john,
thought you might like this:
an excerpt from a wilber interview ("Bodhisattvas are going to have to
become politicians") at:
http://members.ams.chello.nl/f.visser3/wilber/intervieweng1.html
".....So very soon you realize that you can't even begin to make sense of
all that without some sort of mental categories that will help you sort and
classify and organize this differentiated mess. What is useful and not
useful? What is good and bad? What is worthy and unworthy? What is true and
false? And suddenly, you are a philosopher.
Oh no! You cannot even begin to make sense of the human condition without
looking deeply into philosophical issues. Even those who totally reject the
importance or the validity of philosophy -- they give philosophical reasons
for the rejection! In other words, whether you like it or not, to be human
is to be a philosopher, and your only choice is whether to be a good one or
a bad one.
And so, once you decide that you want to try to be a good philosopher, then
this tends to happen: if, as a philosopher, you ever allow yourself to
decide that you have some actual conclusions -- about the nature of reality,
the nature of human beings, of spirit, of the good and the true and the
beautiful -- than you very quickly realize that it is absolutely mandatory
to try to make society a place in which the greatest number of people are
free to pursue the good and the true and the beautiful. That becomes a
burning categorical imperative, and it eats into your soul with its
unrelenting moral demand.
As Foucault pointed out, one of the many great things about Kant is that he
was the first modern philosopher to ask the crucial question, What does it
mean for a society to be enlightened (in Kant's essay, "What is
Enlightenment?")? In other words, not just "enlightenment" for you or me,
but for society at large! Or Karl Marx: philosophers in the past have merely
tried to understand reality, whereas the real task is to change it. To be
socially committed!And so, as a modern philosopher, you are suddenly in the
broad field of political theory. You realize that Bodhisattvas are going to
have to become politicians, as weird as that might initially sound."
gav
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:15 BST