On Women, by Artur Schopenhauer

[Kelly Jones]

Link here.

An interesting analysis of the woman problem, which closes in a way treacherous to men, but inevitably compassionate to women.


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[Bob Michael]

An interesting analysis of the woman problem, which closes in a way treacherous to men, but inevitably compassionate to women.

Nothing is treacherous for a real man. But where on earth are they?

[Kelly Jones]

I thought his closing remarks, about institutionalising polygamy openly, rather than keeping the reality of polygamy disguised under the mask of monogamy, as the option for most men who are inclined towards marriage was treacherous for men, because by looking after several women for the term of their natural life (men's, that is, since they usually live shorter lives), they'll die even sooner. It would be compassionate towards women by saving those who want to get married or who want to be supported for life by men (which is just about all of them) from prostitution or similar roles, but deadly towards men. Do you think a "real man" would follow such a suggestion?

I'm inclined to think real men are bachelors, and try to encourage women to give up the need for a lover/priest. At least, I've never met a married or coupled man, who wasn't also very toey about non-attachment.

[Bob Michael]

"Your Manliness Is Your Sensitivity."

"As a young man, I was unusually sensitive. I loved birds, I loved nature and I was sensuous. And gradually it occurred to me that this was something I had to be ashamed of, that it was kind of sissy. So I put that stuff away for a long time. Through my teenage years I took Charles Atlas courses and learned to wrestle to toughen myself up so I could be a man. And it wasn't until I began to realize, in retrospect, what bullshit that was, what destructive cultural stereotyping it really was. When this first really began to open up for me was actually during a bioenergetics session with Stanley Keleman. I was going with a woman at the time who was giving me all kinds of trouble. I wasn't manly enough for her, in my view. And Stanley looked at me one day and said, "You don't get it, do you? You just don't get it. Your manliness is your sensitivity." And I realized I had been misidentifying where my "Sam Keen" strength was all along, that all these "feminine" parts that I had thought were not worthy of me were really where the juice of my life was, and that I had to learn to be more accepting, more surrendering and softer and more sensuous." (Sam Keen - W.I.E. Interview with Craig Hamilton)

[Kelly Jones]

Do you think his Eureka moment was in accepting emotions?

It's far more intelligent to understand them. For instance, animal life can teach us:

Fear is to get the animal to move away from a predator fast.
Anger is to fight against a predator.
Love is to bond with a territorial rival of the opposite sex, rather than fight them.
Love is also to bond with offspring, rather than to kill or eat them.
Love is also to bond with tribal rivals, to cooperate for the survival of every member of the group, rather than fight them.
Happiness is satisfaction of survival needs like food, water, shelter.

It's all pretty basic stuff. All the more subtle emotions are variants or sublimations of these basic ones.

No real man surrenders to emotions. That's childish.

[Bob Michael]

The first requirement for being a "real man" is that he has the capacity for genuine impersonal love. Which would including loving himself. And the same thing holds true for a real woman. However, I find the capacity for genuine impersonal love and love of oneself is quite rare in both sexes. Primarily because it was not firmly wired into most of us in the critical formative years of life. In which case it is forever lost and can never again be recaptured or redeveloped. However, if a man and a woman who have the innate potential for recapturing and redeveloping the capacity for authentic human love find each other and together cultivate that love to its fullest and become one flesh, they'll both know, exemplify, and thoroughly and harmoniously enjoy their right place or the true m/f relationship in life. While a whole host of celibates, in most cases, who are most likely incapable of loving, endlessly run to and fro with all sorts of speculations, ideas, and concepts on the matter. While usually none of these things are based on their own personal experiences. But rather they're typically rooted in weakness, cowardice, or the incapacity to love.

[Kelly Jones]

I'm sorry, but if you throw concepts out the window, then you can't hope to communicate coherently, Bob. Just saying, "A real man loves" doesn't really say much. And saying, "You'll never know what I mean if you don't know what I'm talking about," is also rich!

What do you actually mean?

[Kelly Jones]

By the way, how did you come to the conclusion that reasoning and the deft use of concepts, don't avail one of truths?

What was the actual thought process?

