View Full Version : Some fine quotes. Plenty, to be precise.
Skybird
07-12-12, 03:18 PM
Yesterday night, in bed, I read a philosophic essay, and the author repeatedly mentioned a name previously unknown to me, Edward Abbey. I have no clue on him, but found this site with quotes by him, and I liked what I read, and found plenty of lines I especially liked, especially in the later part of the list.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Abbey
Some foretastes:
Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/God); this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues.
According to the current doctrines of mysticoscientism, we human animals are really and actually nothing but "organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional coordinates of the space-time continuum." I'll have to think about that. Sometime. Meantime, I'm going to gnaw on this sparerib, drink my Blatz beer, and contemplate the a posteriori coordinates of that young blonde over yonder, the one in the tennis skirt, tying her shoelaces.
Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.
Better a cruel truth (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Truth) than a comfortable delusion.
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Anarchism (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anarchism) is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
In a nation of sheep, one brave man forms a majority.
The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws.
Freedom begins between the ears.
The "Terror (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror)" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.
Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and powerful.
What's the difference between a whore and a congressman? A congressman makes more money.
When the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about.
Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.
An empty man is full of himself.
I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.
If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.
The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.
God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers ***8212; obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.
That picture! :D Made in 1986. And no, he is no founding father. :woot:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/19/books/mile450.jpg
On the guy: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/books/review/Miles.t.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/A/Abbey,%20Edward?ref=edwardabbey (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/books/review/Miles.t.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/A/Abbey,%20Edward?ref=edwardabbey)
I know not more about him than the quotes, the picture and this NYT article, but I think it is possible I would have liked this man.
u crank
07-12-12, 07:03 PM
He was Muslim. :yep:
Yep, he's got a beard.:D
Skybird
07-12-12, 07:11 PM
Yep, he's got a beard.:D
He was sata... I mean atheist, I meanwhile learned. Not difficult to see by the quotes, anyway.
Platapus
07-12-12, 07:22 PM
The problem is that a long time ago, some guy held up a paper and the sunlight happened to bleed through.
The word was originally Dog.
It really makes everything much clearer. :yeah:
u crank
07-12-12, 07:28 PM
He was sata... I mean atheist, I meanwhile learned. Not difficult to see by the quotes, anyway.
Yes. I read up on him. He was an original. I like what his friends put on his grave marker.
NO COMMENT
Very cool.:yep:
Sailor Steve
07-13-12, 12:44 AM
Abbey became a legend among the American counterculture with the publication of this book in 1975:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang
Sorry, but I can't take an anarchist seriously, though some of his quotes are interesting. For one, anarchism isn't sustainable. Eventually whoever has the most guns will "unofficially" rule. It's a policy were the rule of the gun overcomes the rule of law.
Skybird
07-13-12, 03:30 AM
I thought the same, but I have seen myself in increasing need to realise that the rule of the law got hijacked by new tyrants, and that this always seems to happen sooner or later. Which again introduces the law of the jungle: he who manages to control the law making, controls people, and by that he controls the majority of "guns" (call it law and order, or state monopoly) by which people get opressed again. We see it on big big scale currently in both the EU and in the US.
In the end, and if you think it to the end consequently, law and order is a form of anarchy/law of the strongest, too.
I have no solution to this dilemma. Maybe this: be strong yourself, stay free and defend freedom with teeth and claws, even when this makes you a lonely man. But the dilemma explains why from time to time there are revolutions cracking it up violently. Maybe like a bush fire prepares the ground and afterwards the soil is fertile and the green blooms again like crazy, revolutions are a good thing, a healthy cultural cleansing as well - at least some times as long as they do not bring some crazies like Mao or Lenin to power.
What I know for sure, on the other hand, is that these days the rule of law I cannot trust anymore. It has bitten me personally repeatedly in my life, and my family, and it today is a tool to enforce wanted agendas against the people, and rip them off their money while securing eternal rule for political actors on no longer legitimised levels. In other words it has become a tool of supression. When law gets abused, it becomes corrupted. When law becomes corrupted, it is corrupt law. Corrupt law deserve no loyalty. It strangles people - slowly, legally, underhandedly.
Even if that were true, what would you replace it with? Communism? Fascism? Monarchy? Theocracy? Anarchy? All of those things sound substantially worse than the "corrupt" rule of law. At least in a republic, there are rights that you can't realistically trample without massive backlash from both the public and other countries.
