[W]e need imagination to grasp reality – that part of it immediately before us, and its wider horizons that exceed the reach of our physical senses – that we can speak of a ‘knowledge’ of the imagination. Imagination has a noetic character; it is the source and medium of our other way of knowing. It shows us aspects and dimensions of reality that we would miss without it – and which much, if not most of official Western culture has missed since the new way of knowing became dominant.
Participation involves an I-Thou relationship with creation—that is, a personal relationship characterized by immediacy and intimacy, as opposed to an impersonal, disconnected I-It relationship that keeps reality at arm’s length. The savage participates in nature to such a degree that reality blazes with intrinsic meaning. Life is directly perceived to be vital and sacred, as in Blake’s poetic vision of tigers burning brightly in the forests of the night. The myths of primal societies are therefore auxiliary, mere reminders of what their inhabitants experience directly, immediately, and continuously—that they are connected to all of creation . . . .
Participation [as a way of knowing] is urged by David Abram, Owen Barfield, and Giambattista Vico (in the form of “poetic wisdom”) as well a number of others . . . .
“One of the most remarkable characteristics of human nature,” writes Lotze, “is, alongside so much selfishness in specific instances, the freedom from envy which the present displays toward the future.”
Yet Nazi policy, realized best in the phony world of propaganda, was well served by the fabrication. Had the Nazis been content merely to draw up a bill of indictment against the Jews and propagandize the notion that there are subhuman and superhuman peoples, they would hardly have succeeded in convincing common sense that the Jews were subhuman. Lying was not enough. In order to be believed, the Nazis had to fabricate reality itself and make Jews look subhuman. So that even today, when faced by the atrocity films, common sense will say: “But don’t they look like criminals?” Or, if incapable of grasping an innocence beyond virtue and vice, people will say: “What terrible things these Jews must have done to have the Germans do this to them!”
The General Theory [by John Mayard Keynes] was a book about, among other things, inequality and social progress. The central problems of the twentieth century, Keynes argued, were best solved by alleviating inequality. Enterprise and economic growth were driven not by the unique genius and vast fortunes of the very rich but by the purchasing power of the masses, which created markets for new ideas. To put people to work, governments needed to create systems of support for the poor and the middle class, not new favors for the rich.
The nagging need to breathe is activated from a cluster of neurons called the central chemoreceptors, located at the base of the brain stem. When we’re breathing too slowly and carbon dioxide levels rise, the central chemoreceptors monitor these changes and send alarm signals to the brain, telling our lungs to breathe faster and more deeply. When we’re breathing too quickly, these chemoreceptors direct the body to breathe more slowly to increase carbon dioxide levels. This is how our bodies determine how fast and often we breathe, not by the amount of oxygen, but by the level of carbon dioxide. Chemoreception is one of the most fundamental functions of life.
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