Re: virus: Re: shaman

Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Sun, 17 Aug 97 00:12:05 -0400


I won't begin to let you or anyone else, especially myself, begin to
believe I understood anything that preceded the next statement, but
somehow you got to it and it seems cogent-

>This is the core of the professionalistic model without the
>shaman and this is where modern society finds itself today.

So, yes, a good deal of this world lives within this model, I think.

>So, how can the role of religion and politics be translated by the
>professional?

Assuming one wants to bother....

>The Answer: Those functions provided by religion and
>politics are sub-headed under the new magical term, "standards"--the process
>becomes the product.

I would of course state that standards have naught to do with the
'magical' and I would further classify the above as both nonsensical and
non-sequitur. But don't get bunged down by my misapprehension here.

>We make objective terms like movement, growth, rest,
>balance, perspective, stability, change, tension, release, and resistance.

We make them what?... do what?

>Satisfaction and satiation become the by-words and is judged by quantity and
>quality (ie. we mechanize). THEN we ask how does the shaman
>satisfy...looking at his quantity and quality.

Again, you've quite lost me here, but lo and behold-

>It seems that the only position that the shaman can then fill is one of
>scapegoat. He becomes an anachronism, is seen as controlling and
>repressing: He claims the qualities of respect, humility, responsibility,
>and obligation but doesn't display the form of power, pride, sympathy and
>empathy. But every time we go to destroy him something stops us.

People would rather enjoy the mistakes of their fathers then find new
pitfalls to enbruise themselves. We have no magic flute to lead them
onward. And they have learned to pay with their fears, not their
thoughts. They are even happy.

Zippy- 'Why do you always look so skeptical, doggie?'
Doggie- 'Because I've seen too much, Zippy.'
Zippy- 'Then why do you keep _looking_, doggie?'
Doggie- 'Too much is never enough.'

So in this myriad tints of grey world, a few of us facet models with
rational tools, attempting to engage some form with the chaos. The more
the merrier. He who understands chaos is god. He is alone. Light, the
first form, will destroy him.

*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
morbius@cyberwarped.com |
******* http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ *******