Re: virus: The Alleged Virtues of Faith (was: The Energizer Bunny)

Tim Rhodes (proftim@speakeasy.org)
Tue, 16 Mar 1999 22:51:37 -0800 (PST)

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, David McFadzean wrote:

> Maybe that suggests where the conflict lies: some of us suggest
> that we can and should be more than animals while others say
> that we *are* animals and it is great to be animals. My use of
> the word "animal" in this context is not meant to be derogatory
> in any sense, and I don't think it really conveys what I'm
> trying to say. Hopefully it provides enough clues for subscribers
> willing to give it a charitable reading.

I think the words "more than" throw it off, but I understand what you're trying to say.

I think the dualities we keep coming back to over and over again here are simply the (not so) new expressions of a duality that goes back at least to the Greeks, and I expect much further than that. It is the seemingly eternal battle within mankind which seeks expression through our stories and songs. It is the struggle between Athena and the Furies, between Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy, between logic and emotion, feeling versus thinking, limbic vs neo-cortex. And it will never be resolved on the side of one over the other; at least so long as we are beings of flesh and blood with all the beautiful and unpredictable complexity that that encompasses.

But we can, if we so chose, merge the seemingly obvious duality into a oneness. By moving our frame of reference to a level that encompasses all three aspects of this duality -- both sides of it (1 & 2) and the interaction between the two (3) -- we can see the process as a single whole, composed of different aspects, each of them vital to our being.

And then we can move on from there. With the coin in our pocket, rather than just an image of a side or two held tightly in our minds.

Are you game for trying that game?

-Prof. Tim