This is What Democracy Looks Like · 26 October 2007

● In the Authoritarianism is Old School news category, an MIT professor has issued a manifesto against bloggers commenting on papers presented in the workshop he organizes. Because, you know, we wouldn’t want the people reading online about what happens behind closed ivory tower doors in Cambridge. Academics have "rights."

Elitist.

Welcome to information age, Sir.

● In completely unrelated news, this week an ashtanga teacher quoted Sutra 1.11--

A yogi desirous of success should keep the knowledge of Hatha Yoga secret.

--to a blogging student, suggesting she not discuss her experience with others.

Nice try.

● Meanwhile in the ashtangosphere, there’s been excellent discussion this week this week about liberals and conservatives (boom boom boom boom). On this score I am a liberal who appears every bit the conservative. Others are true conservatives who outwardly look to be liberals.

In my case, I play along with the method in order to simplify my life and my mind, to support others on the same road without distracting them, and to respect a crazy brilliant tradition. Not because I believe the rules are true, or that people who follow them closely are better.

I take heart in this discussion because it shows how simple conversation denatures the sectarianism that’s strengthened by closed doors. The most liberal practitioners here in the post-authoritarian world have strong community with the most conservative.

Hello. 

The question for us is always 'how can we turn information into transformation?' How can we use the sacred texts to lead people into new places with God, with life, with themselves?

-Richard Rohr 

Let a hundred flowers bloom.              

-Richard Rorty

Posted by (0v0)        
Categories: arbitrage , astanga yoga , esoteric shit , evolution , having a body , integration , social theory

Comment

1. nice genre-bridging theme-building.

   (but: “in formation into trans formation”? cute linguistic parallel does not = actual insight…)

   Posted by: R · Oct 26, 11:12 AM · #

2. Guy is a Christian. You know how those cats love to build assertions from utterly trivial linguistic parallels. :)

   And in this case, it actually works nicely, to reorient us from pointless study of method to a focus on what the method is for.

   (And he’s a lot less annoying than Rorty.)

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 26, 11:20 AM · #

3. he must have meant HYP 1.11; YS 1.11 is the defintion of memory. (sorry to nitpick). then again HYP 1.13 is the infamous “cow dung” instruction, so mayhaps a grain of salt is in order with Senor Svatmarama? :)

   Posted by: cody · Oct 26, 11:20 AM · #

4. As long as we don’t have to take Patanjali with a grain of salt. Sheesh. Have some respect.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 26, 11:31 AM · #

5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2181416,00.html

   — we get a lot of this shit in the art world, too.

   Posted by: flint · Oct 26, 10:05 PM · #

6. “The critic-as-instructor, as objective judge and expert, has yielded to the critic who shares personal reactions and subjective enthusiasms.”

   Hee hee. The death throes of a class-fraction. This article is wonderfully self-contradictory. Bloggers have taken his power, but he claims they really need him to take power away from some undefined “authority.”

   Populism is scary!

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 27, 10:11 AM · #

7. Formatting search term: textile help.

   E.g., links work like this:

   linktext

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 27, 10:12 AM · #

8. Duh. Should have seen THAT coming. I mean, like this:

   “linktext” : http://example.com

   but delete the spaces on either side of the colon.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 27, 10:13 AM · #

9. funny!

   Posted by: R · Oct 27, 10:37 AM · #

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