John Gray book.

I am reading "Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia" by John Gray.

Quite interesting.

Interesting first sentence:

"Modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion."
Bit of a generalization.

Another interesting sentence in the middle of the book:

"Deception has been integral at every stage of the Iraq war."

He seems very pessimistic and cynical in the modern sense of the word.

Good Quote!

“All reduction of people to objects, all imposition of labels and patterns to which they must conform, all segregation can lead only to destruction.”

Maureen Duffy, British Poet.

That Good Old Elusive Kenneth Clark Quote

"I believe it is essential to civilisation that a good balance is maintained
between the female and the male principle."

PARAFRASE of

Kenneth Clark in

about Chapter 2 or 3 of the book version of

"Civilisation", 1969.

Maybe this balance is hard to find. The quote is still very great as is the book.

Art History sometimes throws up quotes as useful as any other discipline........

There is no Hell.

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"I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment."

Bertrand Russell, Filosofa, Scolar and Saint, in "Why I Am Not A Christian".

Veracity and kindliness are the principles Bertrand says are the basis of his morality in this excellent little book!.......

It is dispiriting and blacly hilarius to note the extent to which eternal pain, torture and hellfire are still preached and promised to some with such serious vigor by even the most loving evangelical Cristians!

Catch up! The place CANNOT exist anyway - no matter what anyone at all has said! ........

Iraq

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Bill Hicks, the great American filosofer, was one of the few to tell the truth about the Gulf "War" of 1991.

Which did actually happen by the way, Monsieur Beaudriyard.

If Jean Baudrillard was a philosopher, then so was Bill Hicks.

Great American Filosofer and Comedian, Bill Hicks, On the Gulf War:

So, first of all – this needs to be said – there never was a war. “How can you say that Bill?” Well… a war is when TWO armies are fighting… …so you see it right there… we can all agree… wasn’t exactly a war. 

I guess the most amazing thing about the war is obviously the disparity of casualties: Iraq – 150 THOUSAND casualties, USA… 79! Ha ha ha!!! Let’s go through those numbers again, ah, they’re a little baffling at first glance; Iraq – 150 thousand, USA… 79, 79! 79? Does that mean that if we had sent over 80 guys, we still would have won that fucking thing?....

People have bugged me in the States, people said: “Hey, the war made us feel better about ourselves” “Really?” Who are these people with such low self-esteem, …they need a war to feel better about themselves? I saw them on the news waving their flags. Can I recommend that instead of a war to feel better about yourselves, perhaps… …sit-ups, maybe a fruit-cup, six to eight glasses of water a day. I’m not telling you how to live, I’m just recommending a perhaps better way to feel better about yourself. And we can avoid the conflagration, ha, ha, ha… Merely a suggestion. Take a tip?

BILL HICKS in "RELENTLESS"(1992).

The 20-year long assault on Iraq - principally by the USA and the UK - was an anti-Semitic genocide.
A genocide that the cultures of the USA and the UK have barely got close to facing up to and recognizing.

Empire....

"AGNOSTIC" and "UTOPIA"....

Befor anywun thinks I have sum kind ov problem with the Inglish langwidge.... I just wont to try to balance things owt in a tiknee way with this post..... :)

AGNOSTIC and UTOPIA.

2 logically spelt AND very essential and useful concepts AND words that have been exported to every culture and probably every major language in the world......

They did not exist - as distinct words in these forms at least - before these "Coinings" and also are both from Ancient Greek in origin - like many important European words. :)

[BOTH "coined" by Angelic Englishpeople .....  :)]

AGNOSTIC coined by Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 – 1895) and UTOPIA by Thomas More (1478 – 1535).....

Thanks to them you can chose to simply be "AGNOSTIC about UTOPIA".....:)

"An Embarrassment to Democracy".

In March 2012, a group of 240 doctors, including 30 professors, wrote to the The Independent describing Tory NHS "reforms" as an "embarrassment to democracy" which had "no support from professional healthcare organisations."

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Tuition Fees are crushing the hope out of a generation

In the latest issue of "GREEN WORLD" there is an amazing article by David McQueen of the Green Party.

Its subtitle is :


"TUITION FEES ARE CRUSHING THE HOPE OUT OF A GENERATION."

WOW.
All the more WOW given the fact that it is really a very accurate assessment.

One of my fave details about this whole debate -  that is never spared to those who know my foam in person :) - is that JOHN MAJOR to his great credit REFUSED to introduce fees for Uni as this would preclude people from some backgrounds from fully entering into society. It took the Left Wing War Criminal BLAIR to truly destroy English society's post-war University culture.

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"The Silence of the Lambs".

English students are always angry about the situation as compared to Scotland.
They always say they want fees gone like in Scotland.
And yet the media portray it as a question of Scotland needing to "hurry up", "get into line" and "charge fees."

The Unreadable Splodge.

Continued discussion of the book "Reformation" by Dermott McCulloch. Which of course is not that bad really!

To return to a discussion of the "unreadable splodge" referred to elsewhere - there is extensive and over-wrought discussion of the significance of the word "Catholic" - a necessity in this topic.

Nowhere are the following two facts simply stated.

 i) It is a Greek word simply meaning "Universal."

ii) The word appears (effectively on its own) in the Nicene Creed of 325 AD.

Neither is it stated clearly that the term and concept "Reformation" come directly from the Catholic/Universalist tradition - "semper reformandum."

It hardly needs to be said that this book shows a degree of bias. Most pointedly with regard to events in Renaissance England.

It may be more helpful to talk of "Universalists" and "Dissenters"; as much as "Catholics" and "Protestants".

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2018.

I am now much more of a cultural Christian. If I have a sympathy for Catholicism it is merely out of a desire for unity and humanity, rather than any kind of dogma.