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Great Books


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2020 Jan 18, 2:09pm   1,216 views  14 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

I just read Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life" and it was pretty good imho. The theme seems to be that you should not to waste your time in mundane activities, but instead study philosophy so that you know how to live correctly.

Moving on to the Loeb edition of Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" now, which already strikes me as a much more impressive work. Fun that the Greek is on the left, and the English on the right. Not that I can actually read Greek, but I know the Greek alphabet and can make out some of the words and compare them with the translation. Much of it is similar to Buddhist writing on the transitory nature of life and not being too attached to it. Buddha lived in about 300 BC and Marcus Aurelius from 121 to 180 AD, so it's possible some Buddhist influence could have made it to Rome, but I have no evidence for that.

The core of Western civilization is captured in the old Greek and Roman classics. All the modern bullshit which denigrates Western culture ignores the real wisdom in these books and their applicability to modern problems.

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1   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Jan 18, 2:24pm  

Traditional Liberal Arts Education:

"Give an example of Epicurean, Cynic, and Stoic thought"
"Present three examples of Music that uses the Dorian Mode"
"For Example B, identify the type of triangle and provide proofs."

Modern Liberal Arts Education:

"Given that postmodernism is the end of History, what other problematic intersectionalities with Whiteness can you identify?"
"Fight the Power" is a classic rebuttal of White Oppression. What other POC songs liberate womyn and minorities?
The best explanation for POCs doing poorly in Math is Whiteness. However, traditional Zulu Magic could be taught in lieu of math. How do you intend to shame Fascists who attempt to prevent Zulu Magic instruction?
2   KgK one   2020 Jan 18, 7:34pm  

Buddhism had hugh influence on Rome. Before roman empire, bulk of world population and power existed India and china. EU was sparsely populated.

Alexander reached indian border and barely defeated small kingdom on border, beyond boder was king with 6x his army with large elephants so he turned around.

Arrival of alexander united large portion of india.
King chardragupt conquered almost all of it and started looking into buddhism. His grandson Ahoka, defeated few remaining indian kingdoms, but in process he killed many. He felt remorse and started spreading buddhism.
He send monks to rome ,china ,all over. All this before Jesus and Marcus.

Lot of logs show hugh trade between india and rome.

Bulk of buddhism derived from hinduism. Similar to various sects of christanity, hinduism is has many variations.

Buddhism would prevent lot of killing , Catholics vs protestants world war 1,2, muslims vs all other religion, ...

World wasn't ready 2300 yrs ago, World isnt ready for buddhism now either.
3   NDrLoR   2020 Jan 18, 9:10pm  

NoCoupForYou says
intersectionalities with Whiteness can you identify
Paul Whiteman?
4   mell   2020 Jan 18, 9:16pm  

KgK one says
Buddhism had hugh influence on Rome. Before roman empire, bulk of world population and power existed India and china. EU was sparsely populated.

Alexander reached indian border and barely defeated small kingdom on border, beyond boder was king with 6x his army with large elephants so he turned around.

Arrival of alexander united large portion of india.
King chardragupt conquered almost all of it and started looking into buddhism. His grandson Ahoka, defeated few remaining indian kingdoms, but in process he killed many. He felt remorse and started spreading buddhism.
He send monks to rome ,china ,all over. All this before Jesus and Marcus.

Lot of logs show hugh trade between india and rome.

Bulk of buddhism derived from hinduism. Similar to various sects of christanity, hinduism is has many variations.

Buddhism would prevent lot of killing , Catholics vs protestants world war 1,2, muslims vs all other religion, ...
<...


Obligatory, one of the greatest songs from one of the greatest albums:

www.youtube.com/embed/IpWE20G4Hq8
5   Heraclitusstudent   2020 Jan 18, 9:58pm  

If you have 1 hour, read Heraclitus "Fragments". A series of quotes that survived.
Heraclitus was one of the fathers of western philosophy. Contemporaneous of Lao Tzu and Buddha, he shares the fight against dualism with Taoism and Zen Buddhist. He invented the concept of Logos, found from Aristotle to John's Gospel.
6   Rin   2020 Jan 19, 3:36am  

Patrick says
some Buddhist influence could have made it to Rome


Isn't it as simple as the ancient Silk Road and the lack of an Islamic empire in the middle, between India/China & the eastern Roman/Byzantine empire, screwing things up?