If you answer "A less corrupt republic.", what's to stop that one from becoming corrupt eventually? I'll take the least crappy form of government out there. A representitive republic that is bound by an inalterable constitution.
Tribesman
07-13-12, 05:28 AM
Even if that were true, what would you replace it with? Communism? Fascism? Monarchy? Theocracy? Anarchy?
Skybirdism:rotfl2:
Skybird
07-13-12, 05:59 AM
Even if that were true, what would you replace it with? Communism? Fascism? Monarchy? Theocracy? Anarchy? All of those things sound substantially worse than the "corrupt" rule of law. At least in a republic, there are rights that you can't realistically trample without massive backlash from both the public and other countries.
If you answer "A less corrupt republic.", what's to stop that one from becoming corrupt eventually? I'll take the least crappy form of government out there. A representitive republic that is bound by an inalterable constitution.
"Republic" is no holy grail, just a word with am meaning attached to it. When it is corrupted, then it is corrupted. When how it was meant is gone, then the meaning is gone. When you stay loyal to the eroded empty carcass of it, then you are under the spell of images from the past, and are a slave of the lack in the present. You get reigned, and not to your best benefit. You get reigned to the best benefit of those in command.
Skybird
07-13-12, 06:00 AM
Hey, Abbey was Aquarius :D, I just found out - like me! :salute: :up:
Catfish
07-13-12, 06:54 AM
Read "The monkey wrench gang" last year - you really should go read it.
One of the best books i read in the last 10 years.
"Resist much. Obey little." Edward Abbey
Skybird
07-13-12, 07:12 AM
Ordered it two hours ago, after Steve's mentioning. :O: Seems to be the only one available in German.
"Republic" is no holy grail, just a word with am meaning attached to it. When it is corrupted, then it is corrupted. When how it was meant is gone, then the meaning is gone. When you stay loyal to the eroded empty carcass of it, then you are under the spell of images from the past, and are a slave of the lack in the present. You get reigned, and not to your best benefit. You get reigned to the best benefit of those in command.
I fail to see how the current system in most modern republics is "hopelessly corrupt". Free speech is thoroughly kept and enforced. As are free religion, elections, and demonstration. I've never been arrested on false charges and neither has anyone I know. My internet/television/books have never been censored. Besides, any system that involves humans will always be at least somewhat corrupt. A society free from corruption can not exist while human nature is still intact.
Skybird
07-13-12, 08:29 AM
I fail to see how the current system in most modern republics is "hopelessly corrupt". Free speech is thoroughly kept and enforced. As are free religion, elections, and demonstration. I've never been arrested on false charges and neither has anyone I know. My internet/television/books have never been censored. Besides, any system that involves humans will always be at least somewhat corrupt. A society free from corruption can not exist while human nature is still intact.
It's all a plutocracy or oligarchy. The establishment of industrial and business lobby lies in bed with politicians that you just cannot get rid off: vote for them, they are there, vote against them or vote for somebody else: they still are there pulling strings. Vote not at all, and they are there, still pulling strings again. You cannot get rid of them, since they made it their life'S prfession to be politicians. They hijacked the system and tailoured it so that its rules now are in support of their career and power interests. It'S a dense mesh between politics and private business lobbyism whereas the system you probably have in mind as something positive can only work if both are kept strictly separated and politics are not lobbied by and stay independent from business interests. Business bypasses voter'S votes by influencing pokltiics beside voting, by lobbyism. And politics influenc elegislation accordingly so this has become legal and fine.
No matter whether yoiu vote or not and for whom you vote: its still the same names playing the big cards. It is the same rich family clans being in control, staying well-interlinked, influencing thre whole by maintainign the right connections. IT's all a hijacked thing. It is neither demcratic, nor is it a fucntional republic, whcih should hjavbe become clear for both Europpean states and the Us especially in the past couple of years.
It's a corrupted oligarchy. Calling that "democracy" is just to appease the plebs and kleep them quite and obedient so that they do not disturb the system.
Good news is thnat this is unlikely to be maintainable another hundred years. Bad news is when this system breaks down, it will do so with a big, loud Bang.
