Whose principles? Someone owns them? Imposes them? We must, we should? What if we don't?
1] All men are different. And should do everything possible to continue to be so.
If it is natural, why the
struggle to appear so? Should people cut some body parts to appear different? Some beggars do. It has become such an impossible necessity for survival to appear very, very, VERY different. I'm sure most animals still see us all the same, despite all efforts.
4] Each human being has been granted a virtue: the capacity to choose. For he who does not use this virtue, it becomes a curse – and others will always choose for him.
And all these choices rely on what others have already chosen. Coelho can't even choose his own words. Come on, Coelho, be more creative, man! All these language structures, you use, have been chosen for you, by others. Be brave, write with unknown symbols, or make unknown sounds, or even use completely different communication:
http://physiologyonline.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/22/4/287
But still everything you "choose" is based on the limitations of your senses and experiences and your body. And your whole ability to communicate with others and to claim hypocritically that you are independent, is based on the communication methods of others and on their value systems, which you changed a little bit, to call yours.
8] Each man has a feminine side, and each woman has a masculine side.
There are no such sides. In different human cultures and primates, the initial division of labor has been different and the power, or lack of, has been differently distributed, ending up with variety of sex-based or sex-less social profiles.
And must behave like a normal person.
Which among cannibals means to eat other people; among scalp scouts means to feel guilt you didn't scalp enough enemies today; and among nazi's means to feel less sexual drive, because some jews ran away from the concentration camp.
12] The only faults considered grave are the following: not respecting the rights of one’s neighbor, letting oneself be paralyzed by fear, feeling guilty, thinking one does not deserve the good and bad which occurs in life, and being a coward. We shall love our adversaries, but not make alliances with them. They are placed in our way to test our sword, and deserve the respect of our fight.
We shall choose our adversaries, not the other way around.
Holy war! Go wars, go! The rights - which are? And it contradicts with the holy rule 10.] to seek joy. What if one's joy is to violate other people's mysteriously floating in the air rights. Oops. And of course people are afraid and irrationally feel guilt, when this has been invented for them,
by such sets of unsustainable social principles.
13] We hereby declare the end to the wall dividing the sacred from the profane: from now on, all is sacred.
This is good, but I'd be happier if sacred and profane didn't exist as useless notions, altogether. Wait, they don't. Only the language claims they do.
What I appreciate about Coelho is how he mixes naivety, experience, and simplicity of form, but appealing form doesn't imply meaningful content.
