watching a nature documentary a guy noted how elegant certain creatures are, notably predators. So I am left wondering if predation is ‘noble’, and is it more so than grazing. There is of course something serene, in scenes of great plains being grazed by multiple varieties of animals, but which are the ugliest ones? Generally speaking, are humans noble because they are predators, or because they are both, or because there is more to them than that?
Are we noble creatures? And would we be more or less noble if we moved beyond nature? e.g. if we grow synthetic meat substitutes [or even lab-meat] so nothing is being killed for us to eat, then give that a few centuries and perhaps we would see a less predatory [better?] society. The opposite being where we simply continue as we are and being predators, there shall continue to be ‘evil’ in the world.
That if we continue to be predators we will continue to contribute to the evil in this world supposes that to be a predator is evil. Life eats life on this planet, whether that life is plant or other animal. Can you say that those who eat flesh are responsible for wars?
Chickens do not die for my sins, and they taste so good!
I’m asking the question, it is for the inquirer to make their own resolution. I would say that ‘continuing to be predatory, will mean we continue to be predatory’.
Plant life creates things specifically to be eaten e.g. fruit and nuts. One possible future would be where e.g. due to population/demand, all or most meats are synthetic. So in a sense we could be eating meat without killing. Ergo I would think this isn’t a vegetarian issue?
The idea ‘of not killing to eat’, and the reality of there being no slaughterhouses, would manifest an effect? Which would probably be the same as if we were vegetarians?
I just don’t see the connection between being predatory eaters and predatory individuals in general. It sounds like a leap between ideas that are not the same.
By eating nuts and berries you are destroying pre-life. Where does life begin? That raises the thorny old question about abortions. When you eat nuts and berries do you not abort a proposed future life form?
I like this setup.
My theory is simple. Predation requires a high degree of physical fitness, and more deeply, innate strength and agility. Withhout these, a large carnivore would starve in the wild.
Fitness, strength and agility amount for a good degree to elegance.
Combine this with sexual selection, which among large predators is more rigorous and punishing, and a striking picture begins to form.
In music, too, elegance is a controlled ferocity. Evolution is much like music.
In human society, predation isnt physical anymore, but a matter of psychological cunning.
The roles are somewhat reversed. The strong and elegant are feared and/or preyed upon by organizations of weaker types.
i’d suggest that life begins when gestation does, or when the nut goes to seed and begins to grow. However abortion aside [a massive sidetrack], when we contemplate the world and generally think about life, when we watch nature documentaries etc, that all goes in, no? We form our opinions and attitudes to knowing what nature is like, we know about slaughterhouses and hunting/fishing, predation as part of nature. We also know about evolution theory.
So what happens when needs are removed. And when there is no killing to eat. Such things will be affecting imho.
FC
That is naturally true, but it is not true about a future ‘human’ society which does not predate to survive. …and i’m crap at those things, and not to mention far to lazy [except in mind].
The pattern is that of power hierarchy. The evils man do are at least in the main part due to that, no? Is it not better to not be controlled? Is the given master, the ‘master predator’, or is there a higher mastership? Surely by knowing ‘the world’ as you do, and with all that means, you are master of that at least potentially. If so then the brute becomes your dog, no?
‘cunning’ I think is in the category of ‘strategy’ ~ a feminine thing by my reckoning? Predators use it alongside their prowess, but its still part of the femnine within the masculine, no?
Its hard to qualify - Nietzsche would agree, but on the other hand, the Norsemen, who are renowned for being on the masculine side of things, held trickery in supreme esteem. If you could trick an opponent into an error, that allowed you to kill him, you had reason to be joyful, as you compared to Odin, who is a god of knowledge, which these people knew, apparently, to be a matter of trickery, magic.
All predators use trickery, a Lion has to stay out of sight of the Gazelle until he is very close. I think we can conclude that a being that relies in no way on trickery is quite unnatural, and probably self destructive. A storm comes to mind; but thats not right, as wind is treacherous (interesting then that Odin is also the god of wind, or of ‘bad weather’, as Nietzsche attributed) - what then, is not cunning?
Perhaps only God himself, which is why he isnt able to interfere with human affairs except by driving people stark mad wherever he can.
Strength, in tarot terms as a female gently holding the lions mouth open, suggest containment, of having power over the beast and beast-like natures. It reminds me of an African mystic woman who could walk amongst lions, perhaps of the Buddha surrounded by creatures of the forest, that kind of thing.
The Norse with all their opaque masculinity it seams were cunning and feminine too. Perhaps they saw both as strengths, Spartan women give birth to Spartan men – that kind of thing. I expect Thor sees the ways of the world as solidly as his hammer hitting the anvil, and I think this vision sees more vaporous things as pretentious or pretend et al. I see this all the time in all those false capitalism smiles all over our screens, and the way everyone has to be positive and keep patting each other on the back.
