A psychopath is traditionally characterized by someone who has no conscience. This is a clinically recognized condition, but the psychopaths in society often go overlooked as such. While a lack of empathy has certain drawbacks, it can also enable a sort of hyper-intelligence. To have a total moral disregard is a sort of labyrinthian freedom.
The Healer
I was recently watching an episode of House wherein an interesting moral dilemma takes place. To explain it let me first put the show into context: This medical drama is centered around the protagonist, Gregory House. When it comes to diagnostic medicine, besides being a drug addict and a total jerk, House is considered ‘the best.’ Despite his unorthodox approach, and rough exterior, he and his team always solve the case.
In the fifth season episode Teamwork this moral dilemma comes to a climax. Cameron, one of the female doctors, confronts House to tell him she is leaving both him and her husband. She expresses the love she had for both of them, and why it has now faded into pity. Her character represents the moral purity, consistently identifying with the patients at a humanitarian level, whereas House is a moral subjectivist; a pragmatist.
Cameron: “Motives matter. Lives have to come first”
House: “He’s alive, that’s what matters.”
Cameron: “Not to you...”
Camerson is right; House is shown to use the human life as leverage for his own personal aims time and time again. In the end, however, he always saves the patient. He’s the best; and hence the problem for Cameron: the pragmatic good seems to out-weigh a view in which there is an innate value on the human life if it can deliver. House scoffs at her religious proclivities as dogmatic thinking falls short, analytically, to emotionless deduction--and it is emotionless. The true extent of that void is exhibited in his failure to really convincingly love anyone.
Cameron’s leaving is the bitter result of her husband Chase, who also worked under House, killing a ruthless dictator in cold blood (that is, under the guise of medical treatment.) When Chase refuses to leave the hospital as they had previously planned, instead finding purpose in his brand of justice, and even telling Cameron “I’d do it again,” the moral counterargument crystalizes for Cameron. She addresses House in her final soliloquy:
“You ruined him, so that he can’t even see right from wrong; can’t even see the sanctity in a human life anymore. I loved you, I loved Chase. I feel sorry for you both. For what you’ve become, because there is no way back for either of you.”
That is, House has no definitive moral anchor and holds god-like power in his hands. Despite his tremendous capacity to save a life, this is vicarious intent; a flippant miracle. Psychopathic doctors exist, of course, and that is generally how it goes. Once one starts down the slippery slope of subjugating spiritual precepts to the excusatory power of cold reason there is, as Cameron points out, no way back. When you elevate logic above the divine, above all emotion, logic never lets you find a reason to put it back down.
Still, when faced with the decision of which doctor to choose, wouldn’t you want the best?
The Killer
One of the premiere traits of the psychopath is that they are attracted to positions of power, as their locus of being is set irrecoverably within baser desire to manipulate and control. While House gets off on knowing people better than they know themselves, a figure like James Bond gets off on knowing what society needs better than the democratic process knows itself. What were seen as collateral hurt feelings in the diagnostic procession above are replaced here by dead people, innocent or not, as beyond the glamour James Bond is surely a serial killer by definition.
The moral counterweight in the Bond paradigm is not as easy to track down; there is, however, one thing which always seems to remain constant. Through all of the bloodshed, clandestine hacks at democracy, and all the rest of the action sequence antics, the damsel-in-distress not only doesn’t seem to mind this machine, he turns her on. For the damsel, and the audience vicariously, there is the sense in which when you are exposed to the true nature of the cloak and dagger ‘big decisions’, there is an instant infatuation with someone can pull the trigger so unflinchingly. To someone with any shred of compassion this life beyond the thin facade of ‘government’ is simply unthinkable, and the giant who can burden such a load is surely a demi-god, with the right to ravage any self-respecting woman.
