mfbrandi

Which of these is scarier? Oakfed is a monster standing in the flames — this bit here, this is the real problem, we have to beat this! Oakfed just is the fire — all of it — and it is out of control, growing, moving … Go with the scary option. Opinions — I imagine — will differ as to which that is.

But that makes it sound like he is just being squeamish: “I know this is the right thing to do, but it is awful/horrible/icky.” Doesn’t that make the thing dull — at least, the moral philosophers have nodded off — or farcically overblown? “But I don’t like olives.” “Behold, the end of the world! Now eat your dinner.” Surely, the thing only bites hard if Arjuna thinks that he has a moral duty to fight the war and a moral duty not to slaughter kin — and no way to square the two, no way to convert them into the common currency of weight and see which side of the balance goes down. Incommensurability can be a bitch, and sometimes every action (even refraining from acting) looks wrong, not simply horrible. At the very least, Arjuna has to think that kin slaughter is wrong, and someone has to think the war is right, no? —————————————————— PS: If I don’t quote the entirety of someone’s comment, it doesn’t mean I think the unquoted bit is bad.

… in the sense of being best placed to create. 😉

Presumably, this is a callback to the Nysalor missionaries of the Gbaji wars. “This plague has nothing to do with us — no! no! no! — but only our god, the Big O, can cure you; would you like a copy of our magazine?”

“Flap, flap, flap — look at me! What am I?” The Crimson Bat is not a bat: it is a play on words. Steed of the Goddess? Glorantha’s Mrs. Peel is her own weapon of mass destruction.

Why does he need a father, and why a sky father? (I know you are only asking, not dictating, but rhetoric is rhetoric.) If — like XU & ZZ — he is straight out of Darkness/Nakala (no other “parent” needed: Darkness condensed/manifest/specialised), he later takes Xentha as symbolic mother or magical enabler: Xentha is Darkness’ mastery of Sky; this accomplished, AA can colonise the surface world. Or, you know, something a bit like that.

All I hear is: First there was nothing then — for no reason — there was something. Chaos is that nothing, that is its “infinite potential,” and it offers me no power. From nothing we come, and to nothing — like it or not — we will return. Now, if someone turns to a god (just the one) because that god offers rune magic to smite their enemies or raise their comrades from the dead, then that person — goggle-eyed or not — is greedy for power, no?

Sure, but neither did I say that Arjuna thinks that.

Hi, Ormi. Well, there are doubtless many ways of looking at the BG. Here are two: an exposition of a doctrine of non-attachment a justification of going to war I wasn’t engaging with the first, only the second. As to whether I think it is supposed to be a justification of slaughter — I have no opinion on that. I only discussed it in those terms because Davecake said: If you read the Bhavagad Gita in context … you might find the idea of Arkat as … moral, and also a terrifyingly warlike killer more understandable. So let us suppose for a moment that letting go of attachment to outcomes will de-stress us in this life and allow us to step off the hamster wheel of reincarnation — let us say that is true — does it follow that the actions we will then perform will be moral, even if they involve kinstrife (not a bugbear of mine, but it seems to worry Arjuna) and slaughter? It seems to me that personal liberation — moksha, or whatever — and morally right action are two different things. Maybe I am wrong, but it does seem to be a Gloranthan theme, both in the knocking of the illuminate’s quest for personal liberation at the expense of those around them (usually heaped with a dose of false consciousness — but that is often, it seems to me, neglected in fan discussions) and in the dragon’s dilemma: do I pursue liberation and non-attachment, or do I succumb to entanglement and duty and through Utuma create the world? (Though perhaps Utuma is a bit of a dodge to try to square the circle of duty and liberation: in pursuit of duty, I die; in dying, I am freed. Perhaps not.) Now maybe someone who is attached only to right action can achieve liberation through right action — and maybe right action is not goal-directed (some kind of virtue ethics, rather than consequentialist ethics) and I am happy to buy that the goal of right action — if it has one — is not the personal liberation of the actor. But that doesn’t get us any closer to the BG as a charter for champions of war and kinstrife — but that is OK, because maybe it isn’t and isn’t supposed to be. However, it seemed it was being dangled as such — and it wouldn’t be the first time — and I rose to the bait. Long ago, a lecturer of mine accused Marx of this (more or less): Marx thought that it was right for the workers to win the class struggle, so he wrote into the laws of history that it was inevitable that the workers would win the class struggle. But of course, even if it were true that the workers would win (which we may doubt), that would not justify their victory (and the other way about, the rightness of their cause shouldn’t make us believe in the inevitability of their victory). It is not just atheist materialists who are prone to this sort of thing, religious types, too, should be on guard against having a personal god — or the impersonal laws of karma and the nature of Brahman — as enforcers of the moral order: those carrying out right action will be free; those on the path of liberation will be right. Are we really sure it is that simple? What is the source of our confidence?

