with Trevor Goodchild embracing progress and change and 'the dream to awaken our world' is mankind as it stands a curse or a blessing? were we wrong to turn our backs on nature or is our relathionship with the planet supercilious to our percieved greater destiny and purpose? being as we are all dedicates of Aeon Flux, and that its possible to read Aeon as the embodiment of personal growth and fulfillment and Trevor as being representative of imposing the will of judgement on greater society for their benefit, the nature of ecology and industry should be part of the core of our understanding of the series. Bertrand Russel, the celebrated british philosopher, advocated a plan to attain world peace whereby the united states government set up a world order by force, armed with as many nuclear weapons as they could muster. where does one find peace?

-- Steve Spicer (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 12, 2001

Answers

Frostbite; South Park is Canadian, Republicans are a United States animal. Do you mean they have a conservative view? I take it you haven't seen the one where they kick the nice gay guy out of the boyscouts and replace him with the macho child molester?.. personally I think those two Canadians have a pretty good sense of humor, and watch a lot of t.v. as seen by their references for plots. They're even loftier than Beavis and Butthead,(not).

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), January 27, 2002.

Watching South Park the other night I realized it's supposed to be about a town in Colorado, good point about conservatives embracing the 'don't censor us cause we're too important' policies in Hollywood. Going back to the original argument I don't think Aeon is the embodiment of personal growth at all. I think she represents typical parasitical thinking spawned as a result of world dominating empires like Bregna. People mistakenly believe they can survive on the basis of personal rights but if a country were truly peaceful it would simply be pillaged. The Romans conquering the Greeks are an example. There is no peace let's face it.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), January 29, 2002.

For a small demo try leaving your house unlocked; don't put your money in the bank; leave your keys in the car; ask Ebay not to have locks on your credit card info; put your money out on the counter and leave the room; tell Aeon put her gun away and grow. Suppose they gave a war and nobody came...

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), January 29, 2002.

I was referring to the old 60's poster, with the same quote as its philosophy. Many a nation has fallen in war, due to lack of defense. Incidently, I have been reading the autobiography of Nikola Tesla, the creator of a system that anticipated wireless communication, fax machines, radar and radio-guided missles and aircraft. Did you know he did notable research on high-voltage electricity and wireless communication; at one point creating an earthquake which shook the ground for several miles around his New York lab? Isn't it funny there are sooo many earthquakes in the world today? Who needs weaponry when the earth can be motivated from a lab? My father worked for Stratos, here's a military secret for you, long ago he told me they had a military secret: they can control the weather and make it snow. Who cares? Try fighting a war under a blizzard. That is still a military secret by the way. I'm not keeping it is all.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), January 29, 2002.

If Bregna didn't place the constraints on freedom that it does on its citizens of both itself and Monica then perhaps Aeon would be free (although she maintains she is) to experience a different side of herself. She seems to be reacting to a political landscape she is thrust into by birth and location, although you would have to be Aeon to react as she does to this, so I refer to her behavior as parasitical because she is living out her life in in a strange sort of entanglement with that intrigue and it is leading her on to the very definition of her person through it. Then again, maybe it is the very definition of her person.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), January 31, 2002.

If this were a scene from South Park we would all be staring blankly with an occasional blink. Do you know a guy named jesus saves by any chance Steve?

-- al from cal (allenrb@ix.netcom.com), July 12, 2001.

oops, sorry. just a thought....

-- steve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 12, 2001.

...if this was southpark would that make you big gay al?

-- steve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 12, 2001.

It would make me what I already am: someone confident and secure enough to laugh, however thinly, at your sophmoric jest. And if this were a South Park scene, I'd have be part of the audience, how else would I know about the blank stares and the blinking?

-- al from cal (allenrb@ix.netcom.com), July 12, 2001.

hey pal, the last few threads have been delving into some headier issues than your average 'what shoe size do you think aeon is?' so I was continuing the train of though in my own thread. you didnt need to post a detractive juvenile response to it, but you did. Im just following you up in the same vein. no need to take it as a personal sleight.

-- steve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 12, 2001.

(allowing for the fact that I still can't retrieve the memory file on Aeon) Mankind..curse or blessing ? - Or perhaps it should be curse v blessing ? Are we cursed by the loss of innocent wonderment at what we have achieved, and blessed by the ignorance of the pains of humanity that brought us this far ?

-- lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 13, 2001.

