A marriage ought to be based on a friendship; not primarily just on physical attraction...

... Well... first and foremost... because the physical attraction is going to go away, sooner or later.

 
Mary Wollstonecraft - Her Life and Key Ideas

Sobre Mary Wollstonecraft

Mais coisas:
The Love Letters Of Mary Wollstonecraft To Gilbert Imlay

Letters to a Young Poet: aqui e aqui

Maria Popova:
The Difficult Art of Giving Space in Love: Rilke on Freedom, Togetherness, and the Secret to a Good Marriage

The Original Marriage of Equals: The Love Letters of Feminism Founding Mother Mary Wollstonecraft and Political Philosopher William Godwin


"I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation."
Rainer Maria Rilke

Ways of Seeing

“I'm an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I'm in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse's mouth. I fall and rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine, manoeuvring in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations. Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I co-ordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.”
Dziga Vertov

 

Models tie us to a mast of logic

Pintura de John William Waterhouse

Curso: Model Thinking, por Scott E Page 
Aqui

Why Models?
Reason #1: To be an intelligent citizen of the world.
Reason #2: They make us better clear thinkers.
Reason #3: To understand and use data.
Reason #4: To decide, strategize and design.

Models are the new lingua franca, they're the language of business, they're the language of politics, they're the knowledge of the non profit world.

Models tie us to a mast of logic, and by doing so, we figure out which ways of thinking, which ideas are useful.

Models are better than we are.

The accuracy of different ways of predicting ('Formal Models' do better):

Model by Philip Tetlock

Models are fertile. Once you learn a model for one domain, you can apply it to a whole other bunch of domains. You can also use them to find out who wrote a book.

Models make us humble. They make us see the full dimension of a problem.

Thinkers who use many models, know best. So what is really important, is to have many models.
The 'Foxes', who had lots of models, did much better than the 'hedghogs', who had no models (Philip tetlock). Formal models did better than 'Foxes'. People with lots of 'Formal models' will do even better. So the idea is to use multiple models.

Models make us clearer thinkers. They work through logic. They inductively explore. They allow us to understand the class of outcome [05:42]. They help us to identify logical boundaries [07:26]. models allow us to communicate our ideas and what we know, really simply [08:21].

Steps to build a model:
— Name the parts (people, money, places, preferences, etc)
— Identify relationships (and how things play out)

People use models to:
— Understand patterns
— Predict points [02:07]
— Produce bounds
— Retrodict
— Predict other stuff
— Inform data collection
— Estimate hidden parameters
— Calibrate

How can models help us?
— They can be real time decision aids.
— They can help us with comparative statics.
— They can help us with counter factuals.
— We can use them to identify and rank.
— They can help us with experimental design.
— They can help us design institutions, themselves.
— They can help us choose among policies and institutions.

Human Egocentricity and Critical Thinking

— Can we support the idea that people are largely egocentric, with evidence?

• Egocentricity is self-centered thinking.

— Can we document problems in human life that come from selfishness, self-centeredness?

• Egocentric thought does two things:
 - It is selfish (self-centered, self serving, self protecting in a way that it is disfunctional).
 - The second motivater is its self validating. So that the idea is that my way is the right way. This is the source for rigidity in thinking.

— Egocentric thinking functions at the unconscious level. It cannot stand the light of day. The minute that it starts to come to light, that is, to the conscious level, something magnificent, in the mind, happens, called self-aception [?]:
— "I decieve myself into believing in all of these selfish things that I'm doing are actually perfectly fair for everyone around me. I decieve myself into thinking that I'm telling you the truth, when actually I'm telling you a lie." Or, — "I'm telling you a lie, I might admit it, but I'm doing it for your own good."


