/lit/ - Literature

The Great Learning
>by China

The Three Guidelines

>The Dao of Great Learning lies in making bright virtue brilliant; in making the people new; in coming to rest at the limit of the good. Only after wisdom comes to rest does one possess certainty; only after one possesses certainty can one become tranquil; only after one becomes tranquil can one become secure; only after one becomes secure can one contemplate alternatives; only after one can contemplate alternatives can one comprehend. Affairs have their roots and branches, situations have their ends and beginnings. To know what comes first and what comes after is to be near the Dao.

The Eight Stages

>In ancient times, those who wished to make bright virtue brilliant in the world first ordered their states; those who wished to order their states first aligned their households; those who wished to align their households first refined their persons; those who wished to refine their persons first balanced their minds; those who wished to balance their minds first perfected the genuineness of their intentions; those who wished to perfect the genuineness of their intentions first extended their understanding; extending one’s understanding lies in aligning affairs.

>Only after affairs have been aligned may one’s understanding be fully extended. Only after one’s understanding is fully extended may one’s intentions be perfectly genuine. Only after one’s intentions are perfectly genuine may one’s mind be balanced. Only after one’s mind is balanced may one’s person be refined. Only after one’s person is refined may one’s household be aligned. Only after one’s household is aligned may one’s state be ordered. Only after one’s state is ordered may the world be set at peace.

>From the Son of Heaven to the common person, for all alike, refining the person is the root. That roots should be disordered yet branches ordered is not possible. That what should be thickened is thin yet what is thin becomes thick has never yet been so. This is the meaning of “knowing the root.”

>moar Grip:

>Analects
http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf

>The Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean
http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Daxue-Zhongyong.pdf

>Mencius
http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Mengzi.pdf

>Daodejing
http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Daodejing.pdf

>Shobogenzo
https://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/Shobogenzo.pdf

>Stoicism
http://collegeofstoicphilosophers.org/stacks

>>12005228
Prime Cosmotech: Achieved

>>12003520
>What I keep asking myself is whether there is space, in all this discussion of being absorbed as a species into a higher for of hive-minded living being (technological?) for these kind of things - namely, whether we will be part of something completely foreign and inhuman (which is what makes the whole thing nauseating and hideous) or whether we will meet the “familiar face” of mind, and intelligence, and consciousness again in being part of a bigger being - again, whether we will achieve some form of empathy with it and the other creatures that are part of it, or whether we will be simply tools for another being’s survival, estranged and yet incapable of separating from the machinery.

i think that we both are and are not already absorbed into such a hive-mind at the moment, and it is called, Culture. specifically, the culture of late capitalism. Land has already done a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard, imho, in terms of the need to kind of effect an epistemological break v/our understanding of this. basically, he was ahead of the curve by two or three decades at minimum in terms of the effects that a technological society would come to have upon culture, in particular academic culture. he isn't completely alone in this regard - Mumford, Ellul, McLuhan, Baudrillard, and many others preceded him. Land is special because of the role that cybernetics plays in his thinking. again, some props have to be awarded to Norbert Wiener here also, at least. but what Land brings to the table is a unique blend of Deleuze, Marx and Norbert Wiener that updates Marxism both for the present and much beyond it.

he's way more shit on for this than he deserves to be. in a very important sense, Land is a true orthodox Marxist for an age which jettisoned economic analysis for cultural analysis, and entirely lost its mind in doing so. what Land offers is a through-the-looking-glass encounter with both Marx and Hegel, imho, and which returns in the form of teleoplexy to wreak an ungodly vengeance upon Those Who Neglect Geometry. Land really, really matters. he is a hugely important thinker, and it is utterly McDiculous that he has fewer than 12K followers on Twitter. true, Old Nick is a crusty old meme-lord gangster, who has gone through a couple of curious acts in his intellectual career. but Young Nick absolutely caught lightning in a bottle and ushered in a new age of critique in the late 80s and early 90s. he's not referred to as Uncle Nick without a good reason. the future belongs unquestionably to intelligence and technology, and the whole reason why he broke with academic Marxism was because he could already see the handwriting on the wall, which is that it was destined to become neither academic nor Marxist. Right Marxism was what he produced, and he cozied up with Moldbug as well. but Cosmotech is not Neoreaction, nor is it Dark Enlightenment. warrants mentioning. what is required is exactly what you have called an ensouled world.