The awareness of mind

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Rewilding Mind & Heart
#1

What seperates a man from a animal? Are we not animals?

I point to a historical anomaly of how civilization started with the advent of private property and agriculture but in order for those things to be started there had to be somthing more from whence those creations came from.

Some have speculated that it was consciousness while others say it was language that sparked the beginning of man seperating himself from nature in becoming a seperate entity.

Are there any opinions on the subject from others here?

#2

I actually wrote a blog on this not too long ago: WildeRix:The inhumanity of animals

Humans fit scientifically and taxonomically into the category of “animal” just as much as any other creature we think of when we think of the term “animal”. But why do we feel so compelled in civilization to see ourselves as “more than” or “better than” or “above” our non-human neighbors? I think the answer lies in the core of how the machine of civilization works: it has to grow; in order to grow, it has to consume; in order to consume, it has to view the objects as “less than” in order to consume them.

David Abrams in The Spell of the Sensuous seems to think (from my reading thus far) that the alphabet–not language–sparked the separation that we know today. Indigenous people the world over have continuously communicated in spoken languages for as long as the rest of humanity, but they do not forget their relationship to the rest of the earth’s inhabitants. Abrams postulates that the alphabet took us away from the perceptive realm of relating to the world via our senses and took us into the philosophical world where ideals exist as thoughts that the thinker can examine apart from any real connection to the perceivable thing itself. Instead of getting to know this particular tree–how it sounds and feels and tastes and looks and smells–I can think about the concept of a tree and can manifest some ideal of a tree (which likely bears no resemblance to any real existing tree on earth).

#3

[quote=“WildeRix, post:2, topic:223”]I actually wrote a blog on this not too long ago: WildeRix:The inhumanity of animals

Humans fit scientifically and taxonomically into the category of “animal” just as much as any other creature we think of when we think of the term “animal”. But why do we feel so compelled in civilization to see ourselves as “more than” or “better than” or “above” our non-human neighbors? I think the answer lies in the core of how the machine of civilization works: it has to grow; in order to grow, it has to consume; in order to consume, it has to view the objects as “less than” in order to consume them.

David Abrams in The Spell of the Sensuous seems to think (from my reading thus far) that the alphabet–not language–sparked the separation that we know today. Indigenous people the world over have continuously communicated in spoken languages for as long as the rest of humanity, but they do not forget their relationship to the rest of the earth’s inhabitants. Abrams postulates that the alphabet took us away from the perceptive realm of relating to the world via our senses and took us into the philosophical world where ideals exist as thoughts that the thinker can examine apart from any real connection to the perceivable thing itself. Instead of getting to know this particular tree–how it sounds and feels and tastes and looks and smells–I can think about the concept of a tree and can manifest some ideal of a tree (which likely bears no resemblance to any real existing tree on earth).[/quote]

Interesting.

So this writer thinks that written word is the phenomena that started civilization? I never thought about it like that before.

It would make sense in that shortly after the first civilization of Sumeria was born we see cuneiform everywhere.

Where can I get more information?

#4
So this writer thinks that written word is the phenomena that started civilization? I never thought about it like that before.

No, Abarams doesn’t propose that civilization started with the written word–or even with our alphabet. He proposes that our separation from the animist world started with the Greek alphabet. Which explains why civilized and animist cultures can exist (Japan) today–because their written word exists in pictographic images which still tie them to the sensuous world of perception.

Where can I get more information?

I highly recommend The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams.

#5

No, Abarams doesn’t propose that civilization started with the written word–or even with our alphabet. He proposes that our separation from the animist world started with the Greek alphabet. Which explains why civilized and animist cultures can exist (Japan) today–because their written word exists in pictographic images which still tie them to the sensuous world of perception.

I highly recommend The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams.[/quote]

I will definately take a look at the book as it sounds most interesting.

The only difficulty I am having with this subject is that the Chinese alphabet is pictorial too yet from the same ancient alphabets of China we see elaborate civilized schools of thought like that of confucianism.

I don’t think there is a difference between that of the Greek alphabet with the more Asian pictorial ones since all written language in the existance of alpahabets seems to be the real culprit.

#6

yeah, i think at that point, it becomes a matter of scale and time. you find pictorial-based writing systems in cultures that “can” maintain elements of animism. that doesn’t mean, however, that those cultures exist in a fully animist way–merely that they have far more potential to maintain some level of animism that we do with our however-many-times-removed-from-pictorial alphabet (Semitic pictorial letters were taken over by the Greeks into sound representation letters. The Romans took over those letters into the Latin alphabet. Our English alphabet had a few changes from that even.)

#7

I can concur with that assesment.

In a way it does make sense since Western civilization seems to be the leader of all civility in many regards not to mention our modern capitalistic agenda for the world that Western nations lead. Of course if we think about it the Western world wasn’t the first driver of civilization since we got all the ancient cultures of the Euphrates river that preceded the ancient Mediterraneans.