Turning backs on nature - Have we turned our backs on nature ? I believe that our relationship with our planet has become supercilious to our percieved greater destiny, as we will always have the inherent need to believe in this 'greater destiny'. Maybe that belief is encouraged by our curiosity as to what lies beyond .........

-- lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 13, 2001.

Trevor - Have we developed a stable social order in which overt struggle is kept to a minimum ? Is Trevor not an example of dominance hierarchy ? The dominent individual achieving status in one or more prior encounters. That his status is settled, and he no longer has to confirm it ? Rank has it's priveleges, but also it's obligations.

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 13, 2001.

BR & USA - Would you say this is defensive reaction ? Predation v Defense . Or do you hold the theory that aggression is the exception ,rather than the rule among members of different races ? Is it that as we have evolved we have replaced the need of our basic genetic makeup, that of hunter, predatory, with the fact that we have cut ourselves off from any form of retreat, and therefore have created a defense reaction ? Or, does it just boil down to survival of the fittest ? Or, perhaps you'd prefer this train of thought : that it's an example of resourcing. Securing a modicum of resources by staking a claim to an area which will be defended as exclusive preserve - private territory. That, by staking this 'claim' it secures an adequate supply of resources for the next generation. Effect - territorial patterns is the dispersal of the species over a wider geographical range. And that by allowing such a state to occur, are we guilty of demonstrating appeasement ? Or perhaps blind obediance ? Some tendency to obey authority is a vital cement that holds society together, without it there would be chaos?. Do you think that the atrocities of the last century - slaughter of Armenians, the Nazi death camps,the My Lai massacre - give terrible proof that this disposition to obedience can become a corrosive poison that destroys out sense of humanity ? How did this come about ? Is it that the crucial determinant is within the person rather than the situation ?

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 13, 2001.

Where does one find peace ? - Indeed, where does one find peace then ? Is there such a plane as Utopia ? Who has ever acieved this ? Is the answer that it is only created and maintained only within ourselves as individuals, reconciling our minds with our emotions ? And that true Utopia will always be kept invisible behind the walls of protection we build, therefore equating the need for inflicting control towards those who threaten our inner sanctum ? Perhaps it is fantasy, as the need for achievement is a compelling desire that dominates our entire existence .Or are we over achievers supporting the theory that peace does not exist? Hmmm... war and peace, not one without the other? Demons and angels, one on each shoulder.........

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 13, 2001.

See what you've done steve. Poor lorna has become infected with your own rambling, free association habit of trite questioning and is now projecting into a cartoon character complicated ideas and philosophies which she has undoubtedly read somewhere and without synthesyzing(did I spell that word correctly?) them fully, has unleashed them upon us. Better that we stick with shoe size discussions. Or, and this has just occurred to me, maybe two kindred spirits have come together on the web and something even deeper and more personal will come about. If so it will be unrequited because of geographical distance and thus even more tragedy has been introduced into the world. You should be ashamed of your self steve.

-- al from cal (allenrb@ix.netcom.com), July 13, 2001.

I hate to inteject here Al, but there's no need to get all personal. If you're bothered by this thread (or any other for that matter), Do what most mature people do and ignore it? There's nothing that says we all have to respond to every question posed here, just as there's nothing saying you can't disagree wholeheartedly with anything that's written. If I'm misinformed about any of that, could someone point me to the thread when that happened? Thanks.

-- pixi (pixiness@yahoo.com), July 13, 2001.

Apologies Al, you're quite right, there are areas where I haven't synthesised properly, but such is the mode of free thought. Yes, I do read quite extensively, and perhaps it may be of benefit if I immersed myself in the 'real'world for a while,where my ramblings could have relevent meaning being associated with life experience. Maybe we can agree to disagree. So please let's drop the personal bit - you never know we may agree on something at some point ?

Thankyou pixi . And, I agree with your opinion of truth and fallacies in another thread.

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 13, 2001.

Many people believe that evolution (including human evolution) is goal oriented and we haven't strayed from nature at all. The human race has always been moving faster and stronger. It's called progress although I do understand the need to get out in the wilderness sometimes.

You can never find a utopia because finding or creating your utopia depends on you convincing the entire world to agree with your view point(s) whatever it may be. Only by accepting that people will never conform to your morals, way of life, and by becoming a lone wolf will you be able to step back and decide how you want to live your life and improve it as much as possible.

-- Jack (eashtonusa@netscape.net), July 13, 2001.

