Negative enlightenment

[Neil Haddon]

DW wrote:
"[DW: Can you tell me the 12 Steps to Enlightenment in the Ilmnti?]"

Have a read of:

http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/

Sound at all familiar?

Love.
Neil

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Petrus]

> http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/
>
> Sound at all familiar?

Indeed. I will admit to having copies of both Machiavelli's The Prince and
Sun Tzu's The Art of War on my hard drive. The Prince actually is not quite
as negative as many have claimed. Machiavelli was a pragmatist, certainly,
and it could also be argued that he was nihilistic...but his philosophy also
actually calls for a certain degree of both discernment and restraint, both
for the sake of rulers and subjects.

Given what I've read of Machiavelli, I've tended to conclude that his
intentions were actually somewhat STO, believe it or not...he talks about
the importance of a ruler being fair and temperate, and about the evils of
excessive brutality. I don't believe that despotism for its own sake was
something he believed in...he'd just bought into the idea of man being
inherently evil (as did Strauss) and therefore needing to be restrained on
that basis. He did not advocate mass murder, however, nor excessive
brutality beyond that which he felt was necessary in order to maintain a
peaceful society.

I think there's a difference between people who are consciously STS and
actually want to be for its' own sake, and people who'd arguably like an STO
society, but who simply believe that a rigid heirarchy needs to exist purely
because they believe human beings aren't capable of being peaceful and
compassionate towards each other on their own. It's important I think also
to distinguish between the two, since otherwise we run the risk of
excessively condemning the latter group's motives.