Remember, old Persia was mainly Zoroastrian not Muslim.

It's amazing that given all the garbage of the past millennia that no one can visualize a world without Islam.
7   Rin   2020 Jan 20, 3:25pm  

KgK one says
Before roman empire, bulk of world population and power existed India and china


This is actually not correct. The largest empire of the ancient world, meaning before the Fall of Western Rome (not Byzantine) and the advent of Islam, was the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great and the dynasty which followed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire

If you combine the populations of those regions, you have something along the lines of 40+% of the ancient world's population, whereas China & India were just starting out as ancient empires (or supersized kingdoms) & nowhere near their total global population percentages of the 19th & 20th centuries.

And it was much more like the United States of the (Ancient) America as it assimilated the cultures of the Babylonians (no, not the Arabs who came with the Caliphate), Medes, and many others w/o using racial or cultural genocide to accomplish its goals.
8   Patrick   2020 Jan 20, 7:41pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
If you have 1 hour, read Heraclitus "Fragments". A series of quotes that survived.


https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Heraclitus

Just those?
10   Heraclitusstudent   2020 Jan 21, 12:53pm  

There is a great app called "Libby" that gives access online to your PUBLIC LIBRARY, with some audio books, that can be accessed remotely (and freely).

However, to my dismay, I couldn't find such classics as Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" or Herodotus's "Histories".

But you'll be happy to know you can listen such classics as Caitlyn Jenner's book "The Secrets of My Life", and a search for "girl" returns about a hundred titles.
11   Rin   2020 Jan 21, 1:03pm  

KgK one says
indian border and barely defeated small kingdom on border, beyond boder was king with 6x his army with large elephants so he turned around.


Are you talking about this campaign? ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hydaspes

So where was this great Indian victory ... in scaring away Alexander's army, which BTW, had more Persian mercenaries than the prior Greco-Macedonian one which defeated Darius, originally?

If anything, King Porus was defeated but then ... when Alexander realized that his army was pretty much spent and his men wanted to go back home, Alexander allowed Porus to stay on as a "Persian" (kinda like being Naturalized by today's standard) Governor-General, a.k.a Satrap, more or less, extending the Persian (neither really Greek nor Macedonian at that nexus of the world), but a new Persian oriented Dynasty into the Punjab valley of what's modern India/Pakistan border.

Where Alexander lost a majority of his army was on the journey back to Babylon where he went through the deserts of southern Iran, and thus, arrived empty handed just to die in Babylon.
12   KgK one   2020 Jan 21, 10:21pm  

Are you talking about this campaign? ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hydaspes

Yes he beat porus,

" Although victorious, it was also the most costly battle fought by the Macedonians", he barely won that one.

next kingdom to face is nanda, which was 6x larger. Alexander learned that Agrammes had 200,000 infantry; 20,000 cavalry; 3000 elephants; and 2,000 four-horse chariots.[6][12] Diodorus gives the number of elephants as 4,000.[29]

His tired army did not want to face that.

It's long ago who knows , n what difference doesn't it make now
14   Rin   2020 Jan 21, 11:17pm  

KgK one says
" Although victorious, it was also the most costly battle fought by the Macedonians", he barely won that one.


Yes, losing 1K vs Porus's 12K.

KgK one says
next kingdom to face is nanda, which was 6x larger. Alexander learned that Agrammes had 200,000 infantry; 20,000 cavalry; 3000 elephants; and 2,000 four-horse chariots.[6][12] Diodorus gives the number of elephants as 4,000.[29]

His tired army did not want to face that.


In other words, the fact that his post-Darius victory (with a lot of those troops retiring afterwards) & then, a newly formed eastern army (including Persians) having traveled these distances ...



didn't make his men want to go back home, after such an expedition, doesn't make his army into a bunch of failures in the far east. It just makes 'em like any other army in the world, you do your time in the service and then you retire.

I'd say that no Indian army, of any time period, ever traveled those areas, in the way that ppl of either the Greco-Macedonian or Persian Empires before them.

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