[Bob Michael]

The intelligence of the heart is Love, and Love is a rare wavelength that can synchronize or communicate only with its own kind. As is the same case with wisdom.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Keen: "Your manliness is your sensitivity." And I realized I had been misidentifying where my "Sam Keen" strength was all along, that all these "feminine" parts that I had thought were not worthy of me were really where the juice of my life was, and that I had to learn to be more accepting, more surrendering and softer and more sensuous."

This is a very "rude" approximation of the issue. Sensitivity in its truest form is higher awareness, of a feeling, a sound, a sight and especially their inner connections happening inside the mind: real thought. Therefore increase of awareness can coincide with increasing sensitivity for impressions, and in that sense can introduce one to some typical female experiences.

That said, the "female" sensitivity is highly specialised and pretty well cordoned off to protect "herself". A wise man trail-blazed past all this stuff already early in his life and can only laugh about the myths of any "feminine side".

[Bob Michael]

By the way, how did you come to the conclusion that reasoning and the deft use of concepts, don't avail one of truths? What was the actual thought process?

The evolution of life on earth is the process of making the terrestial intellect fully functional. For the most part the intellect is potential. Every idea is there; but to come into existence or appearance each idea or part of an idea has to be activated through being perceived by human intellegence. In this lies the difficulty. The necessary effect of human intelligence is to downgrade an idea; ideas are reduced to concepts, notion, and words and they lose their original virtue. There is then a feverish movement to fill in the idea with greater detail with concepts, theories, and descriptions. For any idea to retain its virtue, it must not be broken down and degraded this way. It must be lived as my life. But the living of ideas such as truth, love, beauty, harmony, divine order and rightness is very, very rare.

For the majority of people, living is the process of filling in ideas in more and more detail through the human intellect. This goes on with ever increasing gusto. An example is the intense concentration of numerous ideas in the field of biology, medicine, and technology. We know more detail today than ever before about practically everything, from insects and plants to the human anatomy and space rockets. And we are extremely busy filling in every idea that catches our personal fancy or interest, from astrology to meditation methods to innumerable therapies. Here the the terrestial intellect above overlaps the part of the human intellect below. All the ideas in the terrectial intellect are there for the spiritual and physical health of man. Inasmuch as man applies the ideas to that end they have virtue. But if they are pursued for intellectual satisfaction or selfish reasons they are without virtue; and the man concerned misses the opportunity to deepen his enlightenment. Service to humanity without personal consideration is love. And love is the finest virtue.

(A. U. = Author Unimportant)

[Kelly Jones]

Bob, the author's view that an idea exists purely and most perfectly outside the process of conceptualising and thought is completely bonkers. It's a relic from Plato. Ideas only ever exist as thought. Thinking is where ideas are made. It's how truths are formed.

[Bob Michael]

This is a very "rude" approximation of the issue. Sensitivity in its truest form is higher awareness, of a feeling, a sound, a sight and especially their inner connections happening inside the mind: real thought.

What about the heart connection? That vital sixth-sense or intuitive mechanism? The senses or feelings? It seems men (and women) everywhere have completely lost these things somewhere along the course of evolution. Or perhaps they've failed to ever fully and properly develop them. Hence mankind lives in his head rather than in his heart and knows not the joy of love and living.

[Bob Michael]

Bob, the author's view that an idea exists purely and most perfectly outside the process of conceptualising and thought is completely bonkers. It's a relic from Plato. Ideas only ever exist as thought. Thinking is where ideas are made. It's how truths are formed.

Interesting and telling.

[Bob Michael]

I am interested in finding men who are free of every kind of seeking, attendant only to understanding, who will devote themselves to the intentional creation of life in the form and logic od reality rather than the form and logic of Narcissus. Such men are the unexploitabe presence of reality. They will not devote themselves to turning the worlds to dilemma, exhaustion and revolutionary experience, not to the exploitation of desire and possibility, nor to the ascent to and inclusion of various goals, higher entities, evolutionary aims or ideas of spiritual transformation. They will create in the aesthetics of reality, turning all things into radical relationship and enjoyment. They will remove the effects of separative existence and restore the form of things. They will engineer every kind of stability and beauty. They will create a presence of peace. Their eye will be on present form and not on exaggerated notions of artifice. Their idea of form is stable and whole, not a gesture toward some other event. They will not make the world seem but a symbol for higher and other things.

