[Buddha-l] Voegelin and Nansen's cat

Dan Lusthaus vasubandhu at earthlink.net
Fri Jan 2 12:20:29 MST 2009


Eric,

> If this Voeglin is a Hegelian, he believes in ...

Impressive that you think you know what Voegelin believes without having
heard of him or read a word of what he's written. Or for that matter,
carefully looking at the blurb with which I introduced him. I said one of
the things he is known for is his writings on Hegel. He was not a Hegelian.
He was a political philosopher, with deep interests in history, religion and
spirituality (Christian primarily), and an important theoretician on the
nature of totalitarian states. Google around, or visit your library and look
at his dozens of books to see what he did write about. You can start here:
http://tinyurl.com/6wu9nc

You don't have to end up agreeing with him on everything or anything in
order to think of him as something other than an Austrian idiot. Having
witnessed the rise of the Third Reich personally, predicting already in 1933
with some degree of accuracy what it would lead to, and forced to flee his
native Austria when it reached there, never to see his family again, gives
his opinion some weight and authenticity.

But he is only one of many possible examples one could point to in order to
show that Jung's direction was anything but inevitable. He seemed germane
since he early on identified the false scientism that Vincent brought out.

>I  always found that one of the most impressive principles of Buddhism is
to see the axis of evil in your own mind and not elsewhere.

Do you think Nansen's cat would agree that his situation is only in your
mind?

Dan



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