I have always found philosophy difficult since it is, as I understand it, largely conjecture. My nature is to want to some conclusions, the nature of religions too, like philosophy, seems to leave much unanswered while, unlike philosophy, claiming to be the answer.

Humility seems to be a key. I was as surprised as the people in the sauna in 1977 when I was touched by a moment of enlightenment, (see the “Bliss” page). In the years since, I have bumped into philosophy occasionally but politics more frequently, which in a way is philosophy, or at least one’s viewpoint on politics may be governed by a philosophy or religion.

Humility, perhaps led me to being chosen for the moment of enlightenment or could have led by my own actions to that moment, I don’t really know which of those. What I do know is that even after the height of my understanding of myself and enjoyment of self-confidence, I was always careful to sift through what people said, friends, acquaintances, the writings of novelists, including classics, or new age claimants, ancient texts etc saying to myself first, “Can that be right?” and largely keeping it on the back burner until I could dismiss the idea through new knowledge or integrate it into my ‘wonderment consciousness’. This wonderment consciousness would consider which of competing things that I could neither prove not disprove were right or sometimes what I thought should be right. It is from such thinking that perhaps western concepts of justice without subjective revenge come.

Many years after 1977 I visited a Literary and Philosophy society meeting. I noticed in the meeting that the philosopher, (I have no recall of whether he was a university lecturer or had published works or both), appeared to patronise people, not acknowledging that they may have gone through a simple process like me of dismissing some ideas and having still questions about others. At one point I asked a question where I took the standpoint that perhaps there was a God. I took that because, as I describe in the rest of this web-site, Buddho-Darwinism is about two realms, the one we observe and scientists can draw up laws about and another one which is harder to understand and is outside many people’s experience. When I had finished this question the philosopher was dismissive just saying, “I don’t believe in God”. I reacted at my question being dismissed by saying “Well perhaps he does not wish you to believe in him”. I should have said “Well perhaps he or She does not wish you to believe in him or her”, if I had wished to be exactly correct in the point I wanted to make beyond getting an answer to my question. The reason I said that was because I had read about a man in the USA who had gone running into a church declaring god had sent him to clean the church and was aware of others who take similar action. In essence the philosopher had struck me as someone who, if he suddenly realised there may be a spiritual world, would immediately patronise everyone else and make himself a self-styled leader of religion. Another example of this was a hippie I knew in Manchester in the 1970’s who said, after reading a book by Eric von Daniken, that there was  city made of gold in the Amazon rainforest. When I dismissed that as baseless he became insistent “Oh course there is”. I was later to find he was also an occasional hard drug pusher. (On lighter note about considering what causes things to happen and the idea of cause and effect which is central to Buddhist thinking. He was of a Polish descent and therefore I would assume Catholic and now Catholic Brazil has cut down much of their rainforest. One might think they were searching for that city and nothing was going to stop them but reason inclines one to think that few would actually have read von Daniken’s book, but was this pusher bigger in the spiritual world, a giant alpha consciousness - I don’t know). Cause and effect is one of the aspects of Buddhism that I could not explain as part of Buddho-Darwinism just as not having any children myself is one of the aspects of Darwinism I cannot explain).

Feminism needs the humility of proponents like Germaine Greer and in a more modern context for a younger generation, the artist Nic Green. Its problem lies, like philosophy and religion, in that it will be joined by those who push their agenda and are dismissive of others insecurities, which causes reactions.

Sudden change for the individual can be good but gradual change is better for numbers greater than one. In that there are exceptions, like the French revolution, where the philosophy of Benthamism, (for the good of the majority), hold sway.

Men can be dismissive animals, which makes it easy for them to oppose feminism. Most men will want gradual change since, if, for instance, every feminist rejects natural male interest in the female, then men will react. Men have to understand body image problems for instance but perhaps without turning against the nature of desire. There are of course many feminist intellectuals who understand this and engage in writing, art and science which accepts such a standpoint.

The desire to be an alpha hero appears to be strong. In this world there will always be men who cling to power and women too it must be said, (think Saddam Hussein and Elizabeth I of England). Buddho-Darwinism proposes that there are also such things in what might loosely be called the spiritual world. It is easier, now we have democracy, to oppose the alpha desire. It is perhaps not the best biological solution at any given moment, but since mutations which give rise to superior beings can occur in any individual in a population, it is fair to say that there is little risk and certainly no additional risk to the majority. This is also the view of Buddho-Darwinism in denying the gods and devils who would rule the spiritual in a parallel to kings and queens in the material world. Ultimately, in other words, the greater good for all living things will come from a Buddhist approach to life, the exercise of compassion for all living things.

Feminism, the seeking for egalitarian principles, should then take the path of humility without being humiliated. To be compassionate when inevitable knock-backs come and to continue efforts to change viewpoints in its opponents, primarily of men, to equal levels of humility when disagreement arises.

Philosophy is difficult to grasp. Feminism, as a political philosophy is not as glaringly obvious as some advocates may think, since it may lead to unexpected consequences if not well thought out. (My own belief is that we are passing through times at the moment where many women, influenced to some extent by feminism, who have rejected the Darwinistic aspect of life, namely reproduction and child rearing, would, if they could see the consequence, regret it as the world becomes dominated by children raised to religious principles dependent on alpha intent spirits).

The Danes, (see link), set me back in terms of self-image, (a common problem for women) and perhaps many other things, (I can’t pretend to know what would have happened if they had not doe what they did). They may have believed a Benthamist principle that the majority would benefit from what they did to me. There was certainly a desire to humiliate which was unnecessary.