Quote:
Originally Posted by pai mei
Levite you say things are too complex, and need many solutions ? There is one single solution to all the problems of today. Just that we cannot apply it right now , we need to crash and burn as a civilization first. The story above and in the bible is about Cain the agriculture human killing Abel the hunter gatherer. And it is written from a hunter gatherer perspective who sees the slaves working the fields as cursed. And indeed they are cursed to live a life of hard work chasing shiny stuff, separate themselves from the others, competing among them, and gathering the shiny objects , until they become each a Gollum inside his cave.
Zen Koans - AshidaKim.com |
Well, needless to say, I agree with Mantus. In addition to my previous critiques of Quinn-- and, by the way, the extensive further quoting of Quinn has not in any way answered those critiques-- I have to note that he offers no practical alternatives save for-- as Pai Mei notes-- essentially the radical dismantling of modern culture; which is not only impractical, it is, in my belief, deeply counterproductive. One does not find solutions to problems by running away from them. Progress is, by definition, always a forward motion, and Quinn's anarchic luddism is nothing but moving backward. The notion that the human race must cease its forward motion and do its best to regress into what we were ten thousand years ago is simply unacceptable.
As for Quinn's interpretation of the Cain/Abel story, that might be his interpretation, but it certainly isn't one of mine. And it is, I might add, a deeply un-Jewish idea that there is such a thing as a "one" correct or right reading of a Bible verse. And as I am Jewish, I resist the idea that Quinn's reading is any better than anyone else's-- I also don't see relevance for me, personally, in the linked quote you attach, since I didn't agree with those sentiments when Jesus said them, the fact that a Zen master likes them, or that Quinn might like them, don't do much for me either.
I am a teacher. I spend my life teaching sacred text and spiritual philosophy to people, mostly high school kids. My wife is a teacher and chaplain, and spends her life teaching people--mostly college and graduate students-- sacred text and compassionate spiritual healing and ministering to the sick. Your depiction of a life spent in "hard work chasing shiny stuff, separating themselves from the others, competing among them, and gathering the shiny objects" bears no resemblance to my life, or my wife's, or the lives of many if not most of our friends. Therefore, it seems patently obvious to me that it is eminently possible to live in modern society without devolving into slavering materialists obsessed with nothing but masturbatory blind acquisition.
That Quinn believes we have exhausted all the possibilities of modern society, and that all Western culture is inherently unsalvageable is, to me, ridiculous and offensive, especially considering that he does not appear to even be an expert in Christian and secular culture, let alone the other cultures that make up Western society.