Comments on: Middle-East wars and the Edinburgh Festival

By: qwan

qwan — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:05:52 +0000

Clarice if you mean a link to “what is Tao?” .. sorry it’s old skool paper book. Yes, I think you’re correct. He does go on to describe those who are self consciously virtuous … “this kind of person stinks of virtue, and doesn’t really have any virtue at all”, which is probably more accurate of Rice.

It’s tricky stuff .. I did wonder later, if, by drawing attention to Rice’s lack of virtue, I was trying to make myself appear more virtuous in comparison, and thereby, falling into the self same trap !

By: Clarice

Clarice — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:47:05 +0000

Do you have a link to this piece qwan? It is not so much the anxiety to BE virtuous that makes it inferior, but the anxiety to APPEAR or to FEEL virtuous, while otherwise not giving two hoots for virtue.

By: qwan

qwan — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:42:35 +0000

Nice post Robert.

You can almost smell and taste the insincerity in Condoleezza Rice’s words, even off a web page.

Thanks to a blogger on CiF I ‘ve been checking out this guy Alan Watts’ writing, first thing I picked up was his writing on Tao - “What is Tao ?”. Something I read in there today inseems pertinent to Miss Rice … “the inferior kind of virtue is so anxious to be virtuous that it loses its virtue altogether”

By: Rochenko

Rochenko — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:05:24 +0000

Thanks for the link Robert. The script could have been different in so many ways, but once again the precipitate act of escalation, as so many times in the past, appears to have been the result of the Israeli military pressuring the civilian government into mobilising for a ‘knock-out blow’ - the blow that is never, and can never be delivered. There have been times when the military has been put in its place by the politicians, but this time - again - they chose to acquiesce.