Sorry again for the gibberish and truncated message.
To continue:
> Two things come to mind here: first, God and Judaeo-Christian morality.
> For a long time, one entered into the world and had the guard tower, so to
> speak, pointed out to one: "Sin, and God shall smite thee." In that
> case, there never was anyone in the guard tower (apologies to theists:),
> and by now most people either assume that there is no guard or only think
> about the guard, in a very
superficial way, for two hours every Sunday. Yet Judaeo-Christian
morality carries on ... or does it?
The second thing that comes to mind is Borges's story "The Lottery in
Babylon"--which is in fact an allegory on the death of God. In Borges's
Babylon, there is supposed to be a secret Company which rules on the basis
of a lottery. The "silent functioning" of the Company, "comparable to
God's, gives rise to all sorts of conjectures. One abominably insinuates
that the Company has not existed for centuries and that the sacred
disorder of our lives is purely hereditary, traditional.... Another, in
the words of masked heresiarchs, *that it has never existed and will not
exist*. Another, no less vile, reasons that it is indifferent to affirm
or deny the reality of the shadowy corporation, because Babylon is nothing
else than an infinite game of chance." The Babylonians live with the
randomness of life as if that randomness were mandated by a guard in a
tower ... but would they live with it any differently if they no longer
thought there was a guard in the tower? (What would change in Oceania if
the Inner Party quietly did away with the image of Big Brother?)
----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster University----
"The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
-----------------------------(Michel Foucault)--------------------------------
To continue:
> Two things come to mind here: first, God and Judaeo-Christian morality.
> For a long time, one entered into the world and had the guard tower, so to
> speak, pointed out to one: "Sin, and God shall smite thee." In that
> case, there never was anyone in the guard tower (apologies to theists:),
> and by now most people either assume that there is no guard or only think
> about the guard, in a very
superficial way, for two hours every Sunday. Yet Judaeo-Christian
morality carries on ... or does it?
The second thing that comes to mind is Borges's story "The Lottery in
Babylon"--which is in fact an allegory on the death of God. In Borges's
Babylon, there is supposed to be a secret Company which rules on the basis
of a lottery. The "silent functioning" of the Company, "comparable to
God's, gives rise to all sorts of conjectures. One abominably insinuates
that the Company has not existed for centuries and that the sacred
disorder of our lives is purely hereditary, traditional.... Another, in
the words of masked heresiarchs, *that it has never existed and will not
exist*. Another, no less vile, reasons that it is indifferent to affirm
or deny the reality of the shadowy corporation, because Babylon is nothing
else than an infinite game of chance." The Babylonians live with the
randomness of life as if that randomness were mandated by a guard in a
tower ... but would they live with it any differently if they no longer
thought there was a guard in the tower? (What would change in Oceania if
the Inner Party quietly did away with the image of Big Brother?)
----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster University----
"The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
-----------------------------(Michel Foucault)--------------------------------