• AlpineSteakHouse [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Unironically great, I’ve been trying to integrate traditional Chinese philosophy and religion with my communist views for a long time now actually.

    I’ve talked about this a bit on here but I think the metaphor of Taoism is correct even if the underlying explanation isn’t. You can explain to children how gravity and shit works and how that causes the seasons but it’s just fucking numbers. You tell them that Persephone is in Hades and Demeter is mourning her absence and they understand it perfectly. Now obviously the gods aren’t literally real but meaning is often better explained by metaphor than science.

    It’s my sincere belief that there is lots of meaning in religion and philosophy that has yet to be discovered by science. Scientists discover universal principles, poets explain them.

    • You can explain to children how gravity and shit works and how that causes the seasons but it’s just fucking numbers. You tell them that Persephone is in Hades and Demeter is mourning her absence and they understand it perfectly.

      on the contrary, bill nye perfectly explained axial tilt causing seasons to millions of children, and that greek myth shit is needlessly complicated and stupid as hell compared to “look at ball tilt”

      a garden is perfectly beautiful on its own without talking about faeries instead of the nitrogen cycle

      • AlpineSteakHouse [any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        bill nye perfectly explained axial tilt causing seasons to millions of children, and that greek myth shit is needlessly complicated and stupid as hell compared to “look at ball tilt”

        Except axial tilt merely explains the change in weather. It doesn’t account for the experience of the changing of seasons like trees losing their leaves. Sure, you could pull out more science but having to explain cosmology, biology, and weather systems to a kid who asks “Why is it cold in the winter?” is kinda silly. Otherwise, you’re just telling them about an abstraction of an abstraction interpreted through your elementary school science teacher.

        You’re not Bill Nye with a team of writers and a TV show budget. Your you and presumably being asked on the fly by your kid.

          • AlpineSteakHouse [any]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Not at all. Summer nights are warmer than winter day despite having more light.

            Besides, the context is teaching children the practical meaning of seasons changing. No one is literally trying to figure out the thermodynamics of the earth. I never suggested that Diameter is literally causing winter because she’s in mourning. But I may be wrong either way, if Hexbear adults can’t understand the metaphor I’m using here then I doubt their children would.

            • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Besides, the context is teaching children the practical meaning of seasons changing.

              but it doesn’t mean anything?

              It’s a natural consequence of how the solar system is, because of how the natural phenomena we describe with physics are, and for the purposes of a simple explanation for children “less light [during the day, bleeeh 🙄] = colder out” is totally adequate.

              you’re trying to do something real weird here mate and it doesn’t make any sense.

        • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Except axial tilt merely explains the change in weather. It doesn’t account for the experience of the changing of seasons like trees losing their leaves

          that happens because the leaves are there to pick up on sunlight and there is less sunlight in winter so many trees kill the leaves to save resources in winter

          the less sunlight is also why it is cold

          • fox [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Other way around. Because the trees lose their leaves there’s less surface area to pick up heat so it gets cold until the trees grow new leaves. Read a book.

          • AlpineSteakHouse [any]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            This is such a bad-faithed interpretation of the point of my paragraph that I must conclude it’s deliberate. No one is literally questioning axial tilt. It just doesn’t explain the practical experience of the seasons changing in the way a good story can.

        • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I feel like it’s not that much of a leap to incorporate knock on effects like autumn leaves while still keeping things comprehensible to kids.

          The tilt of the earth changes how much daylight places get through the year. The natural world grew within and alongside this pattern, and reflects it. Trees take advantage of spring and summer daylight, storing energy to rest through winter.

    • Vode An@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Anything you recommend reading if I want to explore the intersection of Taoism and Marxism?

      • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Can tell you that Mao created a Criticize lin, criticize Confucius campaign. Westerners take this as destroying eastern religions, but on the contrary it was designed to center Marxist aspects of specific religions in discussions and teachings. Essentially it was an extension of liberation theology

      • AlpineSteakHouse [any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Honestly, I’ve just been reading the classic Tao texts. It’s been a personal project and I don’t think there’s much of an academic interest. At least until I saw this.

      • Nacarbac [any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Best way would be to just read the Dao De Jing (essentially a short collection of poetic philosophical points), which is the core text, and then the Zhuangzi (a larger text created over centuries, expanding on the topic with various characters - quite humorous). With the latter, being the product of dozens of authors, in a few chapters you can feel the philosophy being bent towards “actually, political hierarchies and wealth disparity are natural law and therefore cool”, but they rather stand out.

        Ursula Le Guin’s translation is my favorite, but the differences between translations are interesting - both texts have a lot of fun with the ambiguity of language.

    • muddi [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I like to do the same, from the perspective of Indian philosophy especially as it’s my own background.

      There is already similarity and even borrowings in Western philosophy from the East and elsewhere. I’m of the opinion that if capitalism developed somewhere else in the world besides Europe, communism would have still arisen, although maybe by a slightly different philosophical path.

      I’m interested to see what other cultural traditions could have offered in these alternative timelines so to speak