[lbo-talk] God's humor

[Carl Remick]

>From: Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
>
>It's been a long time since I've read Whitman, but
>what annoyed me about him was roughly the same thing I
>noticed in Emerson -- the attempt to deny suffering in
>their "profundity."

Emerson had plenty of suffering in his life and was not IMO a practitioner 
of denial.  I think his view was that suffering isn't a *more* intense form 
of perception than other states of mind and doesn't necessarily contribute 
to insight.  He said in his essay "Experience": "I grieve that grief can 
teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature."

<http://www.geocities.com/rwe1844/etexts/experien.htm>

Carl