DWill wrote:Something to think about, Tom. I'm not used the idea of conjoining "objective" and "feeling," but I'll mull it over. ... I tend to feel there is almost always subjectiveness in feeling and that few objects have inherent power to make us feel in a specified way. I know this goes against belief in archetypal images or Freudian symbology. DWill

DWill's comment here, and earlier posts in this thread, pick up how contrarian Thoreau was regarding the dominant paradigm of western epistemology. The scientific enlightenment held that truth was a property of statements, whereas the romantics and sensualists, among whom we should class Thoreau, found truth in experience and the disclosure of being. Thoreau found an objectivity within subjectivity, in his connection to the cosmos, revealed in his experiential feelings and moods. This is why he is so hated by the adherents of the mechanistic paradigm who run the world, because he articulates a coherent alternative cosmology that opens a path to cultural change. For such a 'subjective objectivity' our attunement to our surroundings reveals a power within nature of which we are entirely a part, not the alienated controllers of the Cartesian myth. RT

DWill wrote:I'm not used to the idea of conjoining "objective" and "feeling," but I'll mull it over. Do you recall T.S. Eliot's term the "objective correlative"?

Will, I am aware of Eliot's term, but my source is a book by a Canadian educator on the importance of kinesthesia in education. I do not remember the name of the author or the book, but have it in written notes somewhere. The book was self-published and donated by the author to university libraries.

Tom

Robert Tulip wrote:

DWill wrote:Something to think about, Tom. I'm not used the idea of conjoining "objective" and "feeling," but I'll mull it over. ... I tend to feel there is almost always subjectiveness in feeling and that few objects have inherent power to make us feel in a specified way. I know this goes against belief in archetypal images or Freudian symbology. DWill

DWill's comment here, and earlier posts in this thread, pick up how contrarian Thoreau was regarding the dominant paradigm of western epistemology. The scientific enlightenment held that truth was a property of statements, whereas the romantics and sensualists, among whom we should class Thoreau, found truth in experience and the disclosure of being. Thoreau found an objectivity within subjectivity, in his connection to the cosmos, revealed in his experiential feelings and moods. This is why he is so hated by the adherents of the mechanistic paradigm who run the world, because he articulates a coherent alternative cosmology that opens a path to cultural change. For such a 'subjective objectivity' our attunement to our surroundings reveals a power within nature of which we are entirely a part, not the alienated controllers of the Cartesian myth. RT

Robert, your posts are always thought provoking, and I can see you put a great deal of thought into them . . . I think what you are saying here reflects my thoughts.

My way of expressing same would be to say that the big money-makers, the movers and shakers, the corporate level folks . . . they find what Thoreau was doing to be distasteful because of the 'movement' that got started because of it.

And what mainly do they have against such 'movements', people trying to 'go back to the land', turning their backs on the entrapments created by these 'movers and shakers', these 'money-makers'.

People like that live and die by the gawd-fearin' dollar, and movements that encourage turning down what they have to sell, or systems designed to 'entrap' are seen as a 'threat' to the flow of money, to which they have become accustomed.