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

[Rowan22]

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...

 

How is Stepford by the way?

[Jim Hardie]

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.

 

I wouldn't say either one of you is naïve. Goosegogging meant 'playing gooseberry' when I were a lad!

[Rowan22]

I wouldn't say either one of you is naïve. Goosegogging meant 'playing gooseberry' when I lad!

 

 

Apologies Jim.

[Cavegirl]

Would you mind continuing this discussion through pm David? There's a lot I'd like to expand upon here and some points I'd like you to clarify for me further and I fear we'll end up far off topic.

[Phanerothyme]

Would you mind continuing this discussion through pm David? There's a lot I'd like to expand upon here and some points I'd like you to clarify for me further and I fear we'll end up far off topic.

 

I'd rather you posted it here. I was quite enjoying that.

[Jim Hardie]

I'd rather you posted it here. I was quite enjoying that.

 

...me too!