Maybe we can't find Utopia because the people we need to convince first are ourselves ........

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 15, 2001.

Exactly my point.

-- Jack (eashtonusa@netscape.net), July 15, 2001.

"convincing the entire world to agree with your view point" would be the ideal of a utopian civilisation according to the trappings of megalomania. to live in a world idealised according to a singular point of view. "Only by accepting that people will never conform to your morals" is the sigh of a dejected megalomaniac. "becoming a lone wolf" sounds like figurative escapist fantasising. surely, being a content, peaceful and accepting person would be a healthier vision of personal happiness. accepting in the sense of knowing ones own relationship with the world and accepting that other people have their own. developing a predatory, social hermit persona with the illusion of self-preservation through fantasy is a retreat from the world and ultimately your own Self with the substitution of a fabricated personality.

-- steve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 15, 2001.

" fabricated personality " - interesting.... nigh on brings it full circle back to Aeon and Trevor then . Identifying semblences of our own personalities in the creative ejections of someonelse's imaginaton perhaps.........

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 15, 2001.

Steve, you got issues. I was refering to a concept and your taking it personally again. My point was that for the world to be perfect in an individual's sense the entire world has to conform to thier views. Obviously this will never happen and it would be wrong to try to make it happen so the best course of action is to first seperate yourself from your attachments (whatever they may be) and decide who and what adds to your life and make them a part of it.

Dejected megalomaniac? Wow, and I thought I'd been called everything... So are you a very self conscience person steve or are you just trying to get a rise out of me?

-- Jack (eashtonusa@netscape.net), July 15, 2001.

jack, if you cannot rationally debate the concepts to which you refer, dont take offense when they are deconstructed to their basic connotations in a world of references. if you are arguing the state of utopian peace as you see it personally, then dont make the mistake of discussing it in the third person. your points will be argued in the third person and when you are unclear you should not be taking offense. in no way do I appear to suggest that I am calling YOU a megalomaniac, only that the essence of your dismissal smacks heavily of the motivations OF a megalomaniac. if you wish to read some inferred personal meaning into my post then that says an awful lot more about you than it does me. as in the 'aeon the believer' thread youre far to quick to assume Im talking about you in a derisive tone. your point seems to be that there can only be peace with conformity to a singular ideal. admit that this is your stake in the discussion and stop upsetting yourself. my argument would be for self- realisation without it being at the expense of personal freedom. your argument for detachment sounds, in its conception, very much like the retreat of reason and the acceptance of indulgent fantasy. "Obviously this will never happen and it would be wrong to try to make it happen" speaking with this kind of authority usually requires some kind of pre-cognitive powers or at least an army to enforce this kind of prophesying. as it stands you appear to be flying the flag for cynical nihilism without accepting the aspects of social responsibility which have brought you to accept this glib dismissal of human endeavour. why does it need to be an individuals definition of an utopia for it to be? self consciousness would, in this environment require me to be doing an awful lot more talking. Im providing the catalyst for the sharing of ideas. if Im getting any kind of rise out of you I would hope for it to be at a cerebral level. dont spoil the nice clean walls with mud slinging please.

-- steve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 15, 2001.

Acually my arguement is strongly in favor of personal freedom, individual respondsibily, acceptance, and a healthy lifestyle. I suppose its just a difference in opinion then.

When you say something like "Your statement sounds like the fantasy of a dejected meglomaniac" or the like your obviously commenting on me as a person rather then my ideas. If this isn't your intention then I'd politely suggest you reframe from making this types of comments refering to "the type of person that would make say this." these types of comments might not be a flat out f-you but appears very passive aggressive to me and I think they would to most people. Those types of remarks won't make you many freinds in life whether you mean them as a insult or not.

-- Jack (eashtonusa@netscape.net), July 15, 2001.

count the number of times you say 'obviously' and try to appreciate just how much you treat as fact which is based on assumption. and if youre going to quote me; quote me.

-- steve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 16, 2001.

Much as though I'd love to intercede at this point gentlemen (?) ( this 'strutting' is rather amusing ), but surely the point of debate was " where does one find peace" - am I wrong in assuming the emphasis was on ONE ? Both of you seem to be "discussing" this from entirely different perspectives . Jack - you percieve that to find peace means struggle first against everyone else trying to find peace as a unit ( as a world ? ), before attempting to realise where you stand within yourself. Surely this means one's peace would not be a manifestation of one's own thoughts and feelings, but a conglomerate of other peoples.The image of sheep comes to mind somehow. Whereas you Steve, have percieved that the initial ,and only struggle,to find peace lies solely within oneself. I do have my own perception, and really wonder if, in amongst all this testosterone, either of you would be intersted in a mature, experienced ( and dare I say it - older ) female perspective ? And for goodness sake don't take my thoughts to heart, otherwise we'll go off the track AGAIN......

