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Would we if we could, educate and sophisticate pigs, geese, cattle? Would it be wise to establish diplomatic relations with the hen that now functions, satisfied with mere sense of achievement by way of compensation?
I think we’re property.
I should say we belong to something: That once upon a time, this earth was No-man’s Land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession, but now it’s owned by something:
That something owns this earth — all others warned off. … I don’t see how I can, in this book, take up at all the subject of possible use of humanity to some other mode of existence, or the flattering notion that we can possibly be worth something.
Pigs, geese and cattle. First find out they are owned. Then find out the whyness of it. I suspect that, after all, we’re useful — that among contesting claimants, adjustment has occurred, or that something now has a legal right to us, by force, or by having paid out analogues of beads for us to former, more primitive, owners of us
— all others warned off —
that all this has been known, perhaps for ages, to certain ones upon this earth, a cult or order, members of which function like bellwethers to the rest of us, or as superior slaves or overseers, directing us in accordance with instructions received — from Somewhere else — in our mysterious usefulness. Interesting observation Charles. Ve
Darwin & Evolution
In mere impressionism we take our stand. We have no positive tests nor standards.
Realism in art: realism in science--they pass away. In 1859, the thing to do was to accept Darwinism;
now many biologists are revolting and trying to conceive of somet hing else.
The thing to do was to accept it in its day, but Darwinism of course was never proved:
The fittest survive. What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest--
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive.
"Fitness," then, is only another name for "survival."
Darwinism: That survivors survive.
Catsup Chaos
Not a bottle of catsup can fall from a tenement-house fire-escape in Harlem,
without being noted--not only by the indignant people downstairs,
but--even though infinitesimally--universally--maybe--
Affecting the price of pajamas, in Jersey City: the temper of somebody's mother-in-law,
in Greenland; the demand, in China, for rhinoceros horns for the cure of rheumatism
(...) Because all things are inter-related--continuous--of an underlying oneness.
"Mass Psychology"
If "mass psychology" applies definitely to one occurrence,
it must, even though almost imperceptibly, apply to all occurrences.
Phenomena of a man alone on a desert island can be explained in terms of "mass psychology"
-- inasmuch as the mind of no ma n is a unit, but is a community of mental states that influence one another.
Biology
All biologic phenomena act to adjust: there are no biologic actions other than adjustments.
Adjustment is another name for Equilibrium.
Equilibrium is the Universal, or that which has nothing external to derange it.
Statistics
By the statistic method I could "prove" that a black rain has fallen "regularly" every seven months, somewhere upon this earth. To do this, I'd have to include red rains and yellow rains, but, conventionally, I'd pick out the black particles in red substances and in yellow substances and disregard the rest. Then, too, if here and there a black rain should be a week early or a month late that would be "acceleration" or "retardation."
Survival Strategy
If the whole world should seem to combine against you, it is only unreal combination, or intermediateness to unity and disunity. Every resistance is itself divided into parts resisting one another. The simplest strategy seems to be never bother to fight a thing: set its own parts fighting one another.
Some of what I read of his quotes on the Internets seems pretty interesting and worth looking into, though I don't like reading to much because I always learn stuff. As we know a mind is a terrible waste of time, and sometimes even of space. But if one lost his mind were would one put it back even when he found it. But still some of his quotes are funny so it should be worth a holler, or two.
The Saucers That Time Forgot