The question is; did we gain something in moving past that? If Christianity was an advancement, or if not that then secularism would have surpassed paganism in a similar way to how it attacks Christians etc. either way, we can ask if there is more than what the hammer yields, no?
I think being cunning is a kind of expertise in alertness and judgement, so I agree success requires that.
If there is a God beyond our Norse etc, ones, then he can no more affect causality [change his creation?] than anything else, or at least doesn’t do that. I don’t know, I don’t want to accept Christian monotheistic thinking, nor pretend that the gods don’t exist, nor think they are all demons. However, there is an infinite universe/reality, and that suggests oneness. On the other hand if we look at Hinduism for example, we see how the gods and goddesses are expressions of divinity, but ultimately it is formless [as one would expect infinity to be]. I don’t know Norse mysticism much, but in Druidism they had a thing called Caugant which is a 5th century term for the divine infinite, but they were pagans. Can we know if the Norse mystics didn’t see things similarly as most nature religions do?
I think I am best suited to a Thor like approach - for sure it is the God, along with Zeus, that most effortlessly ties in with my responses.
Then there is the cvilized feminized Christianized part of me that is very powerful in taming this Thor likeness and yet powerless in making itself useful. I am not cunning enough to communicate my way through the world in these terms. I must rely on my Thorlikeness, it is the only way in which people respect me. It is also the only joyful way.
Blake holds Jesus to represent an eternal truth about the original prolific genius … I can never relate to his fiery descriptions of all that. I feel only … an unpleasant softness in the whole spirit of it all. And I tried.
It is perhaps a matter of what one instinctively desires to accomplish and attain. I do not hold peace as the value to gain. I need to be fighting, to hold none of my energy back. That is the ideal. And that is of course closely akin to how lightning ‘decides’.
The infinite… I rather think it precludes a cosmic wholeness. I think in terms of realms. Parallel worlds that partly overlap and correspond, an endless tapestry of them, bound not in linear duration but by whatever correspondences the valuing type will permit and demand.
I am drawn to the idea of chaos as the ultimate arbiter on a macro scale.
^^ hello trixie nice to see you again. I’ll respond below…
FC
does it matter if people respect you? I’m beyond caring, but I suppose I could be less tolerant ~ I’d consider those who have crossed me in my past as buffoons.
I think the ancients saw it that someone like you is someone like you, and therefore there’s nothing to change. If you are with Thor or some such thing, then that’s what you are. The only difference is perhaps that monotheists want to be more than worldly, hence the question; are we supposed to discover what we are, only to renounce it. Is there something more than the world or worldliness?
In us the wholeness is what we are, so I can see how monotheists draw the God conclusion. with god of the universe/s, you would think causality wouldn’t exist though. Hmm this is why I have a problem with ‘wholes’, in Druidic thinking the spirit is known as Awens or thought-winds, and so thought/mind/spirit is like air, and the universal/infinite version of that is like the Tao.
Trixie
The prey has to evade it, and I think being either is not the thing which regulates brain size. At least we developed larger brains from beginnings as a vegetarian creature [monkey], and that happened prior to them being able to hunt meat with tools.
Don’t see much empathy in predators, but the prey alert each other etc.
Already been there and although I respect him, I found his words to be an impenetrable wall. He evades the holes I put in his philosophy by answering with yet more of his own, ad infinitum. Which is not the same as debating points in the specific, and is evasive. We did agree on some things though, and I am still contemplating that side of the world.
Gasoline has only one type per car and function per car. Gasoline is more similar to Water.
Water is like Fuel.
Food has various components that when broken down do different things. Like eating legos.
Supposedly, according to pop culture studies, meat has special proteins needed for advanced intellect. But I do not think these special proteins are needed in large quantities or every day, since in the wild meat was not eaten every day.
People are hedonistic and we cannot ban meat at this time, but I feel like if people only ate meat half as much, half as many animals would have to suffer and die meaningless deaths.
True point, but its also true that food is converted to energy and the general things the body needs, and any food which does the job is the same in that sense.
Yea I’m not buying that also. We were vege’s prior to being both that and meat eaters, ergo the thing which produced earliest humans [beyond apes] wouldn’t have had those special proteins.
Sure, well I am not a vege but if the philosophy said no, then I would be a veggie.
Just admit that you’re wrong and silly.
Its not converted into some one-sum “energy”, its a collection of various things, and building blocks, vitamins minerals, proteins, antioxidants, etc.
I said advanced intellects.
English please. And why are you even arguing against the facts if you have no agenda?
Sorry, did I add an extra ‘I’ In there. [post edited] I’d rather not have agendas, but if I did I’d want to get the facts right first. Hence I’m discussing the philosophy.
[post edited] I’d rather not have agendas, but if I did I’d want to get the facts right first. Hence I’m discussing the philosophy.