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 16, 2001.

so what are you saying; I look fat? ;)

oh alright then whats your mature and feminininininine point of view on this whole hoohah then?

-- steve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), July 16, 2001.

Ok Steve.... both of you please bear in mind that this is from the heart, for to explain it from a higher cerebral plane would detract from the spirit and emotion. And if I haven't 'synthesised'properly, then please don't attack me for it cos I really don't care - that's what emotion and passion is, 'unsynthesised'.....so here goes.... Peace may only be found using inner reflecton. You have to feel and touch your life, not detach yourself completely from it - how else can you then take a moment to stand back and analyse your very core of being, before immersing yourself into living again ? I think, no, I know, from my own self, that I have found my own version of peace. Being comfortable with my own company, with my own thoughts ( not forcing myself into surrounding myself with others because I'm scared of who I may be ),knowing my own abilities and disabilities, being receptive to the opinions of others and not castigating them, being a part of where I am in the present, knowing how I'll act and react to circumstance and others. Yet I realise that I'm not yet complete. I look to the future, having nearly put the past to rest. I ascertain that only I can decide my path of destiny - whether I have regrets or not.My personal freedom is such that no one can take my thoughts and feelings away from me, they can only try and influence me into taking their direction, their definitions. I am content with the knowledge that I will always strive to experience and feel more than I have so far. Therefore, whether you think that this is romanticism, ideology or whatever, it matters not a jot,as I KNOW myself, do you ? ;-)

-- Lorna (lorna.g2@ukonline.co.uk), July 16, 2001.

Ahh, I used to love this stuff... Lorna, your reference to the above as 'strutting' is inspired. I have a pet theory that most internet flame activity is a displacement of male 'mating display'. Like peacocks strutting their stuff, ya know? To extend the metaphor, those of us who've seen peacocks up close know better than to admire the feathers too long - peacocks smell like shit.

-- Charlie Princeton (bebop432@hotmail.com), September 26, 2001.

Hmm . . . what shoe size *do you* think aeon is?

-- Dr. Razzmatazz (boogiebaby37@yahoo.com), September 26, 2001.

*Stares straightforward, blinking occasionally*

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), September 26, 2001.

Incidentally, I have a little South Park story to tell. It goes like this:

During the Summer, I saw the episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die." Fat story skinny, I was left with the impression "Wow! The show outsmarted me!" Next week I saw "Cartmanland" which I liked, then the Sex Ed episode, then the Towlie episode, which wasn't very funny but the premise was clever.

By this time, I was officailly a South Park Fan, so I downloaded a poopload of episodes off The Million Monkeys. It didn't take me long to notice that the "meaningful" episodes were extremely preachy. Then I realized "They aren't just preachy, they're Republican propaganda."

1.5 months, perhaps my quickest fandom ever. Well, the search continues.

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), September 26, 2001.

i'd say aeon was probably between 9-11 in her shoe size

-- susie (yerugly@hotmail.com), January 24, 2002.

Well, yeah. But then the ep turns around and says it's wrong to try to bully the Mountain Scouts into letting gays in (kind of like how it was wrong to bully the bus system into letting blacks sit in the front.) Socially, the creators/writers are pretty liberal, but politically they're extremely conservative EXCEPT on one issue: censorship in the media. At least that's the impression I get from watching the show. And they grew up in Colorodo and are currently working in Hollywood. They're pretty American.

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), January 27, 2002.

..*sigh*...

-- Shteeve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), January 27, 2002.

Wha-a-a-a-a-at?

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), January 28, 2002.

erm, if there was peace who would be doing the pillaging?

-- Shteeve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), January 29, 2002.

Im not saying that we live in a utopia though, besides, wars arent given; they are orchestrated.

-- Shteeve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), January 29, 2002.

..wars arent given; they are orchestrated. Like I said.

Yeah Ive read about Tesla, couple of years ago, but how do you figure Aeon as parasitical?

-- Shteeve (steppenwolf@breathe.com), January 30, 2002.