Reality, Kant, the Golden rule, pragmatism, William Blake, and necessary hypocrisy

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Reality is as useful as a pocketful of change in a drowning man's pocket.

Kant's categorical imperative of the Golden Rule (re: do unto others as you would have them do unto you) shows a different means (ie. social pragmatism/common sense/social necessity vs. spiritual vision) toward the same end- morality. However, Kant forgot that it is often pragmatic to do the opposite, but never spiritual.

What would a man know without the existence of others? Such absoluteness may be both impossible, and irrelevant.

If your mother is your sister's daughter, then your mother is also your sister, and your father, your grandfather.

William Blake, from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind." Hence the necessity of hypocrisy during the evolution of the individual.

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These selected fragments are excerpted from unpublished writings by Jack Haas; selections from the notebooks 1990-2005.