Plato (on the left) and Socrates take time out to philosophise on how best to diminish the oppressive effects of tyranny.

I share with you a fascinating and thorough essay on Tyranny’s attempts to subjugate Philosophy throughout history.

“This essay provides an answer to the question that so many of us are presently asking: In the face of seemingly invincible fascistic tyranny, what can we do? To uninformed people, philosophy appears to be a completely powerless, merely academic discipline. In this essay philosophy’s real essence will be divulged: an immeasurably powerful force that’s actually able to overcome tyranny. It is indeed heartening to comprehend philosophy’s potency to outmaneuver and overpower despotism.

It requires a discerning mind to grasp how philosophy is able to conquer unrestrained repressive power. But the potency philosophy possesses to overcome tyranny is real–not some ethereal metaphysical conjecture meant to soothe and befuddle the credulous.

We’ll first locate philosophy within a larger domain: the Perennial Tradition. 1 Following that, we’ll see how modern tyranny is attempting to destroy the genuine teaching and learning of Platonic philosophy. Last, we’ll examine precisely how philosophy is able to conquer tyranny and what part we can play in this cosmic struggle.”

~ Norman D. Livergood, How Philosophy Overcomes Tyranny

Continue to read: How Philosophy Overcomes Tyranny

Read: Plato’s Biography

“The Art of Worldly Wisdom is a book by Baltasar Gracián y Morales (a.k.a Baltasar Gracián). It is a collection of maxims. Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia was written in 1637, and became popular throughout Europe. The book is a collection of 300 paragraphs on various topics giving advice and guidance on how to live fully, advance socially, and be a better person.”

~ Wikipedia

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Whenever we as human beings commit misdemeanors or suffer from one of many vices which effects others or ourselves, we sometimes justify our behavior by blaming the Devil.

How many times have you heard someone say, “The Devil made me do it.” whenever they have been caught being on the wrong path in life?

However, rapper Jeru the Damaja, who is a prophet in his own right, says we are in fact making the Devil happy.  The very same devil that man has conveniently created to give him a excuse to neglect virtuous actions.

As you all should know the Devil does not really exist (well, I hope not).  He is just a metaphor of all what’s wrong in the world with all its ignorance, violence, greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption and, most sadly, lack of self-knowledge and wisdom.

We are indeed the devil himself.

The fact of the matter is that this so-called devil has the capacity to be within all of us, and it is in our power not for it to possess us and weaken our resolve for doing good and improving ourselves.

In the following enlightening tune, Jeru portrays in lyrical form how the devil’s maniacal grip on one’s consciousnesses and conscience can bring about nothing but pain and destruction to one’s character, body and soul.
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Carrying on from yesterday’s post ‘The Truth About News: 2 Fair and Balanced News Programs To Watch’ detailing the mainstream media’s aims to manipulate and deceive the masses through propaganda, I now recommend you watch the classic Canadian documentary Manufacturing Consent based on the Noam Chomsky/Edward Herman book
by the same name. Explores the propaganda model of the media.

If you have no idea who Noam Chomsky is the following excerpt was written about him by the New York Times:

“Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today.”

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Switch off CNN!  Switch off Fox News! And not even BBC News can be exempt from the big news Switch-off (although, they are slightly better than the previous two).

Who can say that the aforementioned news channels are always being “Fair and Balanced” in their reporting?  Have they not demonstrated more than once biased reporting in favour of the sinister motives and policies of those in power?

If the conspiracy theorists are right, the mainstream news is a major propaganda tool used by the rich and powerful to brainwash the masses into relinquishing their inalienable rights and consenting for our elected masters to expand their profits at our very expense.

What seems to be mostly self-evident is that these so-called “Media Moguls of Truth” continuously bombard us with nothing but trivial events, media circuses (the recent hysteria surrounding The X-Factor here in the UK is an example of the media gone mad) and features on the superficial and banal lifestyles of the rich and famous – all this instead of concentrating on truthful reporting and serious issues happening worldwide.

I somehow get the feeling that most of this is done on purpose to distract, or more like deceive us from the knowing the truth of what’s really going on outside of our comfort zone.
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