It is interesting to note that the psychopathic pragmatism, of course, posits values as subjective and contextual. With that in mind, it seems Bond cannot say he is doing the ‘right’ thing, merely what his orders are. If that is the case then the ‘enemy’ is logically no more evil than he is, just of another geo-political context. To them, Bond is demonic; the grim spectre of death itself.
So long as Bond is fighting on our side, however, he’s as sexy as hell, isn’t he?
The Face
Psychopaths make up a fairly small percent of society, the coherent and noteworthy hyper-ability enabled by a lack of conscience being even fewer among those individuals.
For the most part there is nothing romantic about the Psycho; the sexy veneer is but a haunting evolutionary cologne. They can, and usually are, ruthless, vicious people, despite the romanticized Hollywood portrayals. (The show Dexter, for example is about an admitted psychopath serial killer...who is a cop). When we look at society we see the morality of these exceptions to the rule applied everywhere else. That is, they are becoming less exceptions to the rule and more the norm. Integrity requires a moral constant; the dissolution of moral fibre can largely be attributed to the propensity to translate being pathetic into some iconic justification. That is, by magnifying the nature in which most people are inherently incapable of operating, the general public gains a learned lack of self-worth; it makes them invite the Id to rise up in that place to defend any criticism. Under the facade of an over-exuberant lack of lethargy, the apathy remains: the divide between the general person and an ‘expert’; that is, the sense in which common sense (global) problems are too much of an effort, and require the aid of some high-functioning con-artist.
Insofar as we can say that psychopaths are attracted to positions of power, this is would seem to be the meta-con.
If you place you trust in a psychopath you must do so with the implicit recognition that this person has no emotional investment in your well-being--no conceptual definition of such a thing. That is, these people, in the wider lens, need some form of help. Praising and rewarding spiritual arson as genius, or artistic, does the individual, nor society, any good.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Uncommon Sense
Talking to people I’ve discovered many tend to downplay intuition. Why bother worrying about it right? "Oh, it's just some subconscious thing. Whatever." Functionally, this does work in the short term, but philosophical questions persist because certain thoughts persist. Hunches. Unusual feelings, they casually nod in a particular direction.
To me intuition seems to underlie creativity, memory, everything. It is the tether to the unconscious and the subconscious below. A distinct mental component, and for all our advancements, we still don’t know that much about this strange, powerful place. We acknowledge it scientifically, but we don’t know it personally. I mean, we never finished mapping--which is a shame, really.
Do you find it odd, sitting on your bed, waking up? What just happened there? This is a third of our lives.
We cruise around, a conscious observer to some linear attention span, but the unconscious mind takes it all in without bias. It’s all there. To enter the unconscious is to enter the entirety of your life. Is there even a past or future in this place? One would hope this to be not inferior or irrelevant, but the second half of the human experience. Complete, holistic; the lines between time up here. The difference between knowledge and information, learning and understanding. Between personal formation, and in-formation.
The world today surfs the crest of potential manufactured. The amount of raw data which now exists in autopoesis is staggering to what has come previous, and still continues to grow rapidly. This is the age of information, surely, but quickly overlooked is what it has done to us, still stumbling near the darkened cave of ignorance. We sometimes act as if we didn’t just find the exit. We have watched the (sub)cultures of the world unite, transforming with each other, but a subversive nihilism seemed to blossom. Where people once felt constrained by the tradition and politics of the locality, modernity brought an exit to anywhere else: the global view. We filled the gaps, but it seems that regional ethical systems, while arguably faulty, were replaced with a lack of morality at all--a sort of go with the flow hedonism. We’re all famous now. Songbirds.
Here we are, connected so well.
What I want to talk about is common sense, but more importantly is our sense; where we want to go as a species. Historically, the windows of opportunity which lead to peace and abundance often close long before the coming nightfall. While it is still light out. I do not mean to sound like sound epic orator, but we’re all here--a global system, self aware--and if we mess it up, future generations will never forgive us. To climb so close to heaven, only to have drunken daddy crash the car on the family trip.
