[MD] Social Darwinism

[david buchanan]

Arlo said to Krimel:
I'm hard-pressed to think of anything better than a drunken Thunder God.

dmb says:
The only thing I can think of that might be better is a drunken Thunder God 
in a bikini. You know, sexy lady Thunder God. Then she'd be hot as well as 
loud. Or how about a tap-dancing Thunder God?

Krimel said to Arlo:
God, higher consciousness, purpose are outgrowths of emerging from us. They 
are not drawing us forward. They are not inevitable. They are not 
preexistant. They are growing out of the expanding collective story we are 
telling.

Arlo replied:
I agree with this, and I don't think it is at odds with what I am saying.

dmb chimes in:
I don't think the MOQ asserts any inevitabilities, pre-existing purposes, 
gods or anything of the sort. Sounds like theology to me. Instead, I was 
thinking that it goes back to that sweet and simple idea in ZAMM, the idea 
that improving the world begins in one's own heart and hands, not in some 
big top-down program or grand scheme. The idea that people who change the 
world are usually just working out their own problems and they hit upon 
solutions that the culture in general also needs. It reminds me of that 
section from Granger that Arlo posted a week or so ago. If memory serves, 
the basic idea was that we are obliged to be realistic about the facts of 
our lives but we are also obliged to try to transcend those facts, to 
deliberately not stand still. I think this is basically what the 
existentialists said later, that "authenticity" meant taking responsibility 
for one's own growth. I guess the idea is that when enough people are doing 
their own thing authentically, the whole culture moves forward. And wouldn't 
it be get if things were set up so as to accomodate that process?

dmb

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