Re: virus: Re: Memes and Jello

Mark Hornberger (markhornberger@nietzsche.net)
Thu, 08 May 1997 16:46:12 -0500


At 10:23 AM 5/8/97 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>
>On Wed, 7 May 1997, Mark Hornberger wrote:
>
>> To those who like to say that we should just leave the world alone, I ask
>> whether or not we should still be illiterate, terrified savages, running
>> around forests, foraging or killing our food, living in caves, and dying
>> from every opportunistic pathogen to take a liking to us.
>
>Whenever I'm out in nature I always feel like an intruder. Like
>everything has a place and simply "is" without having to think about what
>"is" means, except me. I envy that quality in nature and try to emulate
>it.
>
>But I am a human, a son of Adam. My forefathers ate of the tree of
>the knowledge of good and evil (a metaphor for consciousness) and where
>cast out of Eden (cannot simply "be" without understanding what it means to
>"be").
>
>No, we don't need to go back into the tree's, we can't. We wouldn't want
>to. But we can learn from those that never left the trees.

What can we learn from them, exactly? Despite the myth that chimps are
enlightened and benevolent, they are pretty damned savage. You find
murder, rape, assault, infantcide and even cannibalism among the chimps.
Among the gorillas you have much of the same, though (from what I've read)
not all. Where is the nobility? The only animals that are habitually nice
to one another, respecting the cosmic balance of nature, reside in Disney
movies.

Mark Hornberger