[MD] subject/object: no quality?

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net>:

Well said, Ham. One for my keeper file.  

Best,
Platt


> > I think that which is prior to our experience is best left
> > undefined.  To me, using the word 'primary' is saying too much.
> > The word 'purpose' seems very presumptuous.  While unknowable,
> > within my frame of reference (constellation of overlapping,
> > interconnected, ever-changing static patterns of value) I find
> > events and relationships very interesting and exciting.  Therefore,
> > I try to make the 'best' of these events and relationships.  I live my
> > life.  And I'm happy corresponding with you is a part of that life.
> 
> Far be it for me to try to push a metaphysical hypothesis on you when you 
> are obviously not ready for it.  I'm glad that you find the ever-changing 
> patterns of events and relationships exciting, and can understand why you're 
> presently content to leave the "unknowable" undefined.  Yet, there are many 
> out there who are hungry for understanding beyond factual knowledge.  These 
> are the folks I'm trying to reach.  A great many subsist on faith in 
> religious doctrine, others seek the wisdom of the venerable philosophers or 
> the spirituality of New Age mysticism, while some are convinced that 
> scientific objectivism will eventually resolve all their questions.
> 
> What troubles me is that our society, with the help of Hollywood and the 
> media, has succumbed to emotional fads based on issues which have no logic 
> or wisdom behind them.  One of these fads is the belief that the desire for 
> higher understanding is a relic of the past that "intellectual 
> enlightenment" has overcome.  Elitists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher 
> Hitchens play on this ruse by trying to convince the vulnerable that 
> religion is the root of all evil and that it's time we put spirituality 
> behind us.  They profit from the sale of books pitting Science against 
> Religion, as if this were not a battle already played out in centuries past. 
> Yet, they say nothing about the values that have been trashed by a culture 
> which has made "having fun" the first priority, with little if any concern 
> for fiscal, moral, or civil responsibility.
> 
> In a small book titled "Roots of Freedom", John Danford wrote: "The hedonism 
> of individual pleasure-seeking, the sense that there is no limit to what is 
> permitted in the name of individual fulfillment or 'actualization', the 
> disappearance of any sense of obligations-these are early warnings of a free 
> society's decay."   Unfortunately, he's right.  I would venture to say that 
> most citizens today are so accustomed to enjoying the latest technological 
> gadgets and an affluent life style, they've come to believe that America is 
> invulnerable.  The sad truth is that they're in a state of denial about many 
> "realities" confronting them, not the least of which is the threat of a 
> barbarian culture fully committed to the destruction of their way of life.
> 
> A retired chemistry professor, and friend of many years, told me recently he 
> thought value is really only "what's important".  I would turn his 
> definition around and say that what's really important is value.  In  seven 
> decades on this planet I have watched the values that made this nation great 
> fall by the wayside to be replaced by the hubris of power, the deferment of 
> individual responsibility, the mediocrity of multicultural egalitarianism, 
> and the senseless rejection of metaphysical reality.
> 
> By the time you reach my age, Marsha, I suspect you will be expressing some 
> of the same observations.  Hopefully by that time you will have sensed a 
> need to revisit the concept of "primary source" and discover what is 
> fundamental to your life-experience.





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