@phillybluesfan

Was not familiar with Woolman but will check him out further.

Not that it addresses in the short term the pressing issues of healthcare - and more generally of *health*, but I'll offer this anyway.

Happens to be the first thing I ever posted online, back when in wasn't (for ordinary mortals) even the Internet, but Use Net. Just like to cast it into the ether once a decade or so...

Taoist (gimme that old-time non-religion!) wisdom as quoted in Bertrand Russell's "The Proposed Roads to Freedom" - written in 1918 just prior to Russell's imprisonment for opposition to WWI, published in 1920. From the section on anarchism:

Chuang Tzu, a Chinese philosopher,
who lived about the year 300 B. C.:--

Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow;
hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass
and drink water, and fling up their heels over the champaign.
Such is the real nature of horses. Palatial
dwellings are of no use to them.

One day Po Lo appeared, saying: ``I understand the
management of horses.''

So he branded them, and clipped them, and pared
their hoofs, and put halters on them, tying them up by
the head and shackling them by the feet, and disposing
them in stables, with the result that two or three in
every ten died. Then he kept them hungry and thirsty,
trotting them and galloping them, and grooming, and
trimming, with the misery of the tasselled bridle before
and the fear of the knotted whip behind, until more than
half of them were dead.

The potter says: ``I can do what I will with Clay.
If I want it round, I use compasses; if rectangular, a
square.''

The carpenter says: ``I can do what I will with
wood. If I want it curved, I use an arc; if straight, a
line.''

But on what grounds can we think that the natures
of clay and wood desire this application of compasses and
square, of arc and line? Nevertheless, every age extols
Po Lo for his skill in managing horses, and potters and
carpenters for their skill with clay and wood. Those
who govern the empire make the same mistake.

Now I regard government of the empire from quite
a different point of view.

The people have certain natural instincts:--to weave
and clothe themselves, to till and feed themselves. These
are common to all humanity, and all are agreed thereon.
Such instincts are called ``Heaven-sent.''

And so in the days when natural instincts prevailed,
men moved quietly and gazed steadily. At that time
there were no roads over mountains, nor boats, nor
bridges over water. All things were produced, each for
its own proper sphere. Birds and beasts multiplied,
trees and shrubs grew up. The former might be led by
the hand; you could climb up and peep into the raven's
nest. For then man dwelt with birds and beasts, and
all creation was one. There were no distinctions of good
and bad men. Being all equally without knowledge,
their virtue could not go astray. Being all equally
without evil desires, they were in a state of natural
integrity, the perfection of human existence.

But when Sages appeared, tripping up people over
charity and fettering them with duty to their neighbor,
doubt found its way into the world. And then, with
their gushing over music and fussing over ceremony, the
empire became divided against itself.[11]

FWIW

#1.1.Good question. This collection of essays looks for some answers

An Excerpt on Unity:

"Paradoxically, the science and technology that allow us to view our planet from space, to recognize the interdependence of life on Earth, and to comprehend the universe as a unified dance of energy, have also enabled us to enclose ourselves in a world of our own construction. The realm of artifacts, for all its ingenuity and convenience, becomes pathological if that is the only world we know. While enabling us to withdraw from the living Earth, technology also enables us to wreak damage on an unprecedented scale. The more powerful the technology, the greater the potential for harm. The runoff from industrial agriculture creating dead zones where rivers empty into the ocean, the dropping of bombs from drones in the Middle East, the clear-cutting of equatorial forests, the scouring of the ocean floor by industrial trawlers, the introduction of genetically modified organisms into the environment — all result from decisions made in boardrooms and office towers far away from the scenes of destruction, beyond sight of anything not made by humans, except perhaps the sun or sky blurred by smog.

