Politically, Where are we going? Is there an end game?

[Cavegirl]

I couldn’t agree more to be honest brilliant!. I can’t believe that with all the supposed sophistication of modern technology the applications are still about doing a King Cnut and commanding the tide to turn back. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier if we availed ourselves of the kinds of technology we already have! And put it to uses which recognise the futility of fighting against the totality of nature.

 

Why not as you say use computer mapping technology which can create sophisticated models based on good solid data, to avoid the futility of trying to arrogantly control forces which we will never do.

It cuts to the central core of what I believe is behind this total myopia. There is a profound dissociation within many human beings. A separate emotional cognitive existence. This belief is born out I believe by the continual conflict with nature which is the paradigm being played out.

 

It mirrors the ego driven objectification of the self on so many levels doesn’t it? The idea that knowledge is something which can bring you a Ferrari but not bring you peace? It is a profound kind of inner disquiet I feel. And is very culturally embedded. More than that, cultivated. The values are all competition and external validation. Can this help but drive a wedge between our own intrinsic sense of self worth and our own valuing of that?

 

Our whole lives seem determined by what television says we should be, feel, think. The saturation of others deciding what the next socially determined priority is? Rather than the fostering of personal modes of meaning which themselves reinforce the importance of intimacy and from that community? You can’t prescribe or condition mental health can you?

 

No more than you can prescribe or condition love and respect for other people. These (for me) are all attained through being. Being closely contacted to other human beings. Receiving the validation and warmth which is the foundation and fuel of cohesive family and community. Not the rhetoric of “New Labour” but the passion and the authenticity of something like the Anarchist movement. Whose unapologetic advocacy of the right of people to be people is food for the soul, on every level of our lives?

 

Be angry, be passionate be properly human. But let’s not just go into oblivion with a whimper. And the resignation that we cannot do anything to halt this disaster. We are infinitely creative, infinitely resilient. As well as infinitely in need of close human contact and the absence of alienation which is so crippling to human life.

 

P.S I will certainly read your links Thanks.

 

I have a feeling Emma Goldman's spirit lives on in you somewhat- that was a brilliantly impassioned post and you raise some truly profound points. Again I'm just looking to expand on these points.

 

It has been an interesting journey so far for humanity. We've perceived ourselves from the heady heights of believing that we were Angels wrought in the same form as an almighty and powerful god and we've fallen off that parapet to become mere Darwinian beasts- full of primeval survival instincts and dangerous hidden behaviours and desires and we've also been robots with bodies full of electrical charge, fulcrums, pistons, gaskets and brains like computers with memory usage, data banks and filing systems. Our perspective of ourselves so inherently reflects our society at the time we exist whether it be predominantly religious, scholarly, technological etc.

 

The objectification of ourselves has been an important and necessary step I think in the 'learning about ourselves' process. It's an important function of our rational thinking process to objectify, break down, classify and describe each part of a whole in order to rethink the nature of the whole. But you're absolutely right there comes a time when this process not only becomes stagnant and no longer enlightening, but, in the case of people, it has led to increasing depersonalisation.

 

When people are only able to consider themselves as passive observers of a society, disenfranchised from economics and politics, apathetic regarding their uniqueness and powerfulness, ashamed of their eccentricities to the point that they'll ask doctors to prescribe cures for them then that society only really consists of shells or husks of human beings.

 

I think a hopeful view of the future, one in which anarchy could thrive, is a view in which people see themselves, not as robotic individuals competing against each other for economic survival, but as the very creators of the societies in which they live- that they as individuals can cooperatively shape society in the way that external forces (organised religion, technology etc) often have in the past. In this way people stop being objects passively observing and conforming to society and become agents actively creating society in their own image.

 

In this sense, when issues arise, whether they be economic or environmental etc, then people won't sit back and watch and won't just hand over more symbols of value (ie money) whilst people who's (paid) job it is to sort out the mess deal with it, rather everybody would deal with it directly in whatever capacity they have and for whatever outcome they wish to acheive. I think that is probably the essence and beauty of collective consciousness, a social collaboration far more powerful than any government.