They will constantly create the form of truth while conscious of present reality. Thus, they will serve the order of sacrifice and knowledge. They will evolve the necessary and good, and make economic and wise use of all technology. They will not be motivated by invention but by reality, which is the present thing to be communicated in all forms. They will not pursue any kind of victory for man, any deathlessness or overwhelmimg survival. They will only create the conditions for present enjoyment, the communication of reality, the form in which understanding and real knowledge can arise, live and become the public foundation for existence.

Thus, I would find a new order of men who will create a new age of sanity and joy. It will not be the age of the occult, the religious, the scientific or technological evolution of men. It will be the fundamental age of real existence, wherein life will be radically realized entirely apart from the whole history of our adventure and great search. The age envisioned by seekers is a spectacular display that only extends the traditional madness, exploitability and foolishness of mankind. But I desire a new order of men who will not begin from all of that, but apply themselves apart from all dilemma and all seeking to the harmonious event of real existence.

I am equally certain that such a new order of men must arise as a force in the world in the present generation or else this world must suffer the karma of dissolution.

(A. U.)

[jupiviv]

I thought his closing remarks, about institutionalising polygamy openly, rather than keeping the reality of polygamy disguised under the mask of monogamy, as the option for most men who are inclined towards marriage was treacherous for men, because by looking after several women for the term of their natural life (men's, that is, since they usually live shorter lives), they'll die even sooner. It would be compassionate towards women by saving those who want to get married or who want to be supported for life by men (which is just about all of them) from prostitution or similar roles, but deadly towards men.

It's quite a reasonable suggestion, because in such a scenario, there will be more men who'll be unattached to women, and all men won't have an obligation to provide for women. As a result, these men will be more likely to become rational.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Sensitivity in its truest form is higher awareness, of a feeling, a sound, a sight and especially their inner connections happening inside the mind: real thought.

What about the heart connection? That vital sixth-sense or intuitive mechanism? The senses or feelings? It seems men (and women) everywhere have completely lost these things somewhere along the course of evolution. Or perhaps they've failed to ever fully and properly develop them. Hence mankind lives in his head rather than in his heart and knows not the joy of love and living.

The only heart of concern is the heart of all things, the fundamentals of reality, the essence of understanding. Even if we'd call it something like "higher intuition", or "holism", the path towards has to be a rational and cautious one since so much is stacked against it, in our culture, in many of our instincts, peers, deceiving appearances, drugs, selfishness and the ever changing states which continue to overwhelm us.

Living a life full of positive emotion means nothing in terms of living truthfully. A purring cat licking itself has no need for the "head", after all. Higher aims call for higher feelings to respond to. But I use the term "feeling" perhaps too loosely here.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

They will create in the aesthetics of reality, turning all things into radical relationship and enjoyment. They will remove the effects of separative existence and restore the form of things.
(A. U.)

Bob, could you explain further what "Free John" might have meant here? What's a radical relationship and what are the aesthetics of reality to create "in"?

[Bob Michael]

The only heart of concern is the heart of all things, the fundamentals of reality, the essence of understanding. Even if we'd call it something like "higher intuition", or "holism", the path towards has to be a rational and cautious one since so much is stacked against it, in our culture, in many of our instincts, peers, deceiving appearances, drugs, selfishness and the ever changing states which continue to overwhelm us.

Surely everything, including himself, is stacked against a potential free-spirit ever attaining to perfection or fulness of being. However "rational"-izing and "caution" must both be thrown into the wind and risks must be taken. A true leap of faith I find is also a blind leap of faith. And there's no guarantee of survival or coming out the other end sane either. Much like Nietzsche observed, what doesn't kill a person makes him stronger. And my own personal experience continues to be that all mood-altering substances and obsessive/compulsive behaviors must eventually be abandoned along the path in order to re-cultivate maximum sensitivity of the organism. Without which there'll very likely come complacency, stagnancy, and back-sliding. And very often permanently.

