/lit/ - Literature

>>18828932
parallels to in Gnosticism*** specifically, not shamanism, of PKD's experiences.

Vast Active Living Intelligence System. That's itself Tao, B

>>18718089
I don't doubt that. But I do believe it's valid to give this highly respected institution some critique. My viewpoint on it is similar to (kooky as it sound) Naqshbandi Sufi Idries Shah's, who says some of his greatest and most well-respected friends are academics, but he was also sometimes thought be overly harsh about academia because he said it how he saw it.
EH: People in the United States seem to be looking for leaders, whether spiritual or political, and they keep complaining because there are no leaders to follow.

IS: People are always looking for leaders; that does not mean that this is the time for a leader. The problems that a leader would be able to resolve have not been identified. Nor does the clamor mean that those who cry out are suitable followers. Most of the people who demand a leader seem to have some baby’s idea of what a leader should do. The idea that a leader will walk in and we will all recognize him and follow him and everybody will be happy strikes me as a strangely immature atavism. Most of these people, I believe, want not a leader but excitement. I doubt that those who cry the loudest would obey a leader if there was one. Talk is cheap, and a lot of the talk comes from millions of old washerwomen.

EH: If so, the washerwomen are spread throughout the culture.

IS: They’re not called washerwomen, but if we test them, they react like washerwomen. For example, if you are selling books and you send a professor of philosophy something written in philosophical language, he will throw it away. But if you send him a spiel written for a washerwoman, he will buy the book. At heart he is a washerwomen. Intellectuals don’t understand this, but business people do because their profits depend upon it. You can learn much more about human nature on Madison Avenue than you will from experts on human nature, because on Madison Avenue on stands or falls by the sales. Professors in their ivory towers can say anything because there’s no penalty attached. Go to where there is a penalty attached and there you will find wisdom.

EH: That’s a tough statement. You sound as if you are down on all academics.

IS: Well, in the past few years I have given quite a few seminars and lectures at universities, and I have become terrified by the low level of ability. It is as if people just aren’t trying. They don’t read the books in their fields, don’t know the workings of them, use inadequate approaches to a subject, ask ridiculous questions that a moment’s thought would have enabled them to answer. If these are the cream, what is the milk like?

EH: Are you talking about undergraduates, graduate students, or professors?