[Rowan22]

I have a feeling Emma Goldman's spirit lives on in you somewhat- that was a brilliantly impassioned post and you raise some truly profound points. Again I'm just looking to expand on these points.

 

It has been an interesting journey so far for humanity. We've perceived ourselves from the heady heights of believing that we were Angels wrought in the same form as an almighty and powerful god and we've fallen off that parapet to become mere Darwinian beasts- full of primeval survival instincts and dangerous hidden behaviours and desires and we've also been robots with bodies full of electrical charge, fulcrums, pistons, gaskets and brains like computers with memory usage, data banks and filing systems. Our perspective of ourselves so inherently reflects our society at the time we exist whether it be predominantly religious, scholarly, technological etc.

 

The objectification of ourselves has been an important and necessary step I think in the 'learning about ourselves' process. It's an important function of our rational thinking process to objectify, break down, classify and describe each part of a whole in order to rethink the nature of the whole. But you're absolutely right there comes a time when this process not only becomes stagnant and no longer enlightening, but, in the case of people, it has led to increasing depersonalisation.

 

When people are only able to consider themselves as passive observers of a society, disenfranchised from economics and politics, apathetic regarding their uniqueness and powerfulness, ashamed of their eccentricities to the point that they'll ask doctors to prescribe cures for them then that society only really consists of shells or husks of human beings.

 

I think a hopeful view of the future, one in which anarchy could thrive, is a view in which people see themselves, not as robotic individuals competing against each other for economic survival, but as the very creators of the societies in which they live- that they as individuals can cooperatively shape society in the way that external forces (organised religion, technology etc) often have in the past. In this way people stop being objects passively observing and conforming to society and become agents actively creating society in their own image.

 

In this sense, when issues arise, whether they be economic or environmental etc, then people won't sit back and watch and won't just hand over more symbols of value (ie money) whilst people who's (paid) job it is to sort out the mess deal with it, rather everybody would deal with it directly in whatever capacity they have and for whatever outcome they wish to acheive. I think that is probably the essence and beauty of collective consciousness, a social collaboration far more powerful than any government.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully, without attracting anymore “Paul Young” recommendations lol! beautifully put, I really enjoyed what you have written! And thank you for such a complement. But I know all too well that we live in a far more, some would say “sophisticated” I would say “Sophist” society now. Which is almost involuntarily disposed to be cynical and suspicious of such “impassioned” language? Preferring the again some would say objectivity (which has its place) but which I would argue that objectivity very often masks sterility, and becomes a vehicle for the replacement of access with elitism.

 

And yes our journey as a species has spanned the whole range of imagination about whom and what we are. And where we rank in the scheme of things hasn’t it? Each new technological leap seeming to push our grand place in the cosmos further away from the central place in the universe we were supposed by many to occupy. Each and every one of them was real in my view, as you (to me) rightly point out. A necessary journey and a reflection of the time place of the understanding we had whilst acquiring the knowledge we now hold about reality.

 

What fascinates me most of all though are the constants. The idea of Freedom being one of the central universal concerns of man. From the ancient ideas of the Indus about Swaraj, or the essentially duel nature of freedom. To the echo of this in the great minds of the last three to four thousand years.

 

This I find truly awe inspiring. The Upanishadic story of the man and the darkened room,in what at first seems like a snake in the corner, but on entering the room catches the dim light and sees that the snake was in fact a rope? A metaphor for the search for freedom from ignorance which is taken up by Plato, Locke, and Rousseau and in the modern era by the existentialists whose understanding that it is the ground of being which determines which “Philosophy allows its ideas to be shaped by the world and not the reverse.

 

These giants, (as yet) have been largely misunderstood I feel. Passed over for the analytic and behaviourist. And the evidence of this over use of objectivity is (for me) is quite apparent. Again this isn’t to say that objectivity hasn’t been a useful and necessary rite of passage. Only to say that it’s high point has been reached and now requires a period of synthesis or integration take place again within human consciousness. Which allows this meteoric surge in knowledge to be used wisely and in reference to the creation of a just and liberated world?

