[MD] An Old Reactionary Speaks

[MarshaV]

Wonderful!  Thank you Gav and John.  I love when things flow 
together.  -Marsha



At 01:42 PM 6/22/2009, you wrote:
>Reading Gav's posting about old artists,  a true reactionary came to mind -
>a man who influenced my life a great deal and died last year at the
>too-young age of 95.
>
>
>I'd read Masanobu Fukuoka's Natural Way of Farming years ago, and the
>incredible quality of his thinking caused me to change the way I thought
>about farming and relate to my little acre and half.  But I hadn't read his
>book in years and so I thought I'd pick it up and start reading it again.
>
>
>Here's a blurb from the back, just to give you an intro to the man:
>
>
>"Even rarer in this age of fragmented specialization is his grasp on the
>interrelatedness of all aspects of human society and nature.  Acclaimed as
>"modern day Lao Tzu"  by fellow Japanese for his paradoxical wisdom, he
>reaches back to the source of agrarian traditions to emerge at the vanguard
>of post-industrial civilization.  He stands on the direct realization that
>culture is agriculture, and overturns preconceptions and rational reductions
>of the world to show us the roots of a healthy and whole way of life -- and
>the proof is in his farming!"
>
>
>Health and whole way of life!  Sounds good, doesn't it.  But what really
>suprised me was how much of his thought was directly harmonious with the
>MoQ.  By this, I mean the way he attacks reductionism, science and SOM are
>profound and comprehensive.
>
>
>How does a farmer make the philosophical connection Pirsig made?
>
>
>Observe his thinking:
>
>
>To look at or scrutinize rice does not mean to view rice as the object, to
>observe or think about rice.  One should essentially "put oneself " in the
>place of the rice.  In so doing, the self looking upon the rice plant
>vanishes.  This is what it means to "see and not examine and in
>*not*examining to know."
>
>
>Although what I am saying here may seem as intangible and difficult to
>undersand as the words of a Zen priest, I am not borrowing philosophical and
>Buddhist terms to spout empty theories and principles.  I am speaking from
>raw personal experience of things grounded in reality.
>
>
>
>Now that last sentence really grabbed me,being profoundly empirical.  Here
>are some more passages I cherry-picked for you all.
>
>
>The state of Quality apprehension in infants:
>
>
>"An infant sees things intuitively.  When observed without intellectual
>discrimination, nature is entire and complete -- a unity.  In this
>non-discriminating view of creation, there is no cause for the slightest
>doubt or discontent.  A baby is satisfied and enjoys peace of mind without
>having to do anything."
>
>
>Scientific reductionism and SOM:
>
>
>"When man observes and judges, there is only the thing called "man" and the
>thing being observed.  It is this thing called man that verifies and
>believes in the reality of an object, and it is man who verifies and
>believes in the existence of this thing called "man"  Everything in this
>world derives from man and he draws all the conclusions.  In which case, he
>need not worry about being God's puppet.  But he does run the risk of acting
>out a drunken role on the stage supported by the crazed subjectivity of his
>own despotic existence.
>
>
>But who is it that is dreaming?  Who is it that is seeing illusions? And the
>answer to this, can we enjoy true peace of mind? No matter how dep his
>understanding of the universe, it is man's subjectivity that holds up the
>stage upon which his knowledge  performs.  But just what if his subjective
>view were all wrong?
>
>
>Before laughing at blind faith in God, man should take note of his blind
>faith in himself."
>
>
>And here where he answers the critics who proclaim the scientific method as
>the ultimate saviour of mankind:
>
>
>"Yes", persists the scientist, "man observes and makes judgements, so one
>cannot deny that subjectivity may be at work here.  Yet his ability to
>reason enables man to divest himself of subjectivity and see things
>objectively as well.  Through repeated inductive experimentation and
>reasoning, man has resolved all things into patterns of association and
>interaction. The proof that this was no mistake lies about us, in the
>airplane, automobile, and all the other trappings of modern civilization.
>
>
>But if, on taking a better look at this modern civilization of ours, we find
>it to be insane, we must conclude that the human intellect which engendered
>it is also insane.  It is the perversity of human subjectivity that gave
>rise to our ailing modern age."
>
>
>
>Masanobu Fukuoka <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka>, my guru.
>
>
>Here from the introduction to Natural Way of Farming:
>
>
>
>"My greatest fear today is that of nature being made the plaything of human
>intellect.  There is also the danger that man will attempt to protect nature
>through the medium of human knowledge, without noticing that nature can be
>restored only by abandoning our preoccupation with knowledge and action that
>has driven it to the wall.
>
>
>All begins by relinquishing human knowledge.
>
>
>Although perhaps just the empty dream of a farmer who has sought in vain to
>return to nature and the side of God, I wish to become the sower of seed.
>Nothing would give me more joy than to meet others of the same mind."
>
>
>Thanks Gav, for triggering so much discovery.  Thank Henry Valentino Miller,
>for pointing out the beauty in old men.
>
>--
>------------
>Doing Good IS Being
>------------
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_____________

"He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has."
   (Friedrich von Schiller)