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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Philosophical Exercise 4

It is possible to 
live a rich life 
with an empty heart

And one could 
live a sober life 
with a full heart


......

Which would you prefer?

Friday, July 19, 2013

Intermezzo: On Obedience

My “Tangled” blog-post is not coming along as fast as I'd like. I'm thinking of it every day, but my days are too crowded now to write such a complex text. Six weeks from now I'll be unemployed. To get an alternative source of money I'm writing articles for the high sum of $6,- per article (which comes down to less than $3,- per hour on which no one can live in the Netherlands) on top of which I'm reorganizing the house. Moving out of the attic to live downstairs in the living room, like normal people do. The attic will be 'let' to tourists, who either want to spent time in the area of Amsterdam, the Keukenhof or the beach or who just want to spend one or two nights at my house because of the weird times at which their plane leaves / has arrived.

In order to stay involved in the series of Tangled posts, here's a short one that will help explain a thought that is of great importance in the Tangled series. Explaining it here, helps me keep the main text shorter.

It's not the first time I said it, and I will repeat over and over because it's so important:
Obedience is NOT a virtue
OBEDIENCE
When a child makes his homework out of sheer obedience.... it stinks. The act of making one's homework isn't bad, but the motivation is.
Do you see the distinction? Obedience is not an act, it's the motivation behind the act. And it's a d..... shallow one, selfish and dangerous. It's obedience that makes a soldier kill another human being and it's obedience that makes a civil servant choose to break a person, rather than to break an [inappropriate] rule to which said person simply cannot comply. It's the cement of Cults and Sects.
Getting a subject to become obedient requires 
  • threats  
  • punishments
  • keeping the subjects view on life very limited and narrow (withholding the opportunities to experience life in the 'real world')
  • cultivating a negative self image within the subject.