 

I agree with so much of what you say I’m trying not to sound like a parrot! But I think you are exactly right to draw particular attention to the alienating forces within this system. And the “husks” left by its programming are plain to see. It robs so many of the volition and spirit which is needed to engage in any meaningful enterprise doesn’t it? To pretend that human beings can be enlivened by the symbolic trappings of materialism is making an objective out of Narcissism.

 

The antidote to this sleep walk into oblivion is it’s diametric opposite to me. Forces which reinforce our obsession with appearance and not with meaning are self evidently undermining of cohesion. When one person sees in another, vapidity and selfishness what more can there be of respect and valuing of the person? It seems to be to be about planting the seeds of disdain and contempt for one another.

 

And as your quote of Nietzsche says better than I ever could we are moulded into this grotesque shape by the interests of other people. And against the organismic unique pattern of becoming which are ours and ours alone. But which is the only real way we perceive those aspects of ourselves in each other. The inherent need for freedom to be (exactly who we are). Free from the pathologising prescriptive bars of a cage. Whose Pharmaceutical “solutions” Bely the reality of unmet need for attachment and contact within real human relationships. That much of this “illness” is natural distress. Distress which is a perfectly “normal reaction to an abnormal situation” (R.D Laing).

 

And it is for this reason, I appear so anti system. Not that I don’t recognise the necessity of where we are and have been, but that I recognise where it is we need to go if we are going to (integrate) and not deny the implications of our understanding. And first in the journey is the changing of our perceptions of our own need back into being grounded within our own bodies. Not in some DSM statistical matrix. But a recapturing of the ancient and yet cutting edge place individual freedom has in the establishment of a right and proper world society. A society with a history stretching back into history. And one whose modern Psychological inheritance has already found expression in the work of Jessie Taft, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

 

Regards David.

[Jim Hardie]

Phew!

I feel like I'm goosegogging.

[Rowan22]

Phew!

I feel like I'm goosegogging.

 

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand. "

— Albert Einstein

[Cavegirl]

Hopefully, without attracting anymore “Paul Young” recommendations lol! beautifully put, I really enjoyed what you have written! And thank you for such a complement. But I know all too well that we live in a far more, some would say “sophisticated” I would say “Sophist” society now. Which is almost involuntarily disposed to be cynical and suspicious of such “impassioned” language? Preferring the again some would say objectivity (which has its place) but which I would argue that objectivity very often masks sterility, and becomes a vehicle for the replacement of access with elitism.

 

And yes our journey as a species has spanned the whole range of imagination about whom and what we are. And where we rank in the scheme of things hasn’t it? Each new technological leap seeming to push our grand place in the cosmos further away from the central place in the universe we were supposed by many to occupy. Each and every one of them was real in my view, as you (to me) rightly point out. A necessary journey and a reflection of the time place of the understanding we had whilst acquiring the knowledge we now hold about reality.

 

What fascinates me most of all though are the constants. The idea of Freedom being one of the central universal concerns of man. From the ancient ideas of the Indus about Swaraj, or the essentially duel nature of freedom. To the echo of this in the great minds of the last three to four thousand years.

 

This I find truly awe inspiring. The Upanishadic story of the man and the darkened room,in what at first seems like a snake in the corner, but on entering the room catches the dim light and sees that the snake was in fact a rope? A metaphor for the search for freedom from ignorance which is taken up by Plato, Locke, and Rousseau and in the modern era by the existentialists whose understanding that it is the ground of being which determines which “Philosophy allows its ideas to be shaped by the world and not the reverse.

 

These giants, (as yet) have been largely misunderstood I feel. Passed over for the analytic and behaviourist. And the evidence of this over use of objectivity is (for me) is quite apparent. Again this isn’t to say that objectivity hasn’t been a useful and necessary rite of passage. Only to say that it’s high point has been reached and now requires a period of synthesis or integration take place again within human consciousness. Which allows this meteoric surge in knowledge to be used wisely and in reference to the creation of a just and liberated world?

