Liberal Forum

DeezerShoove » Today, 10:17 pm » wrote: ↑

Today, 10:17 pm

Yeah, that book... Did you read it?!
Platitudes and either/ors. It wasn't funny ha ha.

I did not. I have met libertarians and conversed with them. I have also read their party's broadsides - particularly the bullet points in which their political philosophy is grounded. Oh, and I have read Ayn Rand - and not just the novels. The dry stuff. The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal - all that bunk. So I understand the libertarian tautology. And it was from within that tautology that libertarians and republicans alike took extreme umbrage at Obama's "You didn't build that" narrative,

I defended Obama's narrative then, and I am happy to defend it again. Whatever it is that you think you built, you did not build that. This includes a movie, a song, a gadget, a barn. You did not build that. Whatever a man builds in this culture arises in and from this culture. If we were free agents, the throat singers of Tuva would be cashing in by creating American pop songs. They're not. They're acting from within a culture. And they are acting on that culture, and it is acting on them at the same time. Outside of his society, a man is not a man at all. He's just an appetite - in most cases, a rapidly diminishing appetite. 

Plato spoke of the Ideal Sphere. This is a place beyond our three dimensions wherein reside the perfect examples and attributes of all things: the ideal chair, the ideal sofa, the ideal bed or barn or barge - the ideal of anything and everything. How the Platonic Ideal is brought back from that realm and interpreted into this one hinges on the discipline of the artist/builder/engineer... But however prodigious his talent, the artist did not create that. He went and got it from the Ideal Sphere. And his representation of it in this imperfect realm, however excellent, is still going to be something less than the ideal - which is still up/out/in the ideal sphere. The greater the artist, the closer to the ideal he will get. Perhaps the closest artists in fresco, oil, and stone would be Michelangelo and da Vinci. But they did not build that. They merely interpreted it. 

Jung refers to this same realm as the "Collective Unconscious." I call it the getting place. Kristofferson was a regular visitor to the getting place/collective unconscious/ideal sphere. He authored some of the important and memorable music of a generation. But he **** up some of the songs he got out of there. "Help me make it through the night" could have been 100% better with a couple of tweaks to make it less rapey. But he had fallen in love with the song before he finished doing his due diligence - and I strongly believe that he paid a heavy price for that. IMO, your ability to bring excellent things out of that place hinges on how well you translate them when you get back into the world of our five senses. I believe he peaked with that song, and was never as potent again.

Now it appears that I've gone away from the topic - but not really at all. Because every word of this is a direct refutation of libertarianism. Libertarianism is a meat philosophy - and the antidote to meat philosophies is spiritual ones. Neither Plato nor Jung nor I will ever be found on a street corner preaching any gospel. But Plato and Jung and I share a spiritual philosophy. And the libertarian does not and cannot. The moment a fellow begins to see life as a spiritual experience, he ceases to be a libertarian. He ceases to insist he built that. He begins to be a part of something much larger, and he takes on some obligations. He gets less cock-sure of himself. And as soon as you are not a cock-sure asshole, you cannot truly be a libertarian. 

Okay - I **** on libertarianism, and I insinuated myself into the company of Plato and Jung. Bully for me.