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laodan

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laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA

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THE WAY THINGS ARE: The meaning of life is to be found in thinking about what is reality and the beauty of reality is to be found in our DNA's memorization of all forms that have been successfully retained along the four billion years of evolution of the principle of life on Gaia our earth. In the end what I mean to say is that beauty is something objective and what we call ugliness is then simply our unconscientious feel of something evolution did not retain.
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  • Pascal Bruckner: Enlightenment fundamentalism or racism...

    Rated Feb 01 2007 • 4 reviews • islam, modernity, society • signandsight.com

    Enlightenment fundamentalism or racism of the anti-racists?
    via 3QD, in Sign and Sight

    Pascal Bruckner defends Ayaan Hirsi Ali against Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash, condemning their idea of multiculturalism for chaining people to their roots.
    "What to say to a man who tells you he prefers to obey God than to obey men, and who is consequently sure of entering the gates of Heaven by slitting your throat?" - Voltaire
    "Colonisation and slavery have created a sentiment of culpability in the West that leads people to adulate foreign traditions. This is a lazy, even racist attitude." Ayaan Hirsi Ali

    Ian Buruma (in Perlentaucher) and Timothy Garton Ash respond to Pascal Bruckner's defense of Ayaan Hirsi Ali against their alleged attacks.

    Enlightenment fundamentalism or racism of the anti-racists?
    Freedom cannot be decreed
    Better Pascal than Pascal Bruckner

    This is one of the hottest subjects debated nowadays around the world. But both sides of the equation are totally unaware of the fact that their discourses are bathing in the reality of the human way... Just consider the following 2 factors:

    The human way:
    - societies have always, and this is valid anywhere, developed strategies to assure their own reproduction in the form of shared worldviews (willingly or imposed).
    - this basic societal reality always, and anywhere, has been opposed by individuals who wanted to change the status-quo (because of power or of knowledge).
    - those 2 immemorial trends that characterize our humanity have always caused frictions and tension. But, in finale, those tensions gave the energy that powered societal change (everywhere and at any time in humanity's history)

    Modernity:
    No doubt modernity acts like a totalitarian ideology and the consequences of this totalitarianism can be seen in: a massive scale extinction of species, a massive scale destruction of traditional cultures and languages, a fast changing climate, polluted waters and so on and on.

    Check Le Monde Diplomatique's special on Peut-on ne pas croire ?. (Can we do without belief?)