So I propose we just look at the basics here--the general day to day, what's up, who won the game? you’re late for work type stuff--because there is something I don’t understand. Why does this part take so much priority? I mean I love joking around and keeping things light, but this is a big part of life and we rest on it--as much as sleep. Now look at the logical structure underneath the everyday: common sense. Where one is told to use some common sense they are confronted by a statement which exists outside of self. Some sort of communal logic stall frequented by all. It works in theory, but is often clogged or gross. Sometimes someone tells me to use some common sense and it feels like they just dropped a turd for a trump card. The crowd gasps. Why abandon your own developed view if you think it is logically sound? For the collective? Are they right? Remember that people go to school to escape common sense, and all new ideas are nonconformist. Sometimes it’s just bad news. This useful illusion is so real a gatekeeper of knowledge. It is often a hand to the mould of the social mind. How much of our culture still rests on common sense? How much of science, even? Alphabet news, iconic ideologies; some things by their very nature point to common by design.
We see such an emphasis on the external world, but what of the inner world? That intuitive guidance is something some of the accomplished people often swear by. The ones who seem to just live in the right spot. It is perhaps the birthplace of grace.
“How did I make my millions? Just trusted my gut.”
“I dunno, when I play I get into this zone where it’s like I’m not even thinking.”
“All good art is familiar.”
“When I dance I feel everything.”
Most accept this force because most seem to feel it. It persists. Just like those odd thoughts we have from time to time. Urges, curiosities, the hunches that lead some into detective work, or deeper into the scale of possibility, perhaps some all-out clairvoyance, an arbiter of the veil.
I guess my point is that when we look around in apathy, thinking that all of our problems are so large, and complex, I have the feeling that they scatter like darkness at sunrise as we slip into sleep and into our personal worlds. Maybe we know all the answers to that which trouble us already? Maybe it’s all there? There is always the possibility that we’ve just been looking in all the wrong direction. It’s funny: some people claim that the needy and easily manipulated should ‘wake up’ to the various power eventualities, but really we need to go down. Down. Further, to the planet whereupon stands the God of War. In this place we are the supreme being.
To me intuition seems to underlie creativity, memory, everything. It is the tether to the unconscious and the subconscious below. A distinct mental component, and for all our advancements, we still don’t know that much about this strange, powerful place. We acknowledge it scientifically, but we don’t know it personally. I mean, we never finished mapping--which is a shame, really.
Do you find it odd, sitting on your bed, waking up? What just happened there? This is a third of our lives.
We cruise around, a conscious observer to some linear attention span, but the unconscious mind takes it all in without bias. It’s all there. To enter the unconscious is to enter the entirety of your life. Is there even a past or future in this place? One would hope this to be not inferior or irrelevant, but the second half of the human experience. Complete, holistic; the lines between time up here. The difference between knowledge and information, learning and understanding. Between personal formation, and in-formation.
The world today surfs the crest of potential manufactured. The amount of raw data which now exists in autopoesis is staggering to what has come previous, and still continues to grow rapidly. This is the age of information, surely, but quickly overlooked is what it has done to us, still stumbling near the darkened cave of ignorance. We sometimes act as if we didn’t just find the exit. We have watched the (sub)cultures of the world unite, transforming with each other, but a subversive nihilism seemed to blossom. Where people once felt constrained by the tradition and politics of the locality, modernity brought an exit to anywhere else: the global view. We filled the gaps, but it seems that regional ethical systems, while arguably faulty, were replaced with a lack of morality at all--a sort of go with the flow hedonism. We’re all famous now. Songbirds.
Here we are, connected so well.
What I want to talk about is common sense, but more importantly is our sense; where we want to go as a species. Historically, the windows of opportunity which lead to peace and abundance often close long before the coming nightfall. While it is still light out. I do not mean to sound like sound epic orator, but we’re all here--a global system, self aware--and if we mess it up, future generations will never forgive us. To climb so close to heaven, only to have drunken daddy crash the car on the family trip.
