August 10, 2007

  • Puppet Magic:

    The Ring of Gyges

    10:31:32 AM ET

    Commentary by Richard Wilhelm
    on I Ching Hexagram 32:

    "Duration is... not a state of rest, for mere
    standstill is
    regression. Duration is rather the self-contained and therefore
    self-renewing movement of an organized, firmly integrated whole, taking
    place in accordance with immutable laws and beginning anew at every
    ending."

    Related material

    The Ring of the Diamond Theorem

    Jung and the Imago Dei

    Log24
    on June 10, 2007    :

    WHAT MAKES IAGO EVIL? some
    people ask. I never ask. --Joan Didion

    Iago states that he is not who he is. --Mark
    F. Frisch


    "Not Being
    There,"
    by Christopher Caldwell    ,

    from next Sunday's

    New York Times Magazine:

    "The chance to try on fresh identities was the great boon that
    life
    online was supposed to afford us. Multiuser role-playing games and
    discussion groups would be venues for living out fantasies. Shielded by
    anonymity, everyone could now pass a 'second life' online as Thor the
    Motorcycle Sex God or the Sage of Wherever. Some warned, though, that
    there were other possibilities. The Stanford Internet expert Lawrence Lessig
    likened online anonymity to the ring of invisibility that surrounds the
    shepherd Gyges in one of Plato's dialogues. Under such circumstances,
    Plato feared, no one is 'of such an iron nature that he would stand
    fast in justice.'

    Time, along with a string of sock-puppet scandals, has proved Lessig
    and Plato right."



    "The Boy Who Lived,"

    by Christopher Hitchens,

    from next Sunday's

    New York Times Book Review:

    On the conclusion of the Harry Potter series:
     
    "The toys have been put firmly back in the box, the
    wand has been folded up, and the conjuror is discreetly accepting
    payment while the children clamor for fresh entertainments. (I
    recommend that they graduate to Philip Pullman, whose daemon scheme is
    finer than any patronus.)"

    I, on the other hand,

    recommend Tolkien...

    or, for those who are

    already familiar with

    Tolkien, Plato-- to whom

    "The Ring of Gyges" may

    serve as an introduction.

    "It's all in Plato, all in Plato:
    bless me, what do they
    teach them at these schools!"
    -- C. S. Lewis