Freedom, community, scientific, mysticism, holistic education, inspiration

Why Ardue?

Contents List:

Ardue
The Web Weaver
Chief Interests
Informed Debate
Ardue Mailing List

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Ardue Front Page

Related Essay(s):

Ardue

Ardue is the Anglicised version of Ard Dhubh (Black Point), a tiny hamlet on a small promontory attached to the much larger peninsula of Applecross in Wester Ross, Scotland. I chose it as a name for this Web site both for sentimental reasons and because I could be reasonably sure there would be little or no competition to have it registered as a recognised domain name!
A corner of Ardue. The family home is on the right, in shadow.
Photo by Màiri Macdonald

The Web Weaver

I, Duncan Macdonald, the "Weaver" of this Web site, was born in Ardue and thought of it as 'home' for the first two decades of my life. Now that my space-time horizons have expanded, I currently view Planet Earth as my temporary home.

Chief Interests

These pages promote my chief interests — which could be more freely and pleasantly pursued in the naturally self-regulated subsistence economy that prevailed in the Ardue of my youth than in the regimented totalitarian state that now extends its interfering tentacles into every nook and cranny of British life. These interests are:

  • Freedom of thought and expression, especially in speech, writing, and voluntary personal interaction for social, welfare, business or educational purposes.

  • Mutual help through community. As the world is now everyone's oyster, it no longer makes sense to define community merely in terms of locality. Although neighbourliness is as important as ever despite nationalised 'social' (i.e. fundamentally antisocial) services, many modern communities are more appropriately defined as interspersed networks of people with common interests.

  • Scientific mysticism. The scientific method of study is applicable not only to the limited material or "physical" world but also to the infinite spiritual world. By exploring this world (which pervades all space, including physical bodies) we gain knowledge which enables us to discover for ourselves verifiable truths about the attributes of the Spirit as well as the properties of matter.

  • Holistic Education. Present-day Western materialist culture and schooling exaggerate the importance of the physical at the expense of the spiritual and thus tend to suffocate individual initiative and personal responsibility in favour of uncritical acceptance of commercial pressures and docile compliance with external authority vested in ever-larger political bureaucracies and multinational corporations. This de-humanising trend can be reversed only by the voluntary combination of well-balanced individuals who have taken the trouble to explore their own potential and are ready to live freely in harmony with natural law rather than as slaves to a commercially-motivated politico-economic system.

Informed Debate

This site is presented on the Internet in the hope that it may be a focus for informed debate and a conduit for inspiration. Nothing you read here is to be taken as dogma or 'received truth'. You are encouraged to challenge every assertion and submit every suggestion to examination in the light of your personal experience.

All sincere seekers for meaning are welcome.

Ardue Mailing List

Regular readers may correspond with me and with each other by means of a free private mailing list. Membership of the List is restricted, meaning that the moderator approves all requests to join. To apply for membership of this list, send a blank e-mail to ardue-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Applying to join a restricted group sends a message to the moderator who will approve your application. You will then be able to post messages to the list and receive messages posted by other members.

Once you have become a member, address your e-mails to ardue@yahoogroups.com. Only members will be able to read your messages, and there is little likelihood that participation will make you a target for unwanted SPAM.

After the commencement of The Ardue University in October, 2004, I hope readers will use the mailing List as a means of conducting informal "Internet seminars" based on the questions which will be published in connection with the "degree lectures". Experience elsewhere has shown that this can be a very effective method of stimulating discussion and enabling students to learn from each other.