Living a life full of positive emotion means nothing in terms of living truthfully. A purring cat licking itself has no need for the "head", after all. Higher aims call for higher feelings to respond to. But I use the term "feeling" perhaps too loosely here.

Lao Tzu's line comes to mind here: "The Perfect Man is Pure Spirit." And what more can be said or added here? Save perhaps that I experience this state from time to time, though surely not all the time. Though an ever more increasingly keen awareness of when one is or is not fully self-transcended or "pure spirit" drives one on to a more a more perfect and full-time relationship with oneself and the Infinite, or pure spiritedness.

"Love is the wholly underivable, yet most palpable and hence entirely incomprehensible, actuality of absolute consciousness. Here we find the source for all content, here alone the fulfillment of all searching." (Karl Jaspers)

[Bob Michael]

Bob, could you explain further what "Free John" might have meant here? What's a radical relationship and what are the aesthetics of reality to create "in"?

What I think Franklin Jones (who I feel was a brilliant-minded and genuinely enlightened soul, yet but another in the long list of failed messiahs so far as him being of any real value in the transformation of others) meant here was to overcome one's fallen human state of being and then ascending fully to the natural human state of being. Which would be to be in the Kingdom of God or Heaven. Or to be in that rare, extraordinary dimension of Love in one's every word, thought, and deed.

Btw Diebert, just last evening I ran across an article on a fellow priest's criticism of Meister Eckhart's sermons. Wherein he told Eckhart that that his "sermons have become annoying to me." That his "great subtle words are of no use to a beginner" nor were they "profitable to a growing person." And that he should "begin now and imitate the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and the method he used while he walked in this world of time" and to "focus the mind of Christ on the sinful, unvirtuous life of man" and to "preach and demonstrate to people how they may come to an orderly, virtuous Christian life."

Have you ever read this article, Diebert? I found it in the book ('Meister Eckhart' - A Modern Translation by Raymond B. Blakney, 1941). I find it a very valid criticism of not only Eckhart, but that it's also applicable to most enlightened men both past and present.

"Only in love is there a taste of the mystical, a taste of ecstacy." (P. D. Ouspensky)

[Pam Seeback]

Link here.

An interesting analysis of the woman problem, which closes in a way treacherous to men, but inevitably compassionate to women.


.

Kelly, the date that piece was written was 1851. Clearly, Schopenhauer was heavily influenced by the time in which he lived. He does, however, point out one undeniable metaphysical truth, perhaps this is what you mean by "the woman problem being treacherous to men", and that is, that without women, the human intellect would become extinct. Since the survival of the intellect depends on the passing on of DNA, it would seem that those who propose a transformed, ideal world of male psychology are leading mankind not to its collective enlightenment, but instead, to its Armageddon.

What Schopenhauer, perhaps unwittingly, managed to reveal was that the attempt to separate the dualities, to jettison one and keep the other, inevitably leads to the problem of the extinction of the dualities, dualities which are the very lifeblood [and I do mean this as a literal metaphysical truth] of the very intellect that is attempting the jettisoning.

[Pam Seeback]

Bob Michael: What I think Franklin Jones (who I feel was a brilliant-minded and genuinely enlightened soul, yet but another in the long list of failed messiahs so far as him being of any real value in the transformation of others) meant here was to overcome one's fallen human state of being and then ascending fully to the natural human state of being. Which would be to be in the Kingdom of God or Heaven. Or to be in that rare, extraordinary dimension of Love in one's every word, thought, and deed.

Btw Diebert, just last evening I ran across an article on a fellow priest's criticism of Meister Eckhart's sermons. Wherein he told Eckhart that that his "sermons have become annoying to me." That his "great subtle words are of no use to a beginner" nor were they "profitable to a growing person." And that he should "begin now and imitate the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and the method he used while he walked in this world of time" and to "focus the mind of Christ on the sinful, unvirtuous life of man" and to "preach and demonstrate to people how they may come to an orderly, virtuous Christian life."

Have you ever read this article, Diebert? I found it in the book ('Meister Eckhart' - A Modern Translation by Raymond B. Blakney, 1941). I find it a very valid criticism of not only Eckhart, but that it's also applicable to most enlightened men both past and present.

