On Karma...
I don't believe in Karma, or a universal force that works to give good to the good and send bad to the bad. I do believe in paying the piper though. Put simply people who repeatedly do evil or bad things to other people, eventually either do it to the wrong person or at the wrong time. And then then- well then it is time for payment. Now the real question is, over time do the rewards of doing wrong exceed the detriments of the occasional payments?
Somewhat unfortunately, material success, is the yardstick by which we usually measure whether something is worth it or not. I think if we look at the typical examples of Exxon CEO's and Martha Stewart we see people who were willing to defraud large numbers of others for millions and even billions and then serve 1-10 years in a minimum security prison, then to return to mega richness - in these examples the answer is simple. The piper's price is a reasonable one.
However, I think that when we look at the high rates of divorce, the high numbers of people in prison, the amount of dissatisfaction, self-loathing, obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse, and any other examples of a weakened or destroyed human spirit we may need to think otherwise.
We all make mistakes, which need to be paid for at times. However a continual effort to get over or by has to take its toll on one's psyche. Corrupting their mind and their experience. Those that deal with them over time sense this corruption, and either distance themselves from it or are attracted to it. Those attracted are either already corrupted or will become corrupt by association. But eventually the extra burden of the wrong they do weighs them down too greatly and they lose.
A little later in the day I came across this passage - From the Education of Henry Adams -
"The boy took to it instinctively. The broad Potomac and the coons in the trees, the bandanas and the box-hedges, the bedrooms upstairs and the porch outside, even Martha Washington herself in memory, were as natural as the tides and the May sunshine; he had only enlarged his horizon a little; but he never thought to ask himself or his father how to deal with the moral problem that deduced George Washington from the sum of all wickedness. In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man; but any attempt to deal with them seriously as education is fatal. Luckily Charles Francis Adams never preached and was singularly free from cant. He may have had views of his own, but he let his son Henry satisfy himself with the simple elementary fact that George Washington stood alone."
How does the human species manage to turn a "blind eye" on blatantly disharmonious thoughts? How could one speak, fight and be willing to die for freedom and be a slave holder? How can one fight, and cry for women's rights and turn a hard, murderous heart on the unborn? How can the Christian love the fellow Christian and American and support the slaughter and maiming of innocents elsewhere? How could Hitler and Stalin, and Ganges Khan kill so many of their own? How was George Bush (re)elected? How can we continue to rape our planet, while at the same time beginning to feel her pain. How do we believe that we can satiate our lust for revenge - and not create the same need within those who were the recipients of our hate?
How are these issues being measured? How are our "conclusions" formed so strongly with regards to them. What measuring stick is being used? It seems that either a lack of absolutes leads to evil, or absolutes themselves lead to evil. And yet that statement itself allows for a large analysis of gray areas.
Somewhat unfortunately, material success, is the yardstick by which we usually measure whether something is worth it or not. I think if we look at the typical examples of Exxon CEO's and Martha Stewart we see people who were willing to defraud large numbers of others for millions and even billions and then serve 1-10 years in a minimum security prison, then to return to mega richness - in these examples the answer is simple. The piper's price is a reasonable one.
However, I think that when we look at the high rates of divorce, the high numbers of people in prison, the amount of dissatisfaction, self-loathing, obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse, and any other examples of a weakened or destroyed human spirit we may need to think otherwise.
We all make mistakes, which need to be paid for at times. However a continual effort to get over or by has to take its toll on one's psyche. Corrupting their mind and their experience. Those that deal with them over time sense this corruption, and either distance themselves from it or are attracted to it. Those attracted are either already corrupted or will become corrupt by association. But eventually the extra burden of the wrong they do weighs them down too greatly and they lose.
A little later in the day I came across this passage - From the Education of Henry Adams -
"The boy took to it instinctively. The broad Potomac and the coons in the trees, the bandanas and the box-hedges, the bedrooms upstairs and the porch outside, even Martha Washington herself in memory, were as natural as the tides and the May sunshine; he had only enlarged his horizon a little; but he never thought to ask himself or his father how to deal with the moral problem that deduced George Washington from the sum of all wickedness. In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man; but any attempt to deal with them seriously as education is fatal. Luckily Charles Francis Adams never preached and was singularly free from cant. He may have had views of his own, but he let his son Henry satisfy himself with the simple elementary fact that George Washington stood alone."
How does the human species manage to turn a "blind eye" on blatantly disharmonious thoughts? How could one speak, fight and be willing to die for freedom and be a slave holder? How can one fight, and cry for women's rights and turn a hard, murderous heart on the unborn? How can the Christian love the fellow Christian and American and support the slaughter and maiming of innocents elsewhere? How could Hitler and Stalin, and Ganges Khan kill so many of their own? How was George Bush (re)elected? How can we continue to rape our planet, while at the same time beginning to feel her pain. How do we believe that we can satiate our lust for revenge - and not create the same need within those who were the recipients of our hate?
How are these issues being measured? How are our "conclusions" formed so strongly with regards to them. What measuring stick is being used? It seems that either a lack of absolutes leads to evil, or absolutes themselves lead to evil. And yet that statement itself allows for a large analysis of gray areas.
posted by The Unthinking... at 4:50 AM
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