It was ancient Sumeria and Babylon that preceded Greece or Rome. As you said the Semitic alphabet came first before that of Greek.

#8

I often think “why civilization? What is this it all about?” I don’t expect to find an answer. It’s a bit like asking why is there life? What is life? The thing that confuses me is that just about everyone “asks why am i alive?” but not very many people ask “why civilization? why progress? where are we going with this?” They just kind of accept it. They equate civilization with luxury and luxury with happiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s so bizarre.

Certain religions such as Hinduism do make an attempt to explain this. They say there are different ages or yugas which we will cycle through indefinitely living at times at very low levels of technology and other times very high levels, golden ages. Reasonable I suppose given the tendency of things to cycle, but that don’t mean I believe that the so-called golden age is a great time to be alive because you can achieve “enlightenment” so quickly.

New age thought too addresses this “problem” and puts the ideal life not at stone age but at a sort of spiritual/technological Atlantis type age where people heal instantly with crystals and teleport and that sort of thing. For example the bestselling series Conversations with God suggests a future where people spend their time eating berries and building canoes but also can control the weather. And I don’t think he means in a shamanistsic Rolling Thunder “now it will rain” type way, i think he means some serious controls.

Weird. Like why? What’s the point? Would you really want it to only rain at night while you were sleeping. No that would be boring! Like in The Giver where people have gotten rid of colors and hills and covered up death and disease and sex and the kid breaks out at the end into a world with snow and it’s fuckin great.

Anyhow I don’t believe in hinduism or buddhism or most of new age religion because they originated after civilization and depend upon it (and it on them) and therefore have a need to make excuses for it.

#9

[quote=“Penny Scout, post:8, topic:223”]I often think “why civilization? What is this it all about?” I don’t expect to find an answer. It’s a bit like asking why is there life? What is life? The thing that confuses me is that just about everyone “asks why am i alive?” but not very many people ask “why civilization? why progress? where are we going with this?” They just kind of accept it. They equate civilization with luxury and luxury with happiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s so bizarre.

Certain religions such as Hinduism do make an attempt to explain this. They say there are different ages or yugas which we will cycle through indefinitely living at times at very low levels of technology and other times very high levels, golden ages. Reasonable I suppose given the tendency of things to cycle, but that don’t mean I believe that the so-called golden age is a great time to be alive because you can achieve “enlightenment” so quickly.

New age thought too addresses this “problem” and puts the ideal life not at stone age but at a sort of spiritual/technological Atlantis type age where people heal instantly with crystals and teleport and that sort of thing. For example the bestselling series Conversations with God suggests a future where people spend their time eating berries and building canoes but also can control the weather. And I don’t think he means in a shamanistsic Rolling Thunder “now it will rain” type way, i think he means some serious controls.

Weird. Like why? What’s the point? Would you really want it to only rain at night while you were sleeping. No that would be boring! Like in The Giver where people have gotten rid of colors and hills and covered up death and disease and sex and the kid breaks out at the end into a world with snow and it’s fuckin great.

Anyhow I don’t believe in hinduism or buddhism or most of new age religion because they originated after civilization and depend upon it (and it on them) and therefore have a need to make excuses for it.[/quote]

I often think "why civilization? What is this it all about?" I don't expect to find an answer. It's a bit like asking why is there life? What is life? The thing that confuses me is that just about everyone "asks why am i alive?" but not very many people ask "why civilization? why progress? where are we going with this?" They just kind of accept it. They equate civilization with luxury and luxury with happiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It's so bizarre.

Agreed.

Noone truely asks the question about civilization but it would make sense since such a entity is in constant motion from social conditioning.

Luxury, pleasure and convenience has a way of blinding people yet this is no surprise since civilization survives on people’s blindness.

Certain religions such as Hinduism do make an attempt to explain this. They say there are different ages or yugas which we will cycle through indefinitely living at times at very low levels of technology and other times very high levels, golden ages. Reasonable I suppose given the tendency of things to cycle, but that don't mean I believe that the so-called golden age is a great time to be alive because you can achieve "enlightenment" so quickly.

New age thought too addresses this “problem” and puts the ideal life not at stone age but at a sort of spiritual/technological Atlantis type age where people heal instantly with crystals and teleport and that sort of thing. For example the bestselling series Conversations with God suggests a future where people spend their time eating berries and building canoes but also can control the weather. And I don’t think he means in a shamanistsic Rolling Thunder “now it will rain” type way, i think he means some serious controls.

I don’t trust conventional religion by the very fact that such beliefs in almost every case tie into the manipulation of civilization.

I don’t believe in morality just for the very fact that I am aware of it’s civilized manipulation.