<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Feb 15 2008, 10:39 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Feb 15 2008, 10:39 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->The two poles of western civilization - constrained vs unconstrained:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Kubrick's Psychopaths
Society and Human Naturein the Films of Stanley Kubrick
EXCERPT:
[...]
The opposing view, that man is (at least somewhat) perfectible, or that the evil in the world is mainly the result of bad social institutions has been the view of Godwin, Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Voltaire, Ronald Dworkin, and John Kenneth Galbraith. The constrained vision has been characterized as cynical, conservative, pessimistic, as opposed to the romantic, liberal, optimistic, idealistic unconstrained vision of man.
[...]
When Alex has come full-circle, and once again encounters Frank, he now is in Frank's power. How does the liberal deal with him? He drugs him and submits him to torture, gleefully enjoying his screams, thus demonstrating that at the heart of the liberal lurks the same primitive brutality that motivates Alex.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->[right][snapback]78515[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Gordon Banks (?) need not drag Thomas Paine into his review of A Clockwork Orange. I do not see how the reviewer presumes that Paine falls into that category. And why does it need to be one or the other? Why can't people generally be optimistic - assuming most humanity may be sane - while being realistic with respect to psychopaths and those possessed by scary ideologies?
Paine doesn't seem to be a man who believes or doesn't believe in Mankind ('Mankind' the species, the phenomenon). He has always appeared to me to be a man who did what he thought needed to be done - for instance, he wrote and worked, because he had to try. Whether others improved themselves based on his writings and endeavours or not, does not look to have been his aim at all - only the fact that he <i>needed</i> to do his bit to hopefully show them sense and humaneness. That is, if betterment could even be achieved, he would certainly try.
I don't care two straws about Jefferson (the slave-owner whom many are so infatuated with) nor about Voltaire. (The rest are blanks to me.)
But Thomas Paine does not come across as anything like these men. He's not definable by 'liberal' or other ideological terms. He's his own person, defined by his own actions and his own individual beliefs. Voltaire, Jefferson (and presumably the others) all had their own objectives in writing for or against christianism, christoslavery, rationality and the rest.
Paine did no more than his own sense of duty and right or wrong prompted. He need not have done anything at all - he had no motivations to enforce his vision of society on people (as Voltaire, Jefferson) - he did it because it was in him and <i>would</i> come out because no one else was trying to do the right thing that was so obvious to him.
I don't see the sense in Gordon Banks censuring him along with the rest who, in outward appearances, may have looked to have pursued a similar bent of thought (in some matters).
What I'm saying is, Paine doesn't seem to merely have been a product of his environment, but rather one with an innate sense of humanity that would have come out in the face of injustices no matter whether he were born in some other era and/or geography.
Dhu, he's the only genuine article that western people have amongst their ranks of The Famous and Esteemed. And - based on the limited knowledge I have of him - he compares favourably with factually great men from across the globe. (Statements expressed from my Dharmic POV. And it is because of this little I gleaned of him that I think his Deist God must be real.)
There's no need to knock him in order to show the consistent superficiality of the rest that have generally been proclaimed 'great philosophers/humanists/freethinkers/...'. Paine seems to me to be an original (the real thing), while the rest just come across as wannabees in comparison, who never had the inner conviction he had, but were merely articulating platitudes that sounded nice ("philosophy for the sake of philosophising" or even for the sake of persuasion) or that seemed pleasing in the limited context they could conceive of.
From what I understand, he seems a very worthy and worthwhile person; and whatever country cheers him has full reason to be pleased and proud. IMO, even if he were the only great individual they ever gave rise to, his righteous, sincere, inspired efforts makes up for any paucity otherwise, and gives hope they may produce others of the same spirit.
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Kubrick's Psychopaths
Society and Human Naturein the Films of Stanley Kubrick
EXCERPT:
[...]
The opposing view, that man is (at least somewhat) perfectible, or that the evil in the world is mainly the result of bad social institutions has been the view of Godwin, Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Voltaire, Ronald Dworkin, and John Kenneth Galbraith. The constrained vision has been characterized as cynical, conservative, pessimistic, as opposed to the romantic, liberal, optimistic, idealistic unconstrained vision of man.
[...]
When Alex has come full-circle, and once again encounters Frank, he now is in Frank's power. How does the liberal deal with him? He drugs him and submits him to torture, gleefully enjoying his screams, thus demonstrating that at the heart of the liberal lurks the same primitive brutality that motivates Alex.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->[right][snapback]78515[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Gordon Banks (?) need not drag Thomas Paine into his review of A Clockwork Orange. I do not see how the reviewer presumes that Paine falls into that category. And why does it need to be one or the other? Why can't people generally be optimistic - assuming most humanity may be sane - while being realistic with respect to psychopaths and those possessed by scary ideologies?
Paine doesn't seem to be a man who believes or doesn't believe in Mankind ('Mankind' the species, the phenomenon). He has always appeared to me to be a man who did what he thought needed to be done - for instance, he wrote and worked, because he had to try. Whether others improved themselves based on his writings and endeavours or not, does not look to have been his aim at all - only the fact that he <i>needed</i> to do his bit to hopefully show them sense and humaneness. That is, if betterment could even be achieved, he would certainly try.
I don't care two straws about Jefferson (the slave-owner whom many are so infatuated with) nor about Voltaire. (The rest are blanks to me.)
But Thomas Paine does not come across as anything like these men. He's not definable by 'liberal' or other ideological terms. He's his own person, defined by his own actions and his own individual beliefs. Voltaire, Jefferson (and presumably the others) all had their own objectives in writing for or against christianism, christoslavery, rationality and the rest.
Paine did no more than his own sense of duty and right or wrong prompted. He need not have done anything at all - he had no motivations to enforce his vision of society on people (as Voltaire, Jefferson) - he did it because it was in him and <i>would</i> come out because no one else was trying to do the right thing that was so obvious to him.
I don't see the sense in Gordon Banks censuring him along with the rest who, in outward appearances, may have looked to have pursued a similar bent of thought (in some matters).
What I'm saying is, Paine doesn't seem to merely have been a product of his environment, but rather one with an innate sense of humanity that would have come out in the face of injustices no matter whether he were born in some other era and/or geography.
Dhu, he's the only genuine article that western people have amongst their ranks of The Famous and Esteemed. And - based on the limited knowledge I have of him - he compares favourably with factually great men from across the globe. (Statements expressed from my Dharmic POV. And it is because of this little I gleaned of him that I think his Deist God must be real.)
There's no need to knock him in order to show the consistent superficiality of the rest that have generally been proclaimed 'great philosophers/humanists/freethinkers/...'. Paine seems to me to be an original (the real thing), while the rest just come across as wannabees in comparison, who never had the inner conviction he had, but were merely articulating platitudes that sounded nice ("philosophy for the sake of philosophising" or even for the sake of persuasion) or that seemed pleasing in the limited context they could conceive of.
From what I understand, he seems a very worthy and worthwhile person; and whatever country cheers him has full reason to be pleased and proud. IMO, even if he were the only great individual they ever gave rise to, his righteous, sincere, inspired efforts makes up for any paucity otherwise, and gives hope they may produce others of the same spirit.