I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.
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The symbolism of meat-eating is never neutral. To himself, the meat-eater seems to be eating life. To the vegetarian, he seems to be eating death. There is a kind of gestalt-shift between the two positions which makes it hard to change, and hard to raise questions on the matter at all without becoming embattled.
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Quote from Mark Gorman
სამხრეთის კედელზე მაცხოვრის ერთადერტი თვალდახრილი და სახედაფხეკილი ფრესკის ქვეშ ვიღაც ლაზღანდარა ათეისტს მუშაირა ჰქონდა გამართული თვითონ მაცხოვართან. უცხვირპირო და უთვალო, როგორ გიწამო, უფალო?!-კომკავშირელი ათეისტი. ასე აწერდა ხელს ლექსის ატორი. ცოტა ქვევით უფლის პასუხი იყო, ასევე ლურსმნით ამოკაწრული: კომკავშირელო, თუ არ გწამს, სახარება და ღმერთიო, ამ სიმაღლეზე მეორედ, გთხოვ, აღარ ამოეთრიო!-იესო ქრისტე. ასე აწერდა ხელს პასუხის ავტორი.
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Quote from J.R. Ward, Dark Lover
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Quote from Margaret Feinberg
A lizard brain fired the gun that wounded you, but it was the combination of three brains that orchestrated the elaborate circumstances in which the trigger was pulled. Way back when, the Landlord believed a second brain would endow some of his lower life forms with the capacity for emotional connections. By adding the third brain, he probably planned on having his… higher forms empowered with the ability to not only think before acting, but to feel regret afterwards when their actions were wrong. But that’s not what happened, is it?
The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult–to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization–not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible in which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do, but how to be. Their method is confrontational, their domain unlimited, their “product” not truth but the reasoned search for truth, their “success” something very much like Frost’s momentary stay against confusion.
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