...can no sooner overcome their mouldiness than one single mouldy orange can cure itself. I am amazed to keep reading posts/emails that virtually swear that "we could solve all our problems if we just stuck our heads together, pooling our knowledge, and if we left our egos behind."
Not that I don't identify with the longing for the Pristine State of Eden, mind you, but for one thing, when folks "leave their egos behind," you can see the results in the likes of the bands of RedShirts and BrownShirts (mottos: "Submerge yourself in the Great Soviet Dictatorship of the Proletariat!" and "You are nothing, your Volk is everything!"). For another, our egos per se are not evil (I mean "ego" here in the sense of "self," "distinct personality/soul," not in the sense of "selfishness"). The problem with my ego and yours is that they are hopelessly corrupted by the Grand Cosmic Mutation. Until THAT is reversed, man is mired in the quicksand of his own fallenness.
3 comments on 100 Mouldy Oranges...
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Are you basically saying, "To thine ownself be true"? That corruption of our self (the ability to rationalism, judge, respong) is related to conformity?
Ach, Angie, "To thine own self be true!" is dear to my heart indeed! But no, that wasn't what I was trying to say here. And I cherish reason, judging (=discerning/discriminating) and responding; I've even been called "too analytical," ROTFL! Those faculties are part of what distinguishes us from mere animals.
Actually, this post and the one immediately preceding it constitute somewhat of a unit (tho I didn't realize that till after I got offline last night). The idea is that no matter how much knowledge and skill humanity might boast of, and no matter how much we cling to some group that promises to solve all our problems (the Reds and the Browns were for me the most graphic examples), we are stuck in our impuissance, which roots in our mortality and fallibility (which includes lack of omniscience). When we ignore that and try to set up what amounts to utopia (whether in some localized commune or in countrywide totalitarianism), it always ends in dystopia of the worst kind.
I just thought of another way to explain it: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" more or less says the same thing, or also the Greek myth of the Hydra.
Thank you for the explanation. I am rather dense at times. Now I see clearly what you were saying.