so, I have gone through the first two ideas I had lying in bed last night
and here is the third idea…
the relationship between transcendental and Askesis?
what does this even mean? well, transcendental means universal,
necessary and Askesis which means the practice of severe self
discipline typically for religious purposes…askesis is meant as
a means of self growth… renunciation or self -denial of ideals that
most people consider to be good… such as the renunciation of pleasure
or of the abstention of anything that might be considered to be pleasurable…
so, this combo is meant to see if we considered askesis to be transcendental,
to be considered to be universal or necessary?
the average conservative, at least before they morphed into TFHer’s believed
in askesis… they would often accuse liberals/democrats of being in favor of
pleasure and hedonism…but that meant that the conservative would be in
favor of and actually practice askesis…the renunciation of pleasure…
and the average conservative did, in theory not in reality, would agree to
the renunciation of pleasures such as dancing or being alone with the opposite sex
or any pleasure of the world that might cause “sin”…self renunciation was considered
to be good for the soul, at least before the GOP became the TFH party…
but is it transcendental or universal that we engage with askesis?
the self-renunciation of pleasure for the growth of the soul…
I don’t see how the one leads into the other…very little in life is
actually transcendental… or universal… the needs of the body and the
emotional needs are universal… the need for food, water, love, shelter,
esteem, a sense of belonging… these combined physical and psychological
needs are transcendental/ universal… but is self-renunciation really a
universal need? but seeking pleasure has been called a universal need…
in fact, seeking pleasure has been called a universal need since the days
of the ancient Greeks… and was one of their founding philosophical schools,
like Plato and Aristotle founded philosophical schools, the seekers of pleasure
founded philosophical schools…this school was called Epicureanism…and it
proclaimed that pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal of life…but we have
in large part, rejected Epicureanism as a school in the modern world…
but we have adapted the pursuit of pleasure as being one of, if not
the highest goal of the modern world…
that in part, in part, why the modern conservative has rejected the modern world…
its focus on the pursuit of pleasure…and why the modern conservative holds that
the medieval world was the highest/ greatest period in history… the denunciation of
pleasure in the middle ages has proven to be a great achievement in the eyes of the
modern conservative…and a desire to be wished for in the modern ages…
of course not today, today’s conservative is a member in good standing of the
TFH party…
so what ideals are actually transcendental, universal or necessary for people?
Kropotkin