 

I agree with so much of what you say I’m trying not to sound like a parrot! But I think you are exactly right to draw particular attention to the alienating forces within this system. And the “husks” left by its programming are plain to see. It robs so many of the volition and spirit which is needed to engage in any meaningful enterprise doesn’t it? To pretend that human beings can be enlivened by the symbolic trappings of materialism is making an objective out of Narcissism.

 

The antidote to this sleep walk into oblivion is it’s diametric opposite to me. Forces which reinforce our obsession with appearance and not with meaning are self evidently undermining of cohesion. When one person sees in another, vapidity and selfishness what more can there be of respect and valuing of the person? It seems to be to be about planting the seeds of disdain and contempt for one another.

 

And as your quote of Nietzsche says better than I ever could we are moulded into this grotesque shape by the interests of other people. And against the organismic unique pattern of becoming which are ours and ours alone. But which is the only real way we perceive those aspects of ourselves in each other. The inherent need for freedom to be (exactly who we are). Free from the pathologising prescriptive bars of a cage. Whose Pharmaceutical “solutions” Bely the reality of unmet need for attachment and contact within real human relationships. That much of this “illness” is natural distress. Distress which is a perfectly “normal reaction to an abnormal situation” (R.D Laing).

 

And it is for this reason, I appear so anti system. Not that I don’t recognise the necessity of where we are and have been, but that I recognise where it is we need to go if we are going to (integrate) and not deny the implications of our understanding. And first in the journey is the changing of our perceptions of our own need back into being grounded within our own bodies. Not in some DSM statistical matrix. But a recapturing of the ancient and yet cutting edge place individual freedom has in the establishment of a right and proper world society. A society with a history stretching back into history. And one whose modern Psychological inheritance has already found expression in the work of Jessie Taft, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

 

Regards David.

 

Hmm, how do I expand upon what I think is a perfect statement haha? I'm almost sad to spoil it by trying to develop it further through discussion As such I hope you don't mind if I head off slightly tangentially on a subject (that is still hopefully on topic with the thread question) but on which I would very much like to hear your opinion.

 

I think the barrier we face with freedom (based upon the philosophies of Hegel, Berlin and Fromm) is a sense of crossing the line that lies between the negative 'freedom from' to the more positive 'freedom to'. We can't really consider the infinite opportunities and possibilities of 'freedom to' because that is an area that must be allowed to develop organically (without stifling beliefs of what it should be like haunting it from the past) if and when it occurs. But we can and must consider what we have to become 'free from' in order to allow society to get to that point.

 

In the past, I've often considered the main focus of what we need to become free from to be the institution, in whatever form it may take. I've always seen society as a system in flux that has been hampered from constant change by the provision of institutional edifices- bodies that from the point of their creation are trapped in that point of time- too large and unwieldy to change at the speed that social change naturally occurs and thus holds society back. Religion has been the worst of these institutions because it actually embraces its stasis through immutable writings, practiced rituals and jealously guarded knowledge.

 

However, more recently, I've turned my focus upon the internet. At first glance it would appear that we finally have a useful tool in society that can keep up with the social flux. Almost everybody can access, contribute to and alter the internet at whim and as such it would appear to be a liberating force for society. However, I wonder whether we are becoming increasingly deluded with this liberation in regard to the fact that existing power bases, corporations and other institutions are becoming increasingly adept at reigning in the more liberating aspects of the net in favour of more control.

 

I can allude to several examples of this. There are today people whose job it is to infiltrate social networks and try to assess what the next young trend will be so that large fashion chains can create and market clothing and accessories before they are able to develop organically. As such, it's unlikely that something as spontaneous, home made and rebellious as the hippy or punk movements will ever be able to arise again.

