Saturday 14 November 2009

Meanwhile, back at the Bird-Brains Trust…

“The other major attitude I will call the Animist perspective. In this the body and the spirit are felt to be one, they are both forms of energy and there is no division between the two, they are both intrinsic to the person and indivisible.”

http://www.pebble.uk.net/organdonation.html

19 comments:

Bo said...

Not sure I'm getting precisely why that's so dense, myself, though I personally wouldn't subscribe to it. (Unless we have to take the body-as-a-form-of-energy literally: clearly the body is NOT a form of energy, it's an incredibly complex physical system of nerves, organs, tissues, bones and muscles shaped by millions of years of evolution. Electricity is 'a form of energy'.)

Fog Patches. said...

“Not sure I'm getting precisely why that's so dense, myself”

Perhaps I was overly concerned to maintain the context of the post and should have omitted the opening sentence. I’ll paraphrase:

“They’re felt to be one and there‘s no division between the two.”

Perhaps we should each donate a pebble to Pebble and then they’ll be able to build themselves an abacus. It shouldn’t be beyond even their wit.

Lee said...

same as Bo here, i dont see the problem. it is one of two perspectives; monism (this one) and dualism.

funnily enough it is this monist view which keeps ERO going and HAD alive

Bo said...

Oh, I see the paradox! It's your old--and justified--chestnut about pagans *making themselves* think certain things, not because they find them philosophical coherent as accurate metaphysical propositions, but because they want *to be the kind of person* who would think like that, out of a kind of misguided sentimentalism and often a slightly creepy lionization of the supposed beliefs of native peoples.

Fog Patches. said...

That and the author seems a bit dim.

Adam said...

I have to say that the thing that really bugs me about that quote is the implied assertion that the author has some authority to define the animistic perspective,

Fog Patches. said...

Hello Adam. They’re all like that at Pebble. If you go to their site through the link in the opening post then you can have a laugh at their minutes. Children playing Boardroom.

Adam said...

OK, I clicked through the link and I am disappointed on more levels than I care to talk about right now :-(

Not least because of the sleight of mouth that inoculates against disagreement.

Bo said...

I have a horrible feeling I know the author well.

Adam said...

I have a horrible feeling you do

Lee said...

you do know her very well. bird of Prey, hovers, smallish.

Bo said...

OH *GOD*.

Fog Patches. said...

It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? You think you know someone and then all of a sudden you read an article they’ve written and you see that there’s a whole other dimension to them which you could never have imagined.

Bo said...

That's not entirely how I'd have phrased it...

Fog Patches. said...

“OH *GOD*” was how you phrased it. All manner of subtext is suggested.

Bo said...

Unknown to you, however!

Fog Patches. said...

Oh, come now. It doesn’t take much. I hear odd noises, I put a glass to the wall.

Bo said...

It's no secret: the author is a former student of mine, of whom I am very fond, but who found the course I was teaching very challenging and who consequently was in turn challenging to teach. I think she would find that a fair assessement; she's certainly not dim, far from it, as she has mastered one of the most difficult languages of western Europe; however, the construction of careful, logical arguments is perhaps not where her greatest gifts lie. My 'OH GOD' was a realization of familiarity, not of a sudden change in my perception of the individual concerned brought on by reading the extract.

Fog Patches. said...

Sir; you are an artist.