The section on goals reminded me a little of Plato’s Republic. The perfect society involves sacrificing all wealth, art, free expression, and what does it offer in return?
I do have a concept of a scale of luxuries/art/expression and so forth, where it goes from a beautiful, rich, well-lived life on one end to lotus eating/masturbation on the other. But one of the first things I learned as I tried to explain this concept to others was that the judgment aspect was deeply personal, and that e.g. what I would identify as lotus eating in myself might be the-bare-minimum-to-make-life-worthwhile in someone else. Trying to tell someone else that what they were doing was lotus eating was just an irretrievably asshole move; even asking could cross the line if it carried with it overtones of judgment or pressure.
I strongly disagree with Plato, at least as you’ve summarized here. I agree that is a horror and a travesty.
I think Plato fans would probably argue I’m being somewhat unfair. If nothing else, the society described was intended as a metaphor for the virtuous person, not necessarily as an actually good society in itself.
More relevantly, I didn’t intend for this to be a major criticism of your endeavor. I think if you can avoid sexual conflict (for which I recommend celibacy on your part) this could be worthwhile for (some) people.
Clarifying, because I’ve been turning the sexual conflict part over in my head for the past few days; do you mean celibacy as in not being with anyone else in the project, or celibacy as in not being with anyone at all during the duration of the project? The former makes sense though I’m only about 75% sure I agree, the later seems really odd.
The section on goals reminded me a little of Plato’s Republic. The perfect society involves sacrificing all wealth, art, free expression, and what does it offer in return?
Victory in war against similar-sized enemies.
Ack erk
I do have a concept of a scale of luxuries/art/expression and so forth, where it goes from a beautiful, rich, well-lived life on one end to lotus eating/masturbation on the other. But one of the first things I learned as I tried to explain this concept to others was that the judgment aspect was deeply personal, and that e.g. what I would identify as lotus eating in myself might be the-bare-minimum-to-make-life-worthwhile in someone else. Trying to tell someone else that what they were doing was lotus eating was just an irretrievably asshole move; even asking could cross the line if it carried with it overtones of judgment or pressure.
I strongly disagree with Plato, at least as you’ve summarized here. I agree that is a horror and a travesty.
I think Plato fans would probably argue I’m being somewhat unfair. If nothing else, the society described was intended as a metaphor for the virtuous person, not necessarily as an actually good society in itself.
More relevantly, I didn’t intend for this to be a major criticism of your endeavor. I think if you can avoid sexual conflict (for which I recommend celibacy on your part) this could be worthwhile for (some) people.
Clarifying, because I’ve been turning the sexual conflict part over in my head for the past few days; do you mean celibacy as in not being with anyone else in the project, or celibacy as in not being with anyone at all during the duration of the project? The former makes sense though I’m only about 75% sure I agree, the later seems really odd.