Free speech becomes meaningless if peope are trained to liomit their thinlking and their freedom of mind according to agendas that we call poltical correctness, and are designed. Freedom is not so much a riught only, it is a skill that miust be leanred and maintained. If you canot make use of it becaseu you learned to stay within limits, then it is pretty much useless. In Eruope we have had several evenbts in recent years that illustrate how this public Zeitgeiust is killing freedom of speech in the nnanme of defending it, by group pressure and withc hunbts agaiunst people usin freedom of mind to thiunk thoiughts that are not in line of what officially is wanted. Reason does not taken care of, aeguments does not get taken care of, evidence does not get talken care of - the mere fact that some people think at directions and come to conclusions that are in violation of the officially wanted dogma of what the public is wanted to thuink is enough to cause aq witch hunt and bring the subject to the - metaphorical - stake. In Germany, such a with hunt for example relates to Thilo Sarrazin, but also to certain criticisms of widespread Green and environmentalist believes, and socialist ideas of what European citizen should be, as humans. Or, or course, Islam and failed Muslim integration. :) The polarised trench warfare and political deadlock between Dems and Reps in the US shows that such fronts are being fought along in the US as well.
There also is the issue of overrepresentation of millionaires in senate and rich upperclass in the House, which sees comparable problems in Western parliaments as well. A certain group and type of people time and again make it through the parties' hierarchies, this type and no other. It'S more about being wellconnected and playing the game by its rules, than about areugment, competence, or interests of state'S reason. That'S why by today'S standards you can say that from some level in the hierarchy on every politician is an egocentric cheater and liar - else he wouldn't have made it to where he is.
To hell with them all, and their oligarchic system as well. To hell with it all. In the EU and with party having ruoined state'S fiannces systenmtically, we can see how werll it works. And the US: had more debts than anyone else int he world, obviously that system has fundamental design flaws as well. And these flaws are no minor issues. At worst they could bring a new world war as a consequence of the last agony when it all collpases.
Yeah, I don't agree with any of that. That all sounds like conspiracy theories and fear mongering. Besides, in the US very few Presidents have been directly related and anyone can run for public office. Calling it "oligarchy" is absurd. We'll have to agree to disagree.
Skybird
07-13-12, 10:40 AM
In US senate, two thirds are members of the millionaires club. In Congress, almost one half is member of the millionaires club. In the democratic party, almost nothing goes against the resistence of the Kennedies. In the Republican party almost nothing goes against the will of the Bushs. Without the support - network, announcement, money of these dynasties - anyone trying to make it throug the hierarchy has no good chances. Congress and senate have been called by some the most lobbied institutions in the world. I disagree, I think they are second and third place only, the Brussel headquarter of the EU is worse, I think. And the military-industrial-complex already has been warned of in the farewell speech by Eisenhower.
Fear-mongering. Conspiracy theory. Well. Sure. There also is total equality of chances between black and white.
On paper.
The power of the Kennedies and Bush's is overrated. The Bushs don't have any family members active in politics anymore. The two that served as President can never hold that office again, as per term limits.
The Kennedies also have no members active in politics. All of the extremely notable ones are either dead or retired. They were powerful in the 60's and 70's but not today.
Penguin
07-13-12, 11:03 AM
Can't say that I knew too much about this guy before, gotta check out the Monkey Wrench book some time.
I am a big fan of Thoreau though, unfortunately his works are quite unknown in Europe. We have no true 19th century counterpart here on his thoughts about individual liberty - Stirner, for example, is quite different from him.
Good that you discovered him, Skybird. Maybe it helps to reevaluate your position on banning books and thoughts.
Demanding freedom for oneself while denying others the same is no freedom at all. :|\\
Sorry, but I can't take an anarchist seriously, though some of his quotes are interesting. For one, anarchism isn't sustainable. Eventually whoever has the most guns will "unofficially" rule. It's a policy were the rule of the gun overcomes the rule of law.
You follow the common misconception with the equation anarchy = abstinence of law or jungle law. The same, when for example the press writes about Somalia. They have an absence of government there, yes, but also an absence of rights and liberties. The guy with the biggest gun gets the biggest bread means power over others.
An ideal society, in a anarchist sense, would mean that individuals would not get the chance to get absolute power.
You follow the common misconception with the equation anarchy = abstinence of law or jungle law. The same, when for example the press writes about Somalia. They have an absence of government there, yes, but also an absence of rights and liberties. The guy with the biggest gun gets the biggest bread means power over others.