 

There have also been increasing examples of events with a political motivation affecting people's net use. Evgeny Moratov (author of 'The Net Delusion') has described the phenomena of 'slacktivists' amongst the youth- a generation that feels politically active because they sign a petition on Facebook, but don't feel motivated to do more. Alongside this comes the fact that certain regimes (perhaps all?) are paying people to spread their propaganda on forums and blogs- thus creating a false reality. Opposing actions are at work today- regimes can choose tyrannically to limit people's access to the internet or they can manipulate the net, popularising and advertising 'appropriate' sites in order to control people. Moratov states "Bread and circuses, it seems, are the most effective censorship technique of all. The wise dictator doesn't inflame his people's curiosity by banning websites. He gives them comfort, pornography and spectacle".

 

How then, does it become possible to free oneself from such a manipulative tool and would it even be a welcome thing to do so? Institutions have been overthrown because society eventually changes faster than they are able to keep up, but this will never be the case with the net- it can adapt quickly to social change and be secretly manipulated to alter mass opinion. I admit, I love the internet and it's enormous possibilities so this question has me struggling.

 

PS. I have to find a way to use the word 'goosegogging' in everyday conversation soon haha- what a funny word! I've never heard it before.

[grafikhaus74]

I'm afraid Cameron and Clegg will probably be lost to the annals of history when this comes about.

 

Taking responsibility isn't that difficult, it just means doing things for ourselves rather than relying upon governments. People already make societies run governments just tend to manage it all (often badly and biasedly based upon their ideology). Society doesn't need ideology it can manage perfectly well with philosophy and freedom I'm sure.

 

All very nice. And all very naive. Just the other day, there were no parking wardens in Aberystwyth. Result? Total anarchy, punch ups, the lot. Imagine if it was left to 'the people' to decide something really important. As a young John Connor said in Terminator 2, 'We're not gonna make it, are we?'

 

As for Greece, if Gordon saved the World, why did he leave Greece out?

Here's a take on the Greece situation.

[Cavegirl]

All very nice. And all very naive. Just the other day, there were no parking wardens in Aberystwyth. Result? Total anarchy, punch ups, the lot. Imagine if it was left to 'the people' to decide something really important. As a young John Connor said in Terminator 2, 'We're not gonna make it, are we?'

 

As for Greece, if Gordon saved the World, why did he leave Greece out?

Here's a take on the Greece situation.

 

Ah yes I'm too naive to understand sociological issues, I can't understand the difference between political anarchy and the term's more common use as a means of describing chaos. I can't possibly understand the Greek situation because I read the drivel in the fascist leaning Daily Mail- oh wait- no!- that's not me, that's you!

[grafikhaus74]

Ah yes I'm too naive to understand sociological issues, I can't understand the difference between political anarchy and the term's more common use as a means of describing chaos. I can't possibly understand the Greek situation because I read the drivel in the fascist leaning Daily Mail- oh wait- no!- that's not me, that's you!

 

So after all the pie-in-the-sky diarrhoea you've been spouting, it all comes down to a rant about a newspaper.

 

Very profound...

[Rowan22]

Hmm, how do I expand upon what I think is a perfect statement haha? I'm almost sad to spoil it by trying to develop it further through discussion As such I hope you don't mind if I head off slightly tangentially on a subject (that is still hopefully on topic with the thread question) but on which I would very much like to hear your opinion.

 

I think the barrier we face with freedom (based upon the philosophies of Hegel, Berlin and Fromm) is a sense of crossing the line that lies between the negative 'freedom from' to the more positive 'freedom to'. We can't really consider the infinite opportunities and possibilities of 'freedom to' because that is an area that must be allowed to develop organically (without stifling beliefs of what it should be like haunting it from the past) if and when it occurs. But we can and must consider what we have to become 'free from' in order to allow society to get to that point.

 

In the past, I've often considered the main focus of what we need to become free from to be the institution, in whatever form it may take. I've always seen society as a system in flux that has been hampered from constant change by the provision of institutional edifices- bodies that from the point of their creation are trapped in that point of time- too large and unwieldy to change at the speed that social change naturally occurs and thus holds society back. Religion has been the worst of these institutions because it actually embraces its stasis through immutable writings, practiced rituals and jealously guarded knowledge.

