you think "what would my ideological camp say about 
> this?"
> or do you say "huh, I really have no idea."  It seems to get even 
> more
> complicated when you mix a political framework with a religious one 
> - you're
> not sure which way is up.  What exactly does the Bible say about 
> child
> labour?  Does the Koran forbid female genital mutilation?
> 
> I guess what I'm trying to say is that things are always more 
> complicated
> than ideology tries to make them.  MC Escher's marching men is a 
> fantastic
> metaphor for ideology - a two dimensional view of a 
> multi-dimensional
> world... something just doesn't translate properly.  Is the Good 
> absolute or
> relational?  In my world Good never stands alone - whatever has the 
> most
> Truth and the most Beauty is the highest Good.  I guess Quality is 
> like a
> synthesis of these things - that's why it's a bit hard to get your 
> head
> around.