CRITICAL THINKING ABILITIES:

� Thinking independently
� Developing insight into egocentricity or sociocentricity
� Exercising fair-mindedness
� Exploring thoughts underlying feelings and feelings underlying thoughts
� Developing intellectual humility and suspending judgment
� Developing intellectual courage
� Developing intellectual good faith or integrity
� Developing intellectual perseverance
� Developing confidence in reason
� Refining generalizations and avoiding oversimplifications
� Comparing analogous situations: transferring insights to new contexts
� Developing one's perspective: creating or exploring beliefs, arguments, or theories
� Clarifying issues, conclusions, or beliefs
� Clarifying and analyzing the meanings of words or phrases
� Developing criteria for evaluation: clarifying values and standards
� Evaluating the credibility of sources of information
� Questioning deeply: raising and pursuing root or significant questions
� Analyzing or evaluating arguments, interpretations, beliefs, or theories
� Generating or assessing solutions
� Analyzing or evaluating actions or policies
� Reading critically: clarifying or critiquing texts
� Listening critically: the art of silent dialogue
� Making interdisciplinary connections
� Practicing Socratic discussion: clarifying and questioning beliefs, theories, or perspectives
� Reasoning dialogically: comparing perspectives, interpretations, or theories
� Reasoning dialectically: evaluating perspectives, interpretations, or theories
� Comparing and contrasting ideals with actual practice
� Thinking precisely about thinking: using critical vocabulary
� Noting significant similarities and differences
� Examining or evaluating assumptions
� Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant facts
� Making plausible inferences, predictions, or interpretations
� Evaluating evidence and alleged facts
� Recognizing contradictions
� Exploring implications and consequences

Intellectual standards to use in thinking:

Clarity:
understandable, the meaning can be grasped:

Could you elaborate further?

Could you give me an example?

Could you illustrate what you mean?

Accuracy:
free from errors or distortions, true:

How could we check on that?

How could we find out if that is true?

How could we verify or test that?

Precision:
exact to the necessary level of detail:

Could you be more specific?

Could you give me more details?

Could you be more exact?

Relevance:
relating to the matter at hand:

How does that relate to the problem?

How does that bear on the question?

How does that help us with the issue?

Depth:
containing complexities and interrelationships:

What factors make this a difficult problem?

What are some of the complexities of this question?

What are some of the difficulties we need to deal with?

Breadth:
encompassing multiple viewpoints:

Do we need to look at this from another perspective?

Do we need to consider another point of view?

Do we need to look at this in other ways?

Logic:
the parts make sense together, no contradictions:

Does all this make sense together?

Does your first paragraph fit in with your last?

Does what you say follow from the evidence?

Significance:
focusing on the important, not trivial:

Is this the most important problem to consider?

Is this the central idea to focus on?

Which of these facts are most important?

Fairness:
Justifiable, not self-serving (or egocentric):

Do I have any vested interest in this issue?

Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints of others?

Am I putting views I oppose in their strongest form?

Intellectual traits:

Intellectual humility is knowledge of ignorance, sensitivity to what you know and what you do not know. It means being aware of your biases, prejudices, self-deceptive tendencies and the limitations of your viewpoint. Questions that foster intellectual humility include:

• What do I really know (about myself, about the situation, about another person, about my nation, about what is going on in the world)?
• To what extent do my prejudices or biases influence my thinking?
• To what extent have I been indoctrinated into beliefs that may be false?
• How do the beliefs I have uncritically accepted keep me from seeing things as they are?

Intellectual courage is the disposition to question beliefs you feel strongly about. It includes questioning the beliefs of your culture and the groups to which you belong, and a willingness to express your views even when they are unpopular. Questions that foster intellectual courage include:

• To what extent have I analyzed the beliefs I hold?
• To what extent have I questioned my beliefs, many of which I learned in childhood?
• To what extent have I demonstrated a willingness to give up my beliefs when sufficient evidence is presented against them?
• To what extent am I willing to stand up against the majority (even though people ridicule me)?

Intellectual empathy is awareness of the need to actively entertain views that differ from our own, especially those we strongly disagree with. It is to accurately reconstruct the viewpoints and reasoning of our opponents and to reason from premises, assumptions, and ideas other than our own. Questions that foster intellectual empathy include:

• To what extent do I accurately represent viewpoints I disagree with?
• Can I summarize the views of my opponents to their satisfaction? Can I see insights in the views of others and prejudices in my own?
• Do I sympathize with the feelings of others in light of their thinking differently than me?

Intellectual integrity consists in holding yourself to the same intellectual standards you expect others to honor (no double standards). Questions that foster intellectual integrity include:

• Do I behave in accordance with what I say I believe, or do I tend to say one thing and do another?
• To what extent do I expect the same of myself as I expect of others?
• To what extent are there contradictions or inconsistencies in my life?
• To what extent do I strive to recognize and eliminate self-deception in my life?