This strikes me as a bit hard on poor old Arjuna. He may not have been interested in arguing philosophy or theology; he did have his doubts about the coming bloodshed (kinstrife). Was he really just looking for an excuse to get stuck in? Krishna seems to be the one who is really uptight about it. When other bullshit arguments fail, the Top God reveals himself — and that has to be the dirtiest debating trick of all. The spirit, the ultimate reality that pervades the cosmos is impersonal. You should know, I am its embodiment. Act, and dedicate your actions to me. Those who truly devote themselves to me, in whatever way, will be released from the relentless wheel of birth and death … If a person is bound up, attached to the outcome of their action, then that action’s consequences, like a burr, will stick to them through this life and beyond, determining the nature of their rebirth. That is the unshakable law of karma. But those who do not grasp after results, who treat success and failure the same, are always satisfied. Although they act, they are really doing nothing — like a boatman rowing with the current, at his ease. Their actions do not stick to them, because they are free of yearning for results. In acting in this way, they are engaged in one variety of sacrifice, offering up their actions with simplicity, relinquishing all doubt and ignorance. “I am the boss, do as I say, and it will go easier on you — if you don’t care who you hurt, you will not be accountable for your actions, you will be free. Don’t muddle your pretty little head with consequentialist ethics.” That doesn’t look like a moral argument, that looks like an appeal to self-interest. Classic tempter/devil on the shoulder ear-whisperings. To make matters worse — from a Gloranthan moral panic over Chaos perspective (not mine) — Vishnu then reveals himself as Time the destroyer of everything: entropy, the ultimate Lord of Terror: I am time, destroyer of worlds. Even before you act, all these warriors, rank upon rank in the opposing armies, are already dead. I have destroyed them. From the perspective of eternal time, the everlasting present, those men you see lined up, eager for battle, full of the vigour of their youth and strength, are dead already. The bodies which have known cold and heat, pleasure and suffering, already carry death and decomposition in their bones. The Pandavas will be victorious. Now rise up, hero. Be my instrument! Arjuna’s limbs tremble in fear. He cries, “Praise, a thousand times praise to you!” Now faced with a god who is and probably a lot more besides, it might take a brave person to say: You say these people are dead already. Why then try to argue me into killing them for you? Suppose I act without yearning for results but I do not do the thing that you so badly want me to do — what then? If you are attached to the outcome of our little chat, then come up with a decent argument. If you are not attached to outcomes — as you tell me I should not be — then button your yap. You are giving me a headache. I am not attached to the outcome of securing your approval of “playing” the law of karma to secure my own freedom — I do not grasp after it — therefore I am already free. That is what the slightly interesting person says to a pushy God. Perhaps, they are even right. The person who succumbs to “do this thing for me, and the consequence is that you will be free — don’t think of consequences, though: that would be very bad!” and supposes themself to be doing the moral thing is confusing right action and self-interest. That is, they are going over to the dark side. If Arkat is Arjuna (and likely Krishna, too), then he is himself Gbaji (or Gbaji’s dupe). But that will surprise no one. Much worse than that, he will be boring. Of course, if only fear enters into it (no self-deception), we are likely in Dylan territory. 😉 —————————————————————————————————————— On the upside, mention of PB made me dig out my Mahmoud Tabrizi-Zadeh records.

But this is true of people in general, including non-chaotic non-illuminates. I have a particular horror of people who do not ask enough questions: “Top brass says we go over the top at dawn — bayonets fixed — and that’s good enough for me.” But that is my little quirk: neither the gods nor the top brass are to be relied on to have good practical or moral sense. If you let the gods decide these matters for you, and the gods are wrong, you are still accountable for your actions. “I was only following orders” won’t wash.

Well, “explaining … that [he] should … do his duty” is doing the work here (it makes it sound like we’ve already conceded that Krishna is right — that it is Arjuna’s duty to fight and he is just being squeamish): we only get to understand how Arkat/Arjuna can be moral (in the sense of good or acting well, rather than merely engaged in thinking — well or poorly — about goodness or right action) if Krishna’s arguments are sound. But if Krishna merely browbeats or dazzles Arjuna into fighting, or tells him that the decision to fight or not is above Arjuna’s pay grade, what then do we learn? Putting aside the rights and wrongs of particular fictional wars and the quality of the arguments for fighting them, which of these sounds more fun/interesting? Your charioteer reveals himself to be God and says, “A warrior’s duty is to kill and blah blah blah, so go out and kill.” You say, “OK, God. Silly me.” Off you trot to the slaughter, bow in hand. Your charioteer reveals himself to be God and says, “A warrior’s duty is to kill and blah blah blah, so go out and kill.” You say, “I see now that you are God — wow! — but you know what? I would prefer not to.”