"If all we know of Earth is what comes to us through earbuds and screens, or through windows and books, we may grasp the unity of life as a concept, but we are unlikely to feel kinship with other animals and plants, let alone with mountains and rivers and stones. The feeling of kinship is the source of kindness; we treat with respect and care those people, creatures, and places we regard as kin. By contrast, whatever we regard as alien, unrelated to ourselves, we treat at best with indifference and at worst with cruelty. Unlike most of his contemporaries, [Quaker preacher and abolitionist] John Woolman recognized his kinship with slaves, Indians, and coach horses, and therefore sought to alleviate their suffering. [Naturalist] John Muir recognized his kinship with redwoods and alpine flowers and ice-sculpted valleys, and sought to protect them. "The ideal of universal benevolence arises from a sense of universal kinship. The impulse to care for all of our fellow beings and to protect the land is an evolutionary inheritance as fundamental, if not yet as powerful, as our selfishness and tribalism.

"Science has confirmed that the unity of life proclaimed by the world's spiritual traditions is a fact of nature. Art can help us to perceive this unity — this holiness — and to feel it as a fact of the heart. But to know it in our depths, with the certainty of Pascal envisioning fire or Woolman sensing the motions of love, we need to open ourselves to wildness, the shaping energy that permeates all being. We need to seek the soul's true home, either inwardly, through contemplation, or outwardly, in the woods and fields, on the blue waters, under the stars."

@phillybluesfan

#1.1.Good question. This collection of essays looks for some answers

An Excerpt on Unity:

"Paradoxically, the science and technology that allow us to view our planet from space, to recognize the interdependence of life on Earth, and to comprehend the universe as a unified dance of energy, have also enabled us to enclose ourselves in a world of our own construction. The realm of artifacts, for all its ingenuity and convenience, becomes pathological if that is the only world we know. While enabling us to withdraw from the living Earth, technology also enables us to wreak damage on an unprecedented scale. The more powerful the technology, the greater the potential for harm. The runoff from industrial agriculture creating dead zones where rivers empty into the ocean, the dropping of bombs from drones in the Middle East, the clear-cutting of equatorial forests, the scouring of the ocean floor by industrial trawlers, the introduction of genetically modified organisms into the environment — all result from decisions made in boardrooms and office towers far away from the scenes of destruction, beyond sight of anything not made by humans, except perhaps the sun or sky blurred by smog.

"If all we know of Earth is what comes to us through earbuds and screens, or through windows and books, we may grasp the unity of life as a concept, but we are unlikely to feel kinship with other animals and plants, let alone with mountains and rivers and stones. The feeling of kinship is the source of kindness; we treat with respect and care those people, creatures, and places we regard as kin. By contrast, whatever we regard as alien, unrelated to ourselves, we treat at best with indifference and at worst with cruelty. Unlike most of his contemporaries, [Quaker preacher and abolitionist] John Woolman recognized his kinship with slaves, Indians, and coach horses, and therefore sought to alleviate their suffering. [Naturalist] John Muir recognized his kinship with redwoods and alpine flowers and ice-sculpted valleys, and sought to protect them. "The ideal of universal benevolence arises from a sense of universal kinship. The impulse to care for all of our fellow beings and to protect the land is an evolutionary inheritance as fundamental, if not yet as powerful, as our selfishness and tribalism.

"Science has confirmed that the unity of life proclaimed by the world's spiritual traditions is a fact of nature. Art can help us to perceive this unity — this holiness — and to feel it as a fact of the heart. But to know it in our depths, with the certainty of Pascal envisioning fire or Woolman sensing the motions of love, we need to open ourselves to wildness, the shaping energy that permeates all being. We need to seek the soul's true home, either inwardly, through contemplation, or outwardly, in the woods and fields, on the blue waters, under the stars."

@thanatokephaloides

the non-Puritan European colonists deserved the Puritan infestation. There were some, even at Plymouth. Poor sods.

#2.1

He can take that bastard Jonathan Edwards with him.

*Not* the sweet guy who wrote "Sunshine Go Away Today." The asshole from colonial times. Bastard who has his portrait up in the Yale Theological School.

I still want to know what North America and/or its pre-Christian inhabitants ever did to deserve the Puritan infestation of which "asshole from colonial times" Jonathan Edwards typifies.