Intellectual perseverance is the disposition to work your way through intellectual complexities despite the frustration inherent in the task. Questions that foster intellectual perseverance include:

• Am I willing to work my way through complexities in an issue or do I tend to give up when I experience difficulty?
• Can I think of a difficult intellectual problem concerning which I have demonstrated patience and determination in working through the difficulties?
• Do I have strategies for dealing with complex problems?
• Do I expect learning to be easy or do I recognize the importance of engaging in challenging intellectual work?

Confidence in reason is based on the belief that one's own higher interests and those of humankind at large are best served by giving the freest play to reason. It means using standards of reasonability as the fundamental criteria by which to judge whether to accept or reject any belief or position. Questions that foster confidence in reason include:

• Am I willing to change my position when the evidence leads to a more reasonable position?
• Do I adhere to principles of sound reasoning when persuading others of my position or do I distort matters to support my position?
• Do I deem it more important to "win" an argument, or see the issue from the most reasonable perspective?
• Do I encourage others to come to their own conclusions or do I try to force my views on them?

Intellectual autonomy is thinking for oneself while adhering to standards of rationality. It means thinking through issues using one's own thinking rather than uncritically accepting the viewpoints of others. Questions that foster intellectual autonomy:

• To what extent am I a conformist?
• To what extent do I uncritically accept what I am told by my government, the media, my peers?
• Do I think through issues on my own or do I merely accept the views of others?
• Having thought through an issue from a rational perspective, am I willing to stand alone despite the irrational criticisms of others?

Mais aqui.

Sobre Linda Elder

Outros links:
The International Critical Thinking Test
The Watson-Glaser™ Critical Thinking Appraisal

The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking for Children

The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking-Concepts and Tools

Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Personal and Professional Life

The Waste Land

The Waste Land

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

“What is that noise?”
The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
Nothing again nothing.
“Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
“Nothing?”

I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”

But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
“What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

III. The Fire Sermon

The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

“This music crept by me upon the waters”
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala

Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala

“Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”

“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?”

“On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”
la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih

A origem do mal como a inversão da hierarquia legítima entre a sensibilidade e a consciência moral (Kant)

1)
Seria o mal consequência da nossa sensibilidade (desejos, pulsões, corpo, apetites, inclinações)?

– Não porque, se assim fosse, isso nos converteria em animais, e entre os animais não há mal. O "valor" é coisa Humana.

2)
O mal é proveniente da nossa razão prática, do nosso discernimento, da nossa maneira de pensar a vida? É consequência da nossa articulação intelectual sobre a vida?

– Não. Se tivéssemos uma razão endemicamente viciada, não seríamos humanos. Seríamos o Demónio (aquele que pratica o mal pelo mal). O mal que se justifica a si próprio.

3)
Será o mal a consequência da inversão da hierarquia do encontro entre estes dois elementos: os apetites e a razão? Qual deveria ser a hierarquia legítima entre os apetites e a razão?

A busca do prazer, a busca da felicidade, deveria estar limitada à consciência moral?

Qual é a inversão da hierarquia?

– É definir a lei moral a partir das conveniências do prazer e da felicidade.

Logo:

O Mal, resulta desta inversão: ao invés de ir buscar a felicidade dentro dos limites da consciência moral, define-se a consciência moral dentro dos limites dos interesses da felicidade.

Mas:

Acima das felicidades individuais existem as condições e as felicidades do colectivo — da humanidade como um todo.
Daí que a busca de felicidade se deve submeter à lei moral, à consciência da lei moral.

Arrisquemos, então, uma categorização do mal moral:

DEMÓNIO — pratica o mal pelo mal. Não aufere benefício algum para si.

CANALHA — pratica o mal pelo efeito benéfico que essa conduta traz para si.

PERVERSO — Tem prazer em praticar o mal.

SÁDICO — Não goza com a conduta malévola, mas com o sofrimento da vítima.

MEDÍOCRE — faz o mal por não fazer todo o bem que poderia fazer. A falta de busca da excelência. Aquele que se recusa ao aperfeiçoamento. O acomodado.

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