An ideal society, in a anarchist sense, would mean that individuals would not get the chance to get absolute power.
If true, then anarchy has the same flaw as communism. It requires you to fundamentally change human nature. Like it or not, society is too interwoven for it to ever truely work. I prefer the realistic balance we have now to utopian ideals destined to fail.
An ideal society, in a anarchist sense, would mean that individuals would not get the chance to get absolute power.
An ideal society, in an equally unrealistic sense (as anarchism), would mean we would all be able to fly like birds and swim like fishes.
I don't mean to be sarcastic but Codz is right. Anarchism is just not sustainable, at least among human beings. Rights and liberties must be defended or they will soon be lost. There must be some organization to defend them and that is called government.
An ideal society, in an equally unrealistic sense (as anarchism), would mean we would all be able to fly like birds and swim like fishes.
I don't mean to be sarcastic but Codz is right. Anarchism is just not sustainable, at least among human beings. Rights and liberties must be defended or they will soon be lost. There must be some organization to defend them and that is called government.
:agree:
No need for violent revolutions when we've already got as good a government as human nature will allow. We've just got to work and vote to keep it that way.
If true, then anarchy has the same flaw as communism. It requires you to fundamentally change human nature. Like it or not, society is too interwoven for it to ever truely work. I prefer the realistic balance we have now to utopian ideals destined to fail.
I agree in democracy there is still enough contradicting interests or views to keep some sort of balance in overall...that is if every one plays the game by the rules and the rules are guarded by constitution or courts.
There are always the unhappy people and of course the politicians that should be watched closely.
Catfish
07-13-12, 11:52 AM
I am still of the opinion to vote directly for big business and industry bosses.
That way they will push anything like they always did, but minus lobbies and politicians, and having to pay them = big win for all. :yep:
Penguin
07-13-12, 12:49 PM
If true, then anarchy has the same flaw as communism. It requires you to fundamentally change human nature. Like it or not, society is too interwoven for it to ever truely work. I prefer the realistic balance we have now to utopian ideals destined to fail.
In the "final" stage, a communistic society and anarchy would not differ so much. Remember guys: I am still speaking of the ideal, the utopia. However an anarchist ideal is the rejection of collectivism - that's why for example the efforts to build a libertarian society in modern times, like in Ukraine and Spain, were always attacked by both Commies and fascists.
Speaking of ideals: I do not think that man is inherently good - or evil. That's why all the efforts to doctor the "ideal human" failed, they all were the attempts to put something in top of the people which they are not.
I also think that humans have a natural relation to things like possessions. Things we can see and hold in your hands. That's why for example people take more care of their own car than a public bus. This effect can also be seen in work life: when people have a say they feel attached, they produce much better results in the economic sense, but also feel themselves personally much better - a part of the team, not a work drone.
The same attachment to "the things you have" can be seen when you take a look at society. People care first for their own, the little units they can see, feel and understand - Family, friends, their own local surrounding. This is where self organization starts.
This is the reason why federalism is in principle a good idea. The understanding, that the smaller entities should be recognized and have a say. And this is how a just society should be organized, from down to top, not vice versa.
That's why I think that the ideal of an anarchist society would reflect human nature. In this ideal people would still have a home, a piece of land. Where I differ with the right wing libertarians (in the US meaning) is that I think that key stuff, which affects all people (e.g. health care, energy, etc.) should be under control of all people.
How to get a just society, where individual freedom is guaranteed and how to get a just economic system where productivity and protection from exploitation is guaranteed: I have no brilliant idea, all I know it would take billions of tiny steps rather than a snip. I even have no clue how my stance is called. I'm just anti-everything :03:
Rights and liberties must be defended or they will soon be lost. There must be some organization to defend them and that is called government.
I 100% agree with your first sentence, but I think government has a natural tendency to make governing as easy as possible - it's always easier to control sheep without rights than people who have a say. This is the reason why any government should be watched with vigilant eyes, all the time.
I 100% agree with your first sentence, but I think government has a natural tendency to make governing as easy as possible - it's always easier to control sheep without rights than people who have a say. This is the reason why any government should be watched with vigilant eyes, all the time.
No doubt Brother. I guess you could say that Government is the ultimate "necessary evil".
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