[Jenab]

To follow is a quote:
"That resigned submission to the terrible law of decay that acceptance of the bondage of time by creatures who dimly feel that they could be free from it, but who find it hard to try to free themselves; who know beforehand that they would never succeed, even if they did try—is at the bottom of that incurable unhappiness of man, deplored again and again in the Greek tragedies, and long before these were written. Man is unhappy because he knows, because he feels, in general, that the world in which he lives and of which he is a part, is not what it should be, what it could be. He cannot wholeheartedly accept that world as his specially not accept the fact that it is going from bad to worse and be glad. However much he may try to be a "realist" and snatch from destiny whatever he can, when he can, still an invincible yearning for the better remains at the bottom of his heart. He cannot, in general, will the world as it is.

But a few people, as rare as the liberated ones, for whom time does not exist, and perhaps rarer, can and do. These are the most thorough, the most mercilessly effective agents of the death forces on earth: supremely intelligent, and sometimes extraordinarily farsighted; always unscrupulous to the utmost; working without hesitation and without remorse in the sense of the downward process of history and, whether they can see or not as far as that, for its logical conclusion: the annihilation of man and of all life.

Naturally, they do not always see as far as that. But when they do, still they do not care. Since the law of time is what it is, and since the end must come, it is just as well that they should draw all the profit they possibly can from the process that is, anyhow, sooner or later, to bring about the end.

Since no one can re-create the primeval, lost paradise no one but the wheel of time itself, after it has rolled its full course then it is just as well that they, who can completely forget the distant vision, or who never had a glimpse of its dying glow; they, who can stifle in themselves the age old yearning for perfection, or rather, who never experienced it; it is just as well that they, I say, should squeeze out of the fleeing moment (whether minutes or years, it matters little) all the intense, immediate enjoyment they can, until the hour comes when they must die. It is just as well that they should leave their stamp upon the world, force generations to remember them, until the hour comes for the world to die. So they feel.

It makes little difference what suffering they might cause to men or other living creatures, by acting as they do. Both men and creatures are bound to suffer, anyhow. Just as well through them as through others, if that can forward the aims of these people. The aims of these people of men within time, par excellence are always selfish aims, even when, owing to their material magnitude and historical importance, they transcend immeasurably any one man's life, as they actually do, sometimes. For selfishness the claim of the part to more place and to more meaning than is naturally allotted to it within the whole—is the very root of disintegration."

— Savitri Devi, The Lightning and the Sun, Chapter 1.

[Colorado-Valley]

There are two types of people in the world:

Those who care only about personal enrichement;

And those who care about their fellow beings and about the community that is the world.

[Jenab]

I propose that there is a third type, namely one concerned for the well-being of the family that made him, then for the race from which his family sprung. His concern for the world "community" is measured by the degree of kinship he feels toward each element therein: he'd love some more than others, since he'd be biologically similar more to some than others. Loving some more than others, he'd sacrifice more willingly to aid those he loved most, and less willingly for those he loved less.

Speaking in absolutes can obscure truth. The idea that we must choose between two extremes - absolute individualism or absolute one-worldism - is false. The truth is that most people value certain others more highly than they value other others, and the value assigned by most people to other people is related to the degree of perceived kinship.

Jerry Abbott

[cthulhu]

Nice quote tho' I must disagree with some of the sentiments it expresses.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat resigned submission to the terrible law of decay—that acceptance of the bondage of time by creatures who dimly feel that they could be free from it, but who find it hard to try to free themselves; who know beforehand that they would never succeed, even if they did try—is at the bottom of that incurable unhappiness of man, deplored again and again in the Greek tragedies, and long before these were written.