mmcirvin: (Default)
[personal profile] mmcirvin
There are three basic attitudes of thought: the rational, the romantic and the traditional. They squabble in everyone's head like a trio of headstrong roommates, constantly ganging up two against one in different combinations.

Romance plus tradition leads to nostalgias, nationalisms, evocations of the lost Golden Age, to which reason says "The emperor has no clothes."

Reason plus romance produces inventions, utopias, science-fiction escape dreams, to which tradition says "That never worked before."

Tradition plus reason spawns bureaucracies, legalisms, classification systems, to which romance says "I'm bored."

Somewhere in the middle is an equilibrium point which is often unstable. Interactions with nature and with other people are usually stabilizing, but in like-minded groups of people the central equilibrium can become more unstable than in most individuals, and they get driven off in one direction or another.

You are now obliged to write a bestselling self-help book based on the above.

Mr. Show callback time!

Date: 2004-11-11 03:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dumplechan.livejournal.com
Hello. I’m Dr. Sammy, Beverly Hills psycho-actualist and author of the book, "Old Lady, Biker, Gay Guy, Japanese Man: The Four Voices Within."

Date: 2004-11-11 05:36 am (UTC)
ext_8707: Taken in front of Carnegie Hall (picassohead)
From: [identity profile] ronebofh.livejournal.com
Explain the difference between the romantic and the traditional. To me, the latter is a subset of the former. Show your work.

Date: 2004-11-11 01:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] paracelsvs.livejournal.com
Shut up, reason.

Date: 2004-11-11 11:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mmcirvin.livejournal.com
Well, I was thinking of a sort of pure socially-enforced automatism—"this is the way we do things because this is how it has always been done"—as a romance-free variety of traditionalism. And then, on the other hand, there's a revolutionary, futuristic variant of romantic thought, though it shades into nostalgia quickly as the futuristic vision becomes obsolete.

Date: 2004-11-11 03:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] arsonnick.livejournal.com
"Mastery of the Three: A Practical Guide to Self-Transformation and Global Healing"

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