"Only in love is there a taste of the mystical, a taste of ecstacy." (P. D. Ouspensky)

Bob, I was born into the realm of the spirit of love. I cannot prove this, but I do know it to be true. I also know I was born into the realm of the spirit of love for the purpose of its transcendence, as I believe, was Eckhart's.

I cannot speak for others who also believe they were born into "mystical" consciousness. Perhaps, many, like yourself, believe the mystical realm is the highest of human attainments, and perhaps it is, emphasis being on one's human identity. What I discovered as I went deeper into my conscience, is that Spirit, by its very nature of being omnipresent, of which no man is separate, cannot rest in any realm, even those of the higher human realms of reason and love. I argue that the man who tastes deeply of reason and deeply of love discovers this undeniable truth of the spirit of himself, and has no choice, but to transcend his human, dual identity.

I see within Eckhart's words, a spirit of deep reason and of deep love who is transcending both. A spirit like me. As for those who criticize spirits such as Eckhart and myself, I say, until they walk in our shoes, they know not of what they speak.

[Bob Michael]

When he had finished this speech, the good priest said: "Dear Meister Eckhart, I have said too much and talked too long to you, forgive me. It is time now for me to go home." Meister Eckhart turned around to him, gave him a kiss of peace, and said: "Dear sir, I tell you that for many a year I have enjoyed hearing no discourse as much as this - which I have suddenly had to listen to from you. May God be your everlasting reward! And with divine love and Christian brotherliness, I bid you and exhort you for God's sake - as I may so exhort you - to tell me plainly about your life. For by the grace of God, I plainly see that you have spoken from the core of your life."

(From 'Meister Eckhart' - A Modern Translation by Raymond B. Blakney, 1941)

"In the flame of love - all fear is consumed." (J. Krishnamurti)

[Ryan Rudolph]

If men truly understand the nature of attachments and women, I don't see a huge issue with coupled pair ups, especially if the man is rational enough to not allow a woman's unconsciousness to effect him.

The problem of the human being at present is that most people do not have the biological wiring to totally abandon everything 'worldly' and live a 'pure' existence. This is true because the organism is programmed to a certain social pattern, a way of living that has occurred for millions of years. Without having ones biological conditioning met, most men teeter between insanity, loneliness and depression. And this has nothing to do with the self, it has more to do with biological programming.

Denial and total negation equals pathology for most men. And in my case, pathology was a greater danger than any side effect of allowing an attachment in ones life. Men who cannot abandon worldliness altogether could just take a more radical view of women, see them as easily replaceable and not bound to their sense of self. Just like any attachment. This attitude leads to less tragedy or feelings of devastation when the attachment is lost.

[Russell Parr]

If men truly understand the nature of attachments and women, I don't see a huge issue with coupled pair ups, especially if the man is rational enough to not allow a woman's unconsciousness to effect him.

Why would a rational man pair up with an irrational woman?

The problem of the human being at present is that most people do not have the biological wiring to totally abandon everything 'worldly' and live a 'pure' existence. This is true because the organism is programmed to a certain social pattern, a way of living that has occurred for millions of years. Without having ones biological conditioning met, most men teeter between insanity, loneliness and depression. And this has nothing to do with the self, it has more to do with biological programming.

Denial and total negation equals pathology for most men. And in my case, pathology was a greater danger than any side effect of allowing an attachment in ones life. Men who cannot abandon worldliness altogether could just take a more radical view of women, see them as easily replaceable and not bound to their sense of self. Just like any attachment. This attitude leads to less tragedy or feelings of devastation when the attachment is lost.

Your points contradict themselves. I say this because it seems you are suggesting that it's "ok" to occasionally to seep into unconsciousness, or to allow some form of irrationality into your mind. Either you are conscious, or you're not. Both states are at complete odds with each other. There is no marriage of the two, as they are complete opposites.

The middle paragraph has valid points, but we shouldn't neglect that any sort of unconscious, emotional bonding, no matter how "distanced," still often leads to the pathology you describe, and always leads to an inaccurate perception of reality.