[MD] Boromir's Journey

[John Carl]

Ok, I'm just gonna riff off now, firstly, to make a strong distinction
between hope and faith, which has been rattlin' my brain a few days,
fermenting, till it pops.
fizzzzzzzz


Orville:

Man, I sure hope this works; I've been over the calcs three times.

Wilbur:

I've got faith in you bro.


Orville:

Yeah, and I've got faith in these equations, I just don't know if I've taken
all the factors into consideration.  I sure hope so.

Wilbur:

I just hope the materials are good.

Orville:

Well, I've got faith in our suppliers.  They wouldn't cheat us, especially
knowing how important it is.  Anyway, they never have.  Let's do it.

---------------

If Chris Colombo had been chased by pirates and "hoped" he found land soon,
that would have been one thing, but to reach out into the unknowable in a
positive way required faith - an active choice.

The Faithful are expectant and volitional.

 The hopeful are "praying" for the forces  of infinite reality to roll the
dice their way.


Now, I like thinking of this in terms of Boromir, but I got even more
distracted by a passage in a book I'm reading called "Gods Drink Whiskey"
where the author talks about Plato's Ring of Gyges, which I'd never heard of
before and evidently was Tolkien's Inspiration for the entire story - the
morality of power.  In the book, Steve Asma says Cambodian culture basically
hands over a magic ring to any westerner with money, because with a little
money you can buy your way out of almost any trouble, even murder.

Now I'm thinking of it in MoQ terms where the good guys, MoQ guys, have to
abjure power - SOM, because it's just too corrupting.



But while I've got you, I want to share with you another passage I read this
morning from Kuklick's intellectual biography of Royce because it pertains
to your next post which I did read already.

Kuklick:


Royce's dissatisfaction with pessimism hinges on Schopenhauer's indictment
of life regarded as individual life.  The German correctly maintains that
"all life for Self is worthless"l  But he has not shown that we must
construe values in terms of the individual or that some other valuational
process must fail.  Pessimism cannot touch Royce's argument for good living
- "living not for Self, but for quelling, the putting down of Self, and for
the building up of peaceful, harmonious, but entirely unselfish life."


This contrast between an end connected with individual life and one
connected with all life provides Royce with an insight useful for a
tentative solution to his problems.  His epistemological studies had given a
postulational basis for knowledge.  Assuming moral distinctions as he does,
he can analyze the moral consciousness in a way congruent with his
epistemology.


John:


Any questions?  If you can understand the above, you know why I love Royce
and believe him 100% fundamentally harmonious with Pirsig, - or at least,
the MoQ.  Royce does refute Individualism repeatedly and vociferously.



but the key here is being able to analyze moral consciousness in a way
congruent with yer epistemology.  Boyo, when you can do that, you can do
anything.


Anyway, I just wish I had him digitized cuz then I wouldn't have to spend so
much time typing.  But then, I always wondered if the quality of words had
anything to do with the effort involved in producing them.  Like, when I
write with a pen and paper, I write differently than when I write on a
computer.  How much more different then if I had to scrawl my words with a
nail and my blood?


I probably wouldn't be quite as chatty.  But having to actually transcribe
passages is probably a good thing, that way I don't inflict too much
verbiage...


but... wait.  Why should I care about that?  Heck, it's easy enough to hit a
delete button.  If anybody is reading this, it's none of MY doing, it's
their (your) own and thus I don't have to apologize for one single word as
none of the experience is a whit my responsibility.


whew.  that's a relief.











On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 7:23 AM, Steven Peterson <peterson.steve at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi John,
>
>
> > A really good movie will often contain a great villain.  The quality of
> the
> > movie experience is enhanced by the evil of the villain.  In fact, you
> will
> > even hear, on occasion, "Man! He was a perfect villain."
>
> This is a good example. The sort of faith I'm talking about is like
> watching a really good but really sad movie. You sob (not me, I'm too
> manly) along with the characters at the sad ending, but given the
> chance, you wouldn't change a thing.
>
> Best,
> Steve
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