So what do you think we have lost? I'll argue that its a sense of meaning, living close to the land means that you are forced to rely upon for your survival; thus you are a part of the landscape and whoever you share that community with as you must rely upon them as well.
Counter-culture movements and individuals seem to gain a similar sense of meaning and importance by moving against their parent society and this helps foster further independence of thought and that leads us into what causes individuals to rebel against a society in the first place.

Thats bullshit and I will tell you why. WHen youre forced to live off the land for survival and its hard you dont notice that thats what youre doing. Youre busy surviving. You gotta be living a pretty comfortable and sweet life to even be into philosophy.

so you're sayin' i'm a pseudo-intellectual huh?

yes, i drop Nietzsche's philosophies here and there, but that's just because i like a lot of his philosophy...i studied him a lot, but he's by no means my favorite...that would probably go to Heidegger, or Sartre, maybe even Camus...

and Nietzsche is definately far-fetched, but he had some interesting ideas, and is probably the most notable modern philosopher...

but you're right, people do throw him out there a lot, especially pseudo-intellectuals, but if you're gonna call me as such, then so be it...

but for the most part, Nietzschean philosophy can be applied to most topics here...the man was all over the map with philosophy...and as such, most of the philosophies i agree with just happen to have some correlation to Nietzsche...which probably has to do with the fact that i studied continental philosophy in college...and it probably didn't help that our philosophy president was an uber-Nietzschean nazi...

but i just thought Nietzsche's essay that "The Dawn" could be applied to this discussion...sorry

even though i find some of your responses to be inane with all your vulgarity and backwood american tactics (not that i myself don't do similar things) i think i must agree with you on this...

there must be a time to reflect on your QUOTE-UN-QUOTE spiritual growth...and it's much easier to do so when living comfortably than when not...now, i don't know exactly what Thoreau did, but didn't he come back from his time in the woods? didn't he just go there for a limited time, whereby he came to reflect on his new and profound life altering view?

anywho, i however do think there are some things that can be taken into account by such examples...

for example, desire....it pretty much consumes us.....why eat at a fancy resturaunt when all you really need is something edible that can sustain life?

pick your reasons for and against.....both sides have there valid points.....a man of the land may claim to be more enlightened, a man of the city can do the same.....one has anti-culture, has time to reflect on the self; the other has culture, can reflect on mankind......who's to say which is truly more enlightened? the monk, or the photographer...

....Quiet, if he reads this, will love this: in the end, i suppose it really just boils down to perception.....nevertheless, it's the ability to take both into consideration that i think leads to enlightenment, but is that even possible?

I didn't state that. What I mean is simply that living in a small, closely-nit community with little outside influence; doesn't lead directly to contemplation and enlightenment but to a healthy sense of meaning in ones existence, A belief that your life and the lives of others in your society has value. Also, societies like that often do find the time to develope well-tended esoteric and existential pursuits even while they are working to survive.

Chances are you live in one now. Even people in NYC live in them. See its easy to say oh you live in NYC your not close knit. But you forget that people live on streets and or in burrows that are quite close knit away from the rest of the city.

Your line of reasoning is bullshit to begin with simply because it presupposes set natural rythms for all man kind which are not proven to be so. Its like me saying we are all lost because we dont all harvest beets anymore, and we lived a much happier and closer knit spiritual life back in the old freezing to death harvest cycles of the 1700s in Germany. I mean... what nonsense.

While I will admit that I implied that that was the case, I am well aware that people find meaning in many different ways. People of different temperaments will find many ways to gain meaning, some will try to find it by oppressing others and others will find it through more constructive means.
All that I am saying is that I feel that we have lost a sense of meaning that I feel derived at least in part from a traditional lifestyle and that we need to regain that sense of meaning in order to feel whole and that our existence matters.

Say you, I dont want to live in a mid hut and barely scratch by just so I can live to my mid 50s where I die of old age and weatheredness. I quite enjoy living in our times and dont feel I need to bond with nature since man kind stopped being in sync with nature when he began walking upright, and bending it to his will and multiplying like a virus.

just out of curiousity, are you familiar with Heidegger?

Sixx, do you do anything besides drop names in this forum? Any original thoughts to contribute?

i'm only a pseudo-intellectual remember...

shall we get back to the subject at hand, gentlemen?

No if there is one thing I hate more than transcendentalim its ontology questoining. I mean...really whats the fucking point? I exist woopdidoo. I try to spend as little time reading what old dead time wasters thought back in the 1800s. Although I must admit I did succumb to reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelias, but only because I love Roman realism and because he kicked major ass as a ruler.

Don't kid yourself. Big Oil has a survival plan. The first part of the plan is to burn up as much of everybody elses oil as fast as possible, specifically that which comes from the big sand box. Once all of the reserves are tapped in the middle east, South America and Russia they will tap all the reserves they've been sitting on in North America and the North Atlantic for the past twenty or thirty years, and at the same time "suddenly discover 'new' technology" that will save us all.

And, oh by the way, make them all a sh** pile of money. {Damn, I shoulda bought more stock in BP (Beyond Petroleum) when I had the chance.}

So you relax and enjoy life. Things won't change much once the oils gone.

Wow, I wish I lived in fantasy world, what are you smoking?

Not a thing. I was an oil exploration geologist at one time, and worked several projects in the late 70s and early 80s that gave me a great deal if insight into the oil industry. Believe me, American and British oil companies have huge untapped reserves, and are taking the attitude that basically says, "When they run out of oil, they can all eat sand".

Yeah? well I am a Texas oil tycoon and I know more. Youre still wrong.

Really?