Fools are good for society

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Messages 1 - 13 of total 13 in this topic
Tung Gwok

Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 20, 2013 - 12:16am PT
While I have added to a number of discussions on Super Taco, I have never started a thread. I could call this one "The Friday Night Posting While Still a Greenhorn" post, but one of you is likely to sue (or punch) me for trademark violation, so I thought I would visit a neverbefore broached topic: why are there so many undeserving beggars on the forum? (note irony)and answer, Because we need them, both person and society need them.

I know, there's that criticism that such a view breeds complacency social justice-wise. But I am talking about the opposite. I am saying that it is only in the expenditure of yourself on behalf of others that you come to realize that we -- even the collective we -- cannot solve all of the world's problems in our lifetimes. It is in that moment that we realize that the poor person is just that, a person rather than a problem to solve or a project of our own. Rather, we see the poor, the crippled, the blind, the hungry, the persecuted, as someones. At this point, we start learning from them. If our solidarity is in this -- self-critically in this -- surprised by those the world considers fools, then we have a chance of having -- and helping others have -- a life worth living.

That's all anyone can ask.
kennyt

climber
Woodfords,California
Apr 20, 2013 - 12:33am PT
I thought you had just visited the Boston thread.
RyanD

climber
Squamish
Apr 20, 2013 - 12:53am PT
There's a ? Jim, but also an answer -so I'm stumped. I'm sure somebody will have an opinion tho......


why are there so many undeserving beggars on the forum? (note irony)and answer, Because we need them, both person and society need them.
RyanD

climber
Squamish
Apr 20, 2013 - 12:59am PT
I agree Jim, just trying to figure out if I'm good for society or not?
Peter Haan

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
Apr 20, 2013 - 01:02am PT
Tung Gwok, aren't you getting a little far afield from the Euclidian Theorem, "Money is God's Report Card"?

Stuff might break off out there. Take care!
Fletcher

Trad climber
The great state of advaita
Apr 20, 2013 - 01:49am PT
We need true fools. Socrates' defense (as portrayed in Plato's Apologia) is, in part, about him being told by the Oracle at Delphi that there was no one wiser than Socrates. He couldn't understand how this was true, since he considered himself to know nothing compared to all that could be known. He then visits various characters in society and realizes that while they think themselves wise, they just think they are. And show themselves to be huge boneheads. Eventually, Socrates comes to understand he is the wisest man because he knows that he knows nothing.

So call me a fool! I don't know Jack Sh#t and Jack just left town! Ha ha!

Tangential side note: Sophomore comes from the greek sophos (wise) and moros (fool). Thus, a wise fool.

Shakespeare used fools to inject smart characters into his plays... think of the fool in Lear ("Prithee, Nuncle!").

What was the question again?????

Eric
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Apr 20, 2013 - 08:31am PT
Oh, Moosefool, you say the silliest things...

"Oh, I was just foolin' about..."--Curly Bill after he shot Fred White, Tombstone

Foolishness for Christ refers to behavior such as giving up all one's worldly possessions upon joining a monastic order, or to deliberate flouting of society's conventions to serve a religious purpose — particularly of Christianity. Such individuals were known as both "holy fools" and "blessed fools." The term "blessed" connotes both feeblemindedness and innocence in the eyes of God.

The term fools for Christ derives from the writings of Saint Paul. Desert Fathers and other saints acted the part of Holy Fools, as have the yurodivy (or iurodstvo) of Eastern Orthodox asceticism.

Fools for Christ often employ shocking, unconventional behavior to challenge accepted norms, deliver prophecies or to mask their piety.

Parallels for this type of behavior exist in non-Christian traditions as well. The Avadhuta (Sanskrit), for example, the Islamic tradition of Malamatiyya Sufism and other crazy-wise mystics all display similar traits.

