Kuk Sool style forum

Discussion in 'Kuk Sool' started by Gary, Sep 8, 2010.

  1. Hyeongsa

    Hyeongsa The Duelist

    I wonder about both of you.

    SeongIn refuses to talk about the name of his martial arts, what he studies, or even post videos of it.

    jamesdevice seems to not like traditional standards.

    I'm guessing SeongIn is a Hapkidoist and jamesdevice focuses on cross training and ignoring tradition. Might be off but just trying to figure you two out.

    Oh, and no one has a problem with Taoists? If I train hard I can be worshiped because I will become a God. Confucious is a problem, even Christ, but Taoisms okay....
     
  2. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    I always though they were the guys with the blue dye who stuck needles in you and left patterns on the skin? It looks messy but I've nothing against them


    actually the truth is I know little about Tao so if you you don't mind, I'll say nowt
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2011
  3. Bruce W Sims

    Bruce W Sims Banned Banned

    Its probably worthwhile that a HUman Being can take pretty much any decent belief system and make it toxic. For instance, in the Korean culture there was a great exaggeration of Confucian thinking in their Neo-Confucian approach such that even the smallest amount of effort was seen as distasteful and uncouth. In fact there was a story of the early attempts to modernize the Korean army in which, as I understand it, civil service appointees to military positions required that their slaves carried them about rather than having to march alongside their men. I'd LOVE to track that story down and see if there was any truth to it.

    My point is that one can take, say, a Christian or Islamic belief and if a person really wants to do something bad they will find a way to bend that belief to their purpose. FWIW.

    Best Wishes,

    Bruce
     
  4. izumizu

    izumizu Banned Banned

    Amazing...in the Navy they have these things called turbines and nuclear engines and no longer rely on men or slaves to row their ships.:evil:

    People can do something bad without bending anything to their purpose, they can also do good. Just because it is such that neo confucions did not believe in effort, someone still had to chop wood and carry water, plant and harvest the rice...my guess is there was probably a lot more effort into living than there is today.

    Still, bending and taking to extremes is not a bad thing, it is when one crosses lines and starts killing others in the name of God, or Allah, or even Bugs Bunny where lines have to be drawn.

    The ideas professed by Confuscious, Lao Tzu, Mencius, are simple and have contributed much in the formation of man, philosophy and martial arts...Buddhisim as well. This cannot be denied. The same holds true for Plato, Descartes, Aristotle...
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011
  5. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    "Just because it is such that neo confucions did not believe in effort, someone still had to chop wood and carry water, plant and harvest the rice..."
    Yep. Nowadays we would call them slaves

    "The ideas professed by Confuscious, Lao Tzu, Mencius, are simple and have contributed much in the formation of man, philosophy and martial arts...Buddhisim as well."
    I would argue that the prevalence of Confucian-derived thought is the very thing which prevented the eastern countries from undergoing any kind of industrial revolution; condemning them to centuries of starvation through lack of effective government, lack of technology, and wholesale economic rape of the country by the various governing classes and families. The conditions created were the direct cause of the rise of the Chinese communists. Think about it: before Confucius the Chinese were one of the most technically advanced populations in the world. His nihilist teachings put a stop to that: he condemned the east to 2000 years (or so) of something equivalent to the post-Roman "dark ages". The only difference is our "dark age" only lasted 600 years or so - and the Chinese documented theirs. Didn't do anything about it, just wrote about it

    "it is when one crosses lines and starts killing others in the name of God, or Allah, or even Bugs Bunny where lines have to be drawn."
    Nobody may have fought any wars over Confucius (I totally expect that premise to be proved wrong), but a lot of people died as a result of the class wars resulting from Confucian derived teaching. What is worse? A declared war which kills the opposing army? Or an undeclared war of neglect against your own people, in which the weapons were starvation, taxation, slavery and routine massacre? No wonder the ChiComs hate him so much.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011
  6. izumizu

    izumizu Banned Banned

    Actually, the real problem is they didn't stay there. They have kind of kept pace with the rest of the world, and Confucian and Buddhist thought, religion, cerimonies, and so on are a big part of who they are and how they think to this day. Militarily, they are a major fighting force that I'm sure the US does not wish to engage (of course they probably wish not to engage the US either).

    Economically, well, I believe they hold much of the US debt...so much for lack of effort.

    And still they are largely responsible for many of the martial arts that are practiced to this day.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011
  7. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    Thats not really true is it? Until Mao took charge they were living in a medieval cess-pool.
    He was able to kick-start industry by taking over the industrial infrastructure the Japanese had left behind after the war, with technical advice from the Russians and a bit of USA cash. Of course they had several false starts (not to say a lot of bloodletting themselves)
    Their present economic hegemony really only is due to the post-Mao changes of the last 30 years or so, and the wholesale adoption of capitalism as a creed
     
  8. izumizu

    izumizu Banned Banned

    Sure, looks like they were able to take that torch an run with it, huh? Guess all that time they spent not putting any effort into anything made them good and ready for when they decided to put a little effort into something.

    In anycase, the ideas and philosophies still remain...they are largely a Confucian and Buddhist society. Whether or not they embrace capitalisim, communisim, marxisim, Maoist ideas, buddhisim and confucianisim are still strong tenets in all of Asian societies. And probably not going anywhere in the next few centuries either.

