Why We're Not Afraid: A Message to the Powers that Were by Velcrow Ripper “Our communities need us—we are all leaders.” A message for the powers that were. posted Nov 15, 2011 Video courtesy of fiercelightfilms To the powers that be: sorry to hear you are so full of fear, that with violent disregard for democracy, you felt compelled to bulldoze the heart of the people’s park of parks into the ground. Last night's raid of Occupy Wall Street was a disgrace. All you are doing is building up our immune system. Just what is it you are so afraid of? We are discovering that true power is shared power. We are creative, we are adaptive, we are resilience itself. The crisis of this moment in our movement—as camps continue to be evicted—will only speed our evolution into something even more powerful, more effective, more creative. We are awakening from the false dream we have been relentlessly sold and have relentlessly bought. We are not afraid—this movement is here to stay, here to grow, here to evolve. Interested?
Rationally Speaking Home | Doing It Ourselves Belief in Nothing Nihilism confuses people. "How can you care about anything, or strive for anything, if you believe nothing means anything?" they ask. In return, nihilists point to the assumption of inherent meaning and question that assumption. Nihilists who aren't of the kiddie anarchist variety tend to draw a distinction between nihilism and fatalism. What is nihilism? As a nihilist, I recognize that meaning does not exist. In the same way, I accept that when I die, the most likely outcome will be a cessation of being. Even further, I recognize that there is no golden standard for life. A tree falling in a forest unobserved makes a sound. Many people "feel" marginalized when they think of this. Meaning is the human attempt to mold the world in our own image. This distanced mentality further affirms our tendency to find the world alienating to our consciousness. As a result, we like to separate the world from our minds and live in a world created by our minds. Nihilism reverses this process.
Drugs and the Meaning of Life (Photo by JB Banks) (Note 6/4/2014: I have revised this 2011 essay and added an audio version.—SH) Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. Drugs are another means toward this end. One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting and for what purpose and which are not. However, we should not be too quick to feel nostalgia for the counterculture of the 1960s. Drug abuse and addiction are real problems, of course, the remedy for which is education and medical treatment, not incarceration. I discuss issues of drug policy in some detail in my first book, The End of Faith, and my thinking on the subject has not changed. I have two daughters who will one day take drugs. (Pokhara, Nepal) Ott, J.
Allegory of the Cave Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) Here are some students’ illustrations of Plato’s Cave Go back to lecture on the Phaedo Go back to lecture on the “One Over Many” Argument Go to next lecture on Criticism of Forms Need a quick review of the Theory of Forms? Return to the PHIL 320 Home Page Copyright © 2006, S.