“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Saturday, May 28, 2011

Nearly Eaten by a Grey Vampire


Having a number of different reasons for doing something is rational, as long as those reasons don't contradict one another. Say for example that the action is eating a small jar of organic honey. The following reasons are given:

1) Alternatives are unpleasant (agave nectar, for instance, contains measurably toxic amounts of mercury; sugars are produced by industrial processes to which one might object)
2) Receiving a gift is part of the Buddhist paramita of generosity
3) Non-toxic alternatives also involve ecological issues (maple syrup is very expensive in the USA because the trees are endangered)
4) (and so on)

On the other hand, being told that your reasons are “psychic defense mechanisms” and not taking a hint—one of the given reasons would have been enough to suggest that I back off, were I pressing someone on their reasons for something—and further, compounding these reasons into a package that somehow expresses my evil...

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