I like the simple version of the Uhrwerk universe: The Machine had always been Perfect Static Fourteen billion years ago (give or take) It began to tick Its gears started to wear Frankly It has been one cock-up after another I will see you all in Hell At least, that is how a dwarf told it me after too many cans of Neck Oil.

Ideas toyed with in the past: Because the “true Gloranthan dynamic” is between Yelm and Orlanth, we have vs. , so Orlanth is the Devil. Because is merely everted, ZeeZee or [insert favoured Cosmic Fire here] is the Devil. The Devil is also our saviour through self-submission: “So he could scream, and still relax — unbelievable!” Eurmal ⇒ Orlanth through self-overcoming/repression, which is overrated. Where the uptight and the uncool touch the Void, “chaotic features” (which are twisted Cosmos, not pure Chaos) sprout in profusion. Orlanth entered the universe through a hole in the Sky, the Wind from Nowhere. I humbly recant the first and last of these: Orlanth is not the Devil and did not enter through the hole in the Sky (through which it flips back to Darkness); he is merely a chaotic feature that frothed up around that alarming aperture — alarming because Chaos = Void = Empty Space = Darkness = the Night Sky ⇒ Sky–Fire, every morning. Orlanth is the Wind from Now–Here: he is the embodiment of his people’s fears of the emptiness of the Void and the fullness of Cosmic Fire. He gusts about turbulently between the two.

Which is why the and gang are pissing in the and/or whistling in the . Rip away the veil of Maya, and all that is left is the Void, Ø, or inscribed differently, .

… so the shaman remains on their heroquest (with the heroquest light in their eyes) for the rest of their life. I think I prefer your suggestion to the recent one of shamans as champion phubbers (which would make them just like most of us).

Yeah, after posting, I thought, “Less silicon, more exotic carbon space elevator.” AA is tricky bugger. I think of him as twiceborn, once in the early universe/underworld (3 curious spirits) and again as a power of the surface — he “acquires” Xentha () as a mother in the same sense that ZZ acquires Fire … perhaps. Fire/Sky and Darkness are intimates from way back — like Jekyll and Hyde — don’t believe the official story that the Earth is mother to Sky and that Xentha is a foreign invader of Sky. (One version of creation has it that the sun precedes the emergence of the earth(’s erection) from the waters, but that it can only shine after air has separated earth from sky. This is the air helping out — Entekos? — but that doesn’t suit the Umath/Orlanth Oedipal self-image: “The Earth must be my mother, because I want to ‘marry’ him her. I couldn’t possibly have burst through a hole in the Sky.”)

The spire as some kind of chimney? And the biota around hydrothermal vents would often — in Glorantha — be coded Darkness/Cold, but sun spider, bombardier beetle, and the scarab rolling the ball of shit which is the sun had already made us doubt the distance between Sky and the Dark underground.

This seems so easy that I feel you must be laying a trap for me — surely, it is why the Thin White Duke of the Legions of Death sang: Does my face show some kind of glow? It really wasn’t the side-effects of the cocaine — like the crust of the sun, indeed. Is it really not canon, not even European canon?

Hmm … Babs’ little helpers carry out a sacred hit, but the targets — service users? — are unclean and cannot be returned directly to the Mother, so in lieu of burial, the corpses (less souvenirs) are thrown into the magical corpse-devouring mushroom patch. The flesh transformed into delicious mushroomness is ritually pure and can be eaten even by elves and CA goody-two-shoes. Everyone wins, especially the dead people who are … redeemed.

After too long in the company of Orlanth, they remind her of the possibility of intelligent beasts.

I especially like that bit.

You see, @Joerg, the Nontrayans were just helping out by sampling the blood to aid the sorting — Daka Fal’s little helpers — but they were a bit too enthusiastic, and shit happened. And so tentatively we weave the strands? 😉

… drug their own blood to sweeten the deal. Get the cult spirits addicted to the interaction.° Also, I cannot shake the image of all of an applicant’s blood being siphoned off into the aether (like something out of that other game, the unspeakable one), the dried husk collapsing to the floor, a “kerr-ching” sound, and a somewhat tenuous paper slip fluttering down on top of the corpse. When picked up and read, the slip says simply, “Approved.” ° Yes, I know DNA, blah, blah, blah.

The one’s with the crosses () on the bottom, naturally. Consider it the Gloranthan Surgeon General’s health warning. If you label it “neck oil,” they will drink it.