confronts Rakeri When reason confronts feeling, which prevails? 030817 ... shoccolo i don't know. i've been expecting a confrontation for a long time. luckily for me, i get off scott free. this time... should i leave that up to chance, or remain prepared? perhaps if i leave it up to chance, i'll know if i should be prepared, and the rest is of no consequence. 030817 ... bird if reason always prevailed, i wonder, wouldn't we teeter on the brink of becoming passionless automatons attractive as it may often sound the thought IS a little scary 030817 ... minnesota_chris I think ultimately feeling leaves you nothing to stand on. As fun as it is, to surf on a wave of anger or happiness, it gets you nowhere. 030825 ... birdmad vs the Alice in Chains CD fumbling for my emotional_off_switch, and if i don't have one i'm hoping i at least have a volume knob i can turn down as far as possible. 030825 ... oldephebe confrontation is good - it is a starting point - we have been conditioned since chilhood not to talk back - not to rock the boat - keep your emotions in check - the primacy of dry didactic dreary reason over the hyperbole of seismically unstable emtion - let us first examine this postulate in its extreme - at the farsthest reaches of the ideological pole - any extreme in either direction is undesirable, however - to be silent is to be powerless is to be dead) okay back to the thread - earliest man - in the oral tradition - inculcated one another by stories - the culture was propogated by stories - umm that is how one connects to either the advesary or a loved one - can you reach someone, sway someone with the raw engine of reason - really can you reach someone that way? - can you reach someone shrieking - a flailing soul borne aloft upon its own wind of unreason of insoluble ire, that renders the arument incoherent - that places the advesary into an unteneable position - back against the wall and all that and so his/her ear is welded shut against the gale of fury or emotion or comic hyperbole - and he/she must erect a wall of his own hubris to not be unseated from the throne seat of his/her being - okay granted - now, I believe that if we connect to the efficasy of the wisdom or methodology of any aboriginal culture - that is by arguing out of that place that is irrevocably human - let reason be the tool that constructs the framework, let our own honest, authority - our emotion-imbue it with power - let us tell our stories, ourselves to the other we cannot cleave a peace by raising the sword, or fist, or gun or the tongue wich can sometimes wound a relationship irrevocably - let us not appluad our own despotic imaginations and malicious negation of the other - let us make our time honourable here, the ideas of dead men, dead hearts, the ideas of an orthodoxy, or fealty to the catchechisms of some rubric or aegis - does not bequeath an irrefutable primacy or sacrosanct sheen to our arguments - this is how to reach the advesary - (nothing is absolute nothing is infallible but unless you're dealing with the megalomaniacle or irredeemable evil, or patholoical vanity etc.) We are our own authority - the singularly inviolable "I", the insular "I" when we spea k from that place honestly - when we allow the other as well to defend his position - when we acknowledge his authority for and to him/herself (not acquiesence, not some sycphantic slave dance of obeisance)then the road is laid - then the two are empowered through reason and emotion (or personal authority) out of honesty to hopefully begin to walk upon that road to consensus or at least mutual respect though not nessesarily agreement to the merits of the others argument - the middle ground perhaps - sometime, sometimes..the other can be turned from his/her diametrical oppositon - sometimes through honesty they can be conscripted to your cause - ... 030825 what's it to you? who go blather from