David,
> Marco wrote: "Being different isn't bad or wrong, as long as it
> doesn't damage someone else's right to be different"
>
> David: Hmmmm...interesting twist. How about "Being different isn't
> bad or wrong, as long as it doesn't damage someone else's right to
> continue being the same?" (I don't agree with that last phrase, but
> more often than not, I think, being different only becomes an issue
> when juxtaposed with being the same.) I wear different color hi-tops
> regulary. It's amazing the responses I get. Mostly, people respond
> warmly with jokes. On occasion though, I get people who actually seem
> offended by the fact that I would violate such a basic thing as
> wearing matching shoes (I actually had some one see them and then in
> an angry tone say "what the f--- is wrong with you? what's your
> f---ing problem?" ah....life)
>
> Marco wrote: What's important IMHO in Pirsig's thought is that
> "insanity" can be a richness. So we must make all what's possible to
> understand and listen to
> who's "insane", as maybe he is going to show us a new direction.
>
> David writes: Aha.....my point again - but it seems that society's
> attempt to classify certain people as insane/sane actually gets in the
> way of listening to what those people have to say. And it's not
> "insanity" (IMNSHO) that is the richness, but DIFFERENCE in whatever
> shape or color it comes in)
>
> Something to ponder.....It appears that in all of the posts on this
> subject - the writers believe there is a "thing" called insanity.
> Except for me. Am I insane for not believing in something that all
> the other posters believe to be real? Or if I'm right, are the
> posters insane for believing in something that doesn't exist? Again I
> contend that insanity does not exist. Just differences between
> people. But to make life a little easier, we have created labels.
>
> Insanity is just another way of saying "they" are different from
> "us."
>
If you talk about the color of your shoes, I agree with you. You can wear
all the colours you want and if someone says you are "insane" we all agree
he's wrong.
But it doesn't mean that insanity does not exist.
Three days ago a 8 year boy disappeared from his town, in northern Italy.
They searched for him two days. A police dog found him yesterday. Dead. In a
forest. Buried under leaves and stones.
Police men also discovered the killer. Another boy. 17 years old. Italian.
White. He said he doesn't know why he did it.
IT HAPPENS DAVID! EVERYDAY.
The press defined him as pedophile (i.e. insane). Do you think this boy is
just "different?". Do you find any Dynamic, Intellectual, Social, Biological
or Inorganic justification for that?
"But one day in the classroom the professor of philosophy was blithely
expounding on the illusory nature of the world for what seemed the fiftieth
time and Phædrus raised his hand and asked coldly if it was believed that
the atomic bombs that had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illusory.
The professor smiled and said yes. That was the end of the exchange.
Within the traditions of Indian philosophy that answer may have been
correct, but for Phædrus and for anyone else who reads newspapers regularly
and is concerned with such things as mass destruction of human beings that
answer was hopelessly inadequate. He left the classroom, left India and gave
up. " (ZAMM, chapter 12)
Your reasoning seems to be the same of that professor: everything is
illusory, everything is built from our minds, for social convenience...
Salaam
Marco.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
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 - 16:00:42 BST