210127 What I learned in my studies this morning

Today's Tao:

Those who know how to live walk abroad 

Without fear of rhinoceroses or tigers. 

They will not be wounded in battle. 

For in them the rhinoceros finds no place to thrust its horn, 

Nor the tiger to use its claws, 

And weapons no place to pierce. 

Why is this? 

Because they have no place for death to enter.

From The Daily Stoic: 

“There are three areas in which the person who would be wise and good must be trained. The first has to do with desires and aversions— that a person may never miss the mark in desires nor fall into what repels them. The second has to do with impulses to act and not to act— and more broadly, with duty— that a person may act deliberately for good reasons and not carelessly. The third has to do with freedom from deception and composure and the whole area of judgment, the assent our mind gives to its perceptions . Of these areas, the chief and most urgent is the first which has to do with the passions, for strong emotions arise only when we fail in our desires and aversions.”— Epictetus , Discourses , 3.2.1–3a

Want good. Abhor bad. 

Do right. Avoid wrong. 

Know right. 

Sounds good; doesn't work . . . without training, discipline, and forethought. 

I must act, not react. I must discover beforehand my goals and path and means if I want to live in accordance with nature and reason. 

From Eric Hoffer, Part III, Unifying Agents:

Persuasion and Coercion 

Contrary to what one would expect, propaganda becomes more fervent and importunate when it operates in conjunction with coercion than when it has to rely solely on its own effectiveness. 

Both they who convert and they who are converted by coercion need the fervent conviction that the faith they impose or are forced to adopt is the only true one. Without this conviction, the proselytizing terrorist, if he is not vicious to begin with, is likely to feel a criminal, and the coerced convert see himself as a coward who prostituted his soul to live. 

Propaganda thus serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.

Cf. how strident political invective is on FB. Those who are the most vociferous often seem to be trying more to convince themselves than to convert others. 

Without a true belief in the Movement, without constant reassurance that they are The Good Guys, people would have to take responsibility for the evil done by their leaders. Through self-propoganda, they become, once again, mere parts of the unity and thus part of the grand design which will bring about Utopia. Details don't matter because the ends justify the means. 

(The True Believer, XIV-83)