 

However, more recently, I've turned my focus upon the internet. At first glance it would appear that we finally have a useful tool in society that can keep up with the social flux. Almost everybody can access, contribute to and alter the internet at whim and as such it would appear to be a liberating force for society. However, I wonder whether we are becoming increasingly deluded with this liberation in regard to the fact that existing power bases, corporations and other institutions are becoming increasingly adept at reigning in the more liberating aspects of the net in favour of more control.

 

I can allude to several examples of this. There are today people whose job it is to infiltrate social networks and try to assess what the next young trend will be so that large fashion chains can create and market clothing and accessories before they are able to develop organically. As such, it's unlikely that something as spontaneous, home made and rebellious as the hippy or punk movements will ever be able to arise again.

 

There have also been increasing examples of events with a political motivation affecting people's net use. Evgeny Moratov (author of 'The Net Delusion') has described the phenomena of 'slacktivists' amongst the youth- a generation that feels politically active because they sign a petition on Facebook, but don't feel motivated to do more. Alongside this comes the fact that certain regimes (perhaps all?) are paying people to spread their propaganda on forums and blogs- thus creating a false reality. Opposing actions are at work today- regimes can choose tyrannically to limit people's access to the internet or they can manipulate the net, popularising and advertising 'appropriate' sites in order to control people. Moratov states "Bread and circuses, it seems, are the most effective censorship technique of all. The wise dictator doesn't inflame his people's curiosity by banning websites. He gives them comfort, pornography and spectacle".

 

How then, does it become possible to free oneself from such a manipulative tool and would it even be a welcome thing to do so? Institutions have been overthrown because society eventually changes faster than they are able to keep up, but this will never be the case with the net- it can adapt quickly to social change and be secretly manipulated to alter mass opinion. I admit, I love the internet and it's enormous possibilities so this question has me struggling.

 

PS. I have to find a way to use the word 'goosegogging' in everyday conversation soon haha- what a funny word! I've never heard it before.

 

 

 

 

There is so much of note in what you have written that I could spend two days replying! Please forgive me if what I do reply to does not pay full respect to the quality of your points. I would like to return to many of them if that is o.k?

 

I honestly feel that when clarification is built on something we all share, and have access to within our own first hand/order simple day to day existence. It is less about complexity and more about finding simple common ground. Common ground which undeniably exists between people. But which the sophistry of modern life has obscured either by design or by unconscious incompetence.

 

I say unconscious because I believe most people have lost contact with the intrinsic default way of processing we are born with. The Philosophers you mention were trying to re establish this link, but I think limitations of time and place mean that the “is” became an “ought”. And an ought is by its terms of definition prescriptive. And falls at the first hurdle by negating the point or stage of development of the person who approaches the “ideal”.

 

In this sense, the “free from” you refer to is the establishment of libertarian forms of government, such as expounded by Locke and later by Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson.

It is an essential stage in the establishment of a paradigm which recognises the essentially intrinsic nature of liberty. But has (for me) shown its limitations time and again. The Hindu concept of “Swaraj” recognises this. But unfortunately we in the West are the inheritors of the Platonic notion of liberty. A concept which holds the state as the central determinant and arbiter of liberty.

 

In this, I believe the Hindi definition is a far more superior (in application) concept of freedom. Stressing as it does the essentiality of personal liberation as a prerequisite for all legitimate forms of authority. And in enshrining this concept with the much maligned and misunderstood caste system. A system which originally based its operation on the recognition of innate talents within the individual.

 

So say a young child showed promise in the area of business, those talents would be encouraged. In the belief/recognition that the essence of a person was the source of his/her talent and was more readily cultivated than an aspect which did not immediately present itself as the dominant trait.