    And the tiny bit of USA cash that we may have given them, is nothing compared to what we have borrowed from them to keep our ownselves here in the good ol USA going strong. We are talking huge sums of money that we have borrowed from the Chinese.

    China is not the backwards country you make it out to be. Nor were they a poor, helpless and confused society until taken out of their misery laiden lives by western societies comming to their rescue.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011
  9. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    SOME of them have been able to. And I would argue that those who have, are the ones who were released from those ancient beliefs through exposure to the Chinese version of Marxism-Leninsm over the last three (?) generations.
    The families who were able to escape the Confucian derived social conditioning are the ones whose offspring are driving the current Chinese commercial revolution (for want of a better phrase)
    yes I do fully expect them to expand and grow even further and dominate even more of the worlds economy and resources
    I also expect a major war with them within 30 years, as their demand for oil, mineral resources - and fertiliser - grows. I believe its 15 years before they have to become a net importer of food ? (Please correct me if thats out, but the principle remains). When that happens, all hell breaks loose.
     
  10. izumizu

    izumizu Banned Banned

    You'll have to excuse me while I go get some towels to clean off my monitor and keyboard...have to remember to read first and then take a drink of my coca cola...

    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

    Now, see, jd, thats funny.
     
  11. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    I think our posts/ edits crossed there so I'll post again to try and avoid confusion

    The "tiny bit of USA cash" was useful to them as a priming pump to get their basic heavy industry started. Using it, and the profits from that, and through low pay rates they were able to grow market share. Now I'm not saying the ChiComs were not exploitative of their workforce: they were (and still are: only around 12 years ago I was part of a company that nearly got fooled into buying chemicals from a site staffed by military prisoners). But the point remains is that has all happened in the last 30 years. There was some improvement in the immediate post-war years, but the truth is that outside the treaty ports and the Japanese occupied areas, the country was a medieval mess.

    As for "coming to their rescue" - no we've not done that. They did it themselves by ruthlessly taking market share by undercutting all manner of western industry. But that a lesson and discussion for another forum, not here
     
  12. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    Coca cola getting up your nose?

    I know its a contentious statement, but I meant it seriously
    Why shouldn't a country with a third of the worlds population demand a third of the worlds land area, mineral resources and food? (Thats a rhetorical question by the way - I'm not apologising for them)
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011
  13. izumizu

    izumizu Banned Banned

    And Confusionisim, Buddhisim, and Taoisim are still strong in those regions, and strong in Japan as well, along with Shinto. And Japan never adopted a communist, marxist, or lenninist ideology.

    Not bad for a bunch of folks who were in a midevil mess 30 years ago.

    It's taken the US nearly a century of industrial revolution and technological revolution (many of these technologies comming from the chinese) to be probably forever indebted to them economically. Not too bad for a western country, huh?
     
  14. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    Japan was already undergoing its own industrial revolution: it had acquired steelmaking, shipbuilding and railway engineering skills by the early 1900's - mainly from Britain (and to an extent the USA). Remember they were in an arms race with Russia. Japan was more open to the west than either China or Korea, both for trade and for ideas.
    And then Japan of course was plunged forcibly into a major wave of industrial investment as the USA drove them to earn cash to pay war reparations. They taught the Japanese how to make (and financed the plants) those items that could not be made cost-effectively in the high-labour cost USA.
    But thats where - from the point of view of the west - where its all gone wrong. First we farm out the grot jobs: the hazardous stuff like raw chemicals, the low-margin stuff like shipbuilding - and then one day we wake up and find that we've lost the high-tech stuff as well while the orietals have pulled it from under our noses. The problem is that there seems to be differing understandings of what "free trade" means

    Anyway all this is irrelevant to the topic of this thread. Time we stopped this.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011
  15. izumizu

    izumizu Banned Banned

    Why stop now? We havn't been talking about the topic of this thread for say the last, I don't know...394 posts?

    Oh, wait, I see, it was SeongIn back about 137 posts ago wasn't it?

    Okay, now I see, JD, off topic is an understatement, but some great discussion from all involved going on IMO.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011
  16. Hyeongsa

    Hyeongsa The Duelist

    I like cheese! ^^
     
  17. izumizu

    izumizu Banned Banned

    Mmmmm...cheese.
     
  18. Bruce W Sims

    Bruce W Sims Banned Banned

    Again, James, I think what you are saying is very right. Where I see the problem is in people bending a belief system to their purpose. For instance, Confucius held social order as a main stay for peace. In this way he saw "a place for everything and everyone (sic) in their place". Disturbances in the HWA occur when people are jostling to be somewhere in the society that they don't belong. Fair enough. People want to advance to somewhere else in the society, it certainly will cause so chaos, no matter how small, ne? However, this one teaching was taken by people in power to justify keeping folks in their place, which is the sort of repression I think you are talking about. Confucius wasn't about repression, but a lot of folks who used his teachings were. Good thoughts; thanks.

    Best Wishes,

    Bruce
     
  19. Pugil

    Pugil Seeker of truth

    And we moan and moan about their (the Chinese) appalling human rights record, and yet we help prop it up by doing away with our own industries and having stuff manufactured over there instead. Pick just about anything up nowadays and look at the box or the label and see where it was made!
     
  20. jamesdevice

    jamesdevice Jötunn

    Look what Apple computers found when it audited its suppliers
    And this is by no means unusual

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/15/apple-report-reveals-child-labour
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7330986/Apple-admits-using-child-labour.html
     

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