"I'd rather be a holy fool like blah-blah-blah than a stupid fool like yada-yada-yada."--WBrain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbK-FmRWhxQ
thekidcormier

Gym climber
squamish, b.c.
Apr 20, 2013 - 10:18am PT
Everyone's an idiot but me...
Tung Gwok

Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2013 - 12:22pm PT
1:06 a.m. Nope, not from another thread. This is what I was after: I am used to one of the purposes of Taco being to make me think. The best threads make me do that. "Every Picture Tells a Story" begins with Guido posting a picture that he thinks tells a story. What I attempted to do wasn't any different. Sometimes a specific event prompts reflection. Boston.

I might not have done a good job of it. But there it is. Give me an alternative. That's how it goes. That's what I'm used to. I was trying to speak in a way that expected an exchange of ideas – “not this, that.” Not a funny thread this time. I try to go that way sometimes though. A couple years ago, I came across one of my own report cards from when I was about 10. You know that space where the teacher gets to comment. It said, “Thinks he’s funny.” Comedy is hard, though. If everyone just says, “aw f*#k,” then, that’s it. You are f*#ked.

Peter, let me think about it. Yes, I might break something or something of mine might get broken. That’s its own kind of violence. yes.

…………………………………………

Jim, you state things much more clearly than I do. But what I am saying is different. If I were clearer, I would have said, "The poor are deserving too." That "too" is important somehow. I am not sure just how. Perhaps you intended to say that I thought the poor were deserving of their poverty. Nope. Again, just the opposite. I spent a stretch of time as a young adult without health insurance, working for five dollars an hour. I’m not wealthy by American standards (though certainly by world standards). Fortunate. In many ways. Yes. A question for me is, “What now?” If I fell on harder times again, I’d like to think that I’d have whatever it is that asks for help. (Again). That’s it. I have been lucky to have it forthcoming when I needed it. Probably the luckiest was having parents for whom statements were questions. Someone (five kids in the family) saying “this” so another says “that” and both say hmmm…what about…and without realizing it, you both realize,

But my household was also racist.

“They like to keep to themselves.”

I am writing because my younger daughter, Honora, is keeping me awake. It is 2:28 a.m. here. My chin is on the kitchen table. Every few minutes or so – or so it seems to me -- I go in to tell them to be quiet. They look at each other and then confer – go on to talk - about what I just said. Honora has two black and two white girls over for her first homegrown slumber party. One of them has no legs from just above the knee. She’s doing headstands in my wingback chair. That’s something. And I think it is something better than what I knew.

This is getting long.
The pithy saying is good too. Exactly.

3:17 DMT: me too. Yep.

Fletcher. Plato, there’s a source. Good story too. Plato is best. He always throws me off because he’s at one point so rational, and then he is talking about chariots going across the sky.
Moosedrool: Yes, Socrates was wrong. In the right way. He has to be wrong. He is wise. Because if he is not then the rest of us are pretty f*#ked.

Mouse: thanks for the history lesson.

And we are all, most of the time, self-serving, yes. No argument there. None at all.
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Apr 20, 2013 - 01:02pm PT
thanks for the history lesson

that was the educational part, except that, and this is sad but true: in telling a funny story there's a teller, a listener, and the poor, helpless or hapless butt, i'm afrreud

that's the end of the educational part and i learned that in a junior college

here's the entertaining part of prof mouse's lecture on social thingamaboobs

Zobra on the Fools was the ostensible topic; this showed up on the U-Tube 99 periscope:
[Click to View YouTube Video]It's what Larry, Moe, and Curly are all about. The French love Les Tros Idiots.


Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Apr 20, 2013 - 01:45pm PT
Oh, boy, just what we need - one more reasonable well-spoken kind soul.

BTW, I'm rolling thru yer patch in July, how's the climbin'?
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha! ;-) (I'm from Chicago so no need to answer)

Gotta run- off to JTree - sorry to rub it in. :-)
Tung Gwok

Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2013 - 03:36pm PT
Learned a lot from these guys.
hobo_dan

Social climber
Minnesota
Apr 21, 2013 - 05:41pm PT
I prefer to think of myself as just "mostly stupid"
Messages 1 - 13 of total 13 in this topic
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