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The best revenge is not to be like that.
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
To break down some of the beliefs that almost everyone else in history had, except us, and took to be completely obvious, which are taboo to question today.
The first is that there are inherent biological differences between men and women. Next, there is some inherent biological reality behind class, race, and ethnicity, that progress is not some natural law of the universe, but something that only occurs under certain incentive structures, which are rare throughout history. Family, community, and nation are the bedrock of social life, and war is a nasty part of the human condition that we have to accept. Equality doesn’t really exist, and some things are innately better than others. The highest levels of beauty, achievement, and greatness are pulled from the divine, while the lowest levels are pulled from demonic forces. These do not exist physically in the way we describe, but are underlying archetypal principles or forms that operate over physical matter.
Human nature is inherently corruptible and requires social traditions to keep us in check. There is a spirit world and God, and the human soul and consciousness is a force in its own right. Human life and happiness are predicated less upon material wealth and more upon social relations or values. The universe is a self-reflective emergent phenomenon that adapts to different situations.
To frame this: literally everyone else in history besides us believed all of that. Even the most educated people in the West at the start of World War I believed most of the things I mentioned above. Literally every other era in history besides that believed in them.
The Greatest Lie Ever Told
Whatifalthist
“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.
The Dexterous Butcher – Zhuangzi
Vanessa Able
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