Thank you for proposing so powerfully that “returning to our senses” is the bottom line if we are to regain any sanity at all. “Descartes and the Broom” is such a great title! And the poem does what the essay is proposing. “Balancing the pain with a poem”—I love that, Mica!
Rob, this poem transmuted some of that pain. Thank you for the imagery and the broom as a focus.
I frequently think about what thoughts must be thrown out because a certain person thought them, or at least wrote them. Descartes is an obvious example. I read about him years ago, in my animal activism days, and can hardly think of a more despicable human. Yet I know he made great contributions to mathematics. I am glad you took a few words here to convey the extreme horror of his actions; I find many people have been unaware.
J.J. Audubon is another. A miraculous artist, yet he wrote proudly of reporting an escaped slave family he encountered while exploring, returning them to certain torture and death.
The list of course goes on and on. The question is for me, how much can the art or logic presented be separated from the utterly depraved morals of a person. I suppose it's an individual question, but I guess one line I could draw is that those, like Descartes and Audubon, who proudly show their cruelty as something perhaps aspirational, are not welcome in my world.
Thanks for this. You've given me something to think about.
"As for the high and exalted mind, it’s the last thing we should plant our ultimate trust in, with it’s resident ego and frightening capacity to dissociate from the suffering of others."
I believe it is very unfortunate to assume that the word "mind" refers to a dissociated "substance" of the sort which Descartes (mis)took it to be, and I'm saddened that you implied here that this is the actual nature of "mind".
When I contemplate "mind", I'm contemplating awareness, intelligence, imagination, creativity, sensory (sensual, sensuous) experience, aesthetic appreciation, intuition, love, kindness, compassion, care, generosity.... All of these and many more are mind. Heart, too, is mind.
clicking on like seems too little acknowledgement for your writing this morming. I applaud something that can make me both cringe and wonder. This also made me think of a podcast which also makes me wonder. Have ou listened to The Emerald? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/for-the-intuitives-part-2/id1465445746?i=1000640168206/ Thank you for your writing.
Thanks for the link. Looks interesting.
Thank you for proposing so powerfully that “returning to our senses” is the bottom line if we are to regain any sanity at all. “Descartes and the Broom” is such a great title! And the poem does what the essay is proposing. “Balancing the pain with a poem”—I love that, Mica!
Rob, this poem transmuted some of that pain. Thank you for the imagery and the broom as a focus.
I frequently think about what thoughts must be thrown out because a certain person thought them, or at least wrote them. Descartes is an obvious example. I read about him years ago, in my animal activism days, and can hardly think of a more despicable human. Yet I know he made great contributions to mathematics. I am glad you took a few words here to convey the extreme horror of his actions; I find many people have been unaware.
J.J. Audubon is another. A miraculous artist, yet he wrote proudly of reporting an escaped slave family he encountered while exploring, returning them to certain torture and death.
The list of course goes on and on. The question is for me, how much can the art or logic presented be separated from the utterly depraved morals of a person. I suppose it's an individual question, but I guess one line I could draw is that those, like Descartes and Audubon, who proudly show their cruelty as something perhaps aspirational, are not welcome in my world.
Thanks for this. You've given me something to think about.
Thanks, Rebecca!
"As for the high and exalted mind, it’s the last thing we should plant our ultimate trust in, with it’s resident ego and frightening capacity to dissociate from the suffering of others."
I believe it is very unfortunate to assume that the word "mind" refers to a dissociated "substance" of the sort which Descartes (mis)took it to be, and I'm saddened that you implied here that this is the actual nature of "mind".
When I contemplate "mind", I'm contemplating awareness, intelligence, imagination, creativity, sensory (sensual, sensuous) experience, aesthetic appreciation, intuition, love, kindness, compassion, care, generosity.... All of these and many more are mind. Heart, too, is mind.