So I propose we just look at the basics here--the general day to day, what's up, who won the game? you’re late for work type stuff--because there is something I don’t understand. Why does this part take so much priority? I mean I love joking around and keeping things light, but this is a big part of life and we rest on it--as much as sleep. Now look at the logical structure underneath the everyday: common sense. Where one is told to use some common sense they are confronted by a statement which exists outside of self. Some sort of communal logic stall frequented by all. It works in theory, but is often clogged or gross. Sometimes someone tells me to use some common sense and it feels like they just dropped a turd for a trump card. The crowd gasps. Why abandon your own developed view if you think it is logically sound? For the collective? Are they right? Remember that people go to school to escape common sense, and all new ideas are nonconformist. Sometimes it’s just bad news. This useful illusion is so real a gatekeeper of knowledge. It is often a hand to the mould of the social mind. How much of our culture still rests on common sense? How much of science, even? Alphabet news, iconic ideologies; some things by their very nature point to common by design.
We see such an emphasis on the external world, but what of the inner world? That intuitive guidance is something some of the accomplished people often swear by. The ones who seem to just live in the right spot. It is perhaps the birthplace of grace.
“How did I make my millions? Just trusted my gut.”
“I dunno, when I play I get into this zone where it’s like I’m not even thinking.”
“All good art is familiar.”
“When I dance I feel everything.”
Most accept this force because most seem to feel it. It persists. Just like those odd thoughts we have from time to time. Urges, curiosities, the hunches that lead some into detective work, or deeper into the scale of possibility, perhaps some all-out clairvoyance, an arbiter of the veil.
I guess my point is that when we look around in apathy, thinking that all of our problems are so large, and complex, I have the feeling that they scatter like darkness at sunrise as we slip into sleep and into our personal worlds. Maybe we know all the answers to that which trouble us already? Maybe it’s all there? There is always the possibility that we’ve just been looking in all the wrong direction. It’s funny: some people claim that the needy and easily manipulated should ‘wake up’ to the various power eventualities, but really we need to go down. Down. Further, to the planet whereupon stands the God of War. In this place we are the supreme being.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Further Exploring Cannabis: The Panacea
Outside of Halifax in one of the more rural areas lives a man named Rick Simpson. This man grew and cultivated hemp into a highly concentrated oil form for several years, which he gave to people with pain or disease. The following will be a brief summary of the events which transpired leading up to and during the conference he gave at Dalhousie University this past Sunday.
The main thing to keep in mind about hemp is that this is a 100% natural substance. The science behind cannabis in recent years has become quite interesting. It has breached the scientific field with its complexity and explanatory superiority in biology. It is losing its taboo, seemingly, as this new generation take on more and more research positions.
The first time I looked at Rick the first thought I had was 'radiant.' He explains why: "It's pretty straightforward" he says, a small grin on his face. "You take 60g of oil over a thee month period (You need about a pound for this, which is quite a bit) and whatever is ailing you will go away. This isn't like smoking; 90% of the medicinal properties of cannabis literally go up in smoke when you chose that method."
He recounts the thousands of people of varying diseases like aids, cancer, MS, and some other ones which have no known cures that he's seen cured from people's bodies, sometimes in as little as three weeks using his method. He explains his own arthritis which used to plague him is nothing more than a nostalgic comedy as he dances about the room.
I am looking around the room to see what everyone else thinks -- alright, question period time. Skeptics go nuts, let him have it. "This man saved my life" one man recounts in tears, explaining how he had two months to live before he saw Rick. Another man just smiles as he explains his chronic back spasms affect him no longer. Really the only thing that the students could really muster up as a skeptical defense was the suggestion that he needs to get some proper data on the books. I mean surely this man is wrong somehow, and he hasn't discovered some cure all? Surely there is some clerical mistake... This seemed to be the logic in the student camp.
