Wow! I didn't do much today. I mostly slept. I'd get up, work on the article, and go back to sleep. I did manage to wash my kitchen floor with my Bissell so I could lend it to Yvette to use. The question is, which works better, the Hoover or the Bissell?
I felt so drained that I decided to go to Kaiser the next day to get my oxygen level tested.
I had been watching Dr. Foster. It was getting too grim for me. It was clear that the dear Dr. Foster was unbalanced. She was beginning to look like the main character in Fatal Attraction, except here it's the wife who's crazy, not the mistress.
Yvette did some massage on me last night. I told her what my concerns were and then told her to follow her instincts, which are always the best. She said that my right foot was inflamed. It made me worry that I am pushing too much. Maybe I should lay back a little
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Musings:
I've been reading A Short Introduction to Marx by Peter Singer. Wow! What a surprise! He wasn't initially concerned about the oppression of the working man; he had some other concerns. I may not know enough or understand enough to express these ideas accurately, but I can share what I did get from what I've read so far.
It starts with Hegel. He argued for the full expression of humanity, which could be achieved through the dialectic, two opposites working against each other to produce a unique resolution. The resolution was the heightened consciousness of man. It was through heightened consciousness that man can realize his full potential, realize his true nature. Jung built on these ideas. I believe the idea is that as each consciousness interacts with another consciousness, they become larger. Eventually, everyone realizes that they are all part of the same consciousness, a universal consciousness. When an individual experiences himself as part of the universal consciousness, he has achieved his full potential.
Then Feuerbach, or was it Marx himself, concluded that religion was the oppressor of humanity. I remember hearing that religion was the opiate of the people when I was a child. I interpreted that to mean that religion convinced people to accept their lot in life, even if it was a misery. But no, that's not the issue. The issue for Marx is that religion required the people to credit God with their best characteristics, and they had to accept their inferiority. Marx believed in the potential of man. He believed that human potential was artificially limited by religious beliefs.
While Marx never gave up the conviction that religion prevented humanity from becoming its best self, he also decided that it was property that kept man from realizing his full value. He was equally concerned with the property owners and the others that came to be known as the proletariat. He believed both groups were forced into alienation from their true nature by property. The proletariat would initiate change because they were the more obviously miserable of the two groups. They would fight with the property owners, overthrowing them so all would be free from the tyranny of property. The working man, realizing his suffering, would eventually fight against it, freeing both from the chains of property. As far as Marx was concerned, everyone, property holders and workers, could not realize their true humanity until they were freed from property. This is as far as I have read.
Mike's parents and Jean's were deeply involved with the Americana communist movement. I suddenly wondered what aspect of the communist movement attracted them. Mike is gone; I can't ask his parents or Jean's, but I could ask Jean. I called to ask her what made her parents communists. She unhesitatingly answered, "They wanted justice for the workingman." That's how I remember the aims of communism, income equality. What I have been reading in this book comes as a total surprise.
I can realize why Marx came to the conclusions he did, considering the impact of the Industrial Revolution. It created a distance between man and his labor. He was no longer laboring to produce something for his family; he produced things in a factory for a wage. This alienated him even further from his true nature. Now, that would have been the feeling at that time, much as we are now dealing with how our digital world is separating us from ourselves, leaving us lost and alone, struggling to find our way back to a way of life we can live with.
On an NPR show, I heard someone who researches obituaries to get an idea of the period. Before the Industrial Revolution, obituaries mentioned a person's character; afterward, they talked about their property. It was in that context that Marx wrote what he did. Man became his material possessions. It does sound very alienating.
I have heard several programs on NPR, which coincidentally spoke to this issue. One was by the author of Eat, Pray, and Love, Elizabeth Gilbert. She gave a TED talk about having to worry about having the success of her second book, being nothing compared to her first. She studied how past artists dealt with this problem. She found an answer which satisfied her among the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the muses and the geniuses. These were spirits who gave the artists their ideas, in the case of a writer, their words. If the artist was successful, it was due to these spirits. If the artist was a failure, it was also due to these spirits. It took a lot of weight off the shoulders of the artist. All they had to do was show up and do their share of the work. The burden of success and failure was not on their shoulders. Ah, what a relief. Who wants to be as good as the gods? The best we can hope to be is good humans, not God. Here's a different interpretation of religion: it lifts the burden of perfection off the shoulders of fragile man. Looks to me as if religion can do both suppress and free.
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