 

From this perspective a perspective of merit as the original concept of caste was meant to be applied, the highest most revered intrinsic talent was the Brahmin. This spiritual trait was said to be the only nature whose form was such that the search for inner liberation was quite naturally sought over political power or wealth. Which were subordinated to the Brahmin in terms of order of import accorded?

The Western notion of state authority derived from Plato elevates the politic above the intrinsic. And it is for this reason (I believe) that Western models of government lead to authoritarian disconnection from the real intrinsic individuating potential of human beings to realise their natural potential.

 

And I believe in is in this era that the polarity which has existed between east and West may reverse, or may even resolve. A synthesis between the extrinsic and intrinsic search for truth. And a recognition that the two, are in reality only one with two poles of experiencing.

 

A rational and an emotional, an analytic and a viseo- spatial. The two hemispheres of consciousness finding the integration which time concept and dogma have obscured from being.

 

We have all the tools we need. We have the technology, the understanding and the ability to integrate the two, all that is missing is the Philosophical Bridge which will unify these elements into the compounds which will build a new society.

 

But resistance is everywhere to the dawning of this new paradigm. People sense the resistance and expound “conspiracy theories” to account for this intuited opposition to social progress. But in truth, this has always been the way change is balked at by those who have investment in the maintenance of the status quo. Our world is run by elites, that much is perfectly true. And because their interests are becoming increasingly discontinuous with the common good, it is inevitable that the majority will begin to object in increasingly forceful ways to this disparity of wealth and freedom.

 

We are seeing this unravelling now with the economic meltdowns around the world. A system whose operation is short term and in the interest of a minority is always one whose operation becomes increasingly divorced from the implications of it s operation.

 

For this reason I believe that, in time a new paradigm of value must emerge. A paradigm which (as the Hindi Swaraj) does not separate inner liberty and freedom from outer liberty and freedom. And which also has the degree of true enlightenment which sees the slave holder as enslaved as the slave.

 

Your point about marketing infiltration into “youth culture” is an example of this dynamic of master and servant.

 

In marketing terms “priming” as it is referred to as deploys the neuro- linguistic programming insight to manipulate consumer behaviour. I will not all not call it choice, since its very modus is the subvert free will and implant an unconscious instruction which is below the level of cognition. A fact which seems to have gone unnoticed or unheeded by most people. These “priming” Psychological weapons, are in operation in every sphere of modern advertising and media. And no objection to the fact that they replace informed agency with a conditioned response is ever made public.

 

Why? Well for the same reasons as have been alluded to by your points and mine. That respect for the untainted untouched unique human individuality has been steadily replaced by the implicit notion that a person’s vulnerability is an opportunity to exploit not a responsibility to assist.

 

An extrinsic definition of authority, based on rationalised ideas of legitimacy has lead to this social Darwinian model. Where the possession of might makes right.

 

This is not true. True power is only legitimate when it is given away. When it recognises the responsibility of power by distributing that power into egalitarian systems of operation which implicitly recognises the agency of the individual as the benchmark of true legitimate derivation of the structure and operation of any and all forms of community organisation.

 

We are living through the extreme antithesis of this organic paradigm. And examples such as the one cited using priming clearly show the implications of this paradigm. An objectification of the self. Of the environment and of all sentient life.

 

Freedom will (is) emerging from this. Since action and reaction is a fundamental law of the universe, whether you call it Newton’s law or Karmic law.

 

P.S I think the “goose goggling” remark refers to our perceived “naivety”. Apparently, any positive Philosophy is now naive. Hence my recommendation of Reich. But as they say “Twas ever thus”.

 

Regards David.

[Cavegirl]

So after all the pie-in-the-sky diarrhoea you've been spouting, it all comes down to a rant about a newspaper.

 

Very profound...

 

You've just reminded me- in my description of how people have perceived themselves over the years- I forgot to mention the zombies...

 

"To a philosopher a zombie is a human being who seems perfectly natural, normal and alert but is in reality not conscious at all but rather some sort of automaton"

- Kenan Malik from 'Man, beast and zombie'.

 

Thanks for the reminder!