So is this a mistake? I mean if he had discovered such a cure, surely you would have heard about it, right....? Well, maybe. What has Rick been doing all this time besides allegedly curing people? If not legitimate research, then what? Well Rick's been in court. You see, this is all illegal. I don't mean in the conventional sense. It's perfectly legal for people to, with a government approved medical exemption, grow or license someone else to grow cannabis in Canada. It has medicinal value, after all. You can smoke it out in the cold, partially chastised, to get rid of your chemotherapy sickness.
What is illegal is the oil. Which is unfortunate. It would seem that the government law preempted this apparent medical aid. Rick claims, while promoting anti-weed propaganda externally, the pharmaceutical companies may have learned about this on the inside a long time ago. Seems plausible, but either way the oil is legally forbidden for now.
So what came out of Rick's eventual arrest? Thankfully fate afforded us a judge with a conscience. Rick was fined $2000, probably just to cover court fees. "This man is guilty, but a healer" the official ruling.
So what is Rick Simpson up to these days? He will be touring in Europe with the most well known cannabis icon on the planet, Jack Herer, who is among the list of people that he has cured. Yes, it seems like the cat has been definitively let out of the bag with this one. This process is starting to catch on all over the world.
In closing: Some things are not too good to be true. The blessings of nature are available as always; now in the modern age health and happiness should be the watermark.
Resources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0cSg5CW6PQ -- Dr. Robert Malamede, University of Colorado.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsK21EJDAPc -- Rick Simpson's 'The Run from the Cure' Documentary
The main thing to keep in mind about hemp is that this is a 100% natural substance. The science behind cannabis in recent years has become quite interesting. It has breached the scientific field with its complexity and explanatory superiority in biology. It is losing its taboo, seemingly, as this new generation take on more and more research positions.
The first time I looked at Rick the first thought I had was 'radiant.' He explains why: "It's pretty straightforward" he says, a small grin on his face. "You take 60g of oil over a thee month period (You need about a pound for this, which is quite a bit) and whatever is ailing you will go away. This isn't like smoking; 90% of the medicinal properties of cannabis literally go up in smoke when you chose that method."
He recounts the thousands of people of varying diseases like aids, cancer, MS, and some other ones which have no known cures that he's seen cured from people's bodies, sometimes in as little as three weeks using his method. He explains his own arthritis which used to plague him is nothing more than a nostalgic comedy as he dances about the room.
I am looking around the room to see what everyone else thinks -- alright, question period time. Skeptics go nuts, let him have it. "This man saved my life" one man recounts in tears, explaining how he had two months to live before he saw Rick. Another man just smiles as he explains his chronic back spasms affect him no longer. Really the only thing that the students could really muster up as a skeptical defense was the suggestion that he needs to get some proper data on the books. I mean surely this man is wrong somehow, and he hasn't discovered some cure all? Surely there is some clerical mistake... This seemed to be the logic in the student camp.
So is this a mistake? I mean if he had discovered such a cure, surely you would have heard about it, right....? Well, maybe. What has Rick been doing all this time besides allegedly curing people? If not legitimate research, then what? Well Rick's been in court. You see, this is all illegal. I don't mean in the conventional sense. It's perfectly legal for people to, with a government approved medical exemption, grow or license someone else to grow cannabis in Canada. It has medicinal value, after all. You can smoke it out in the cold, partially chastised, to get rid of your chemotherapy sickness.
What is illegal is the oil. Which is unfortunate. It would seem that the government law preempted this apparent medical aid. Rick claims, while promoting anti-weed propaganda externally, the pharmaceutical companies may have learned about this on the inside a long time ago. Seems plausible, but either way the oil is legally forbidden for now.
So what came out of Rick's eventual arrest? Thankfully fate afforded us a judge with a conscience. Rick was fined $2000, probably just to cover court fees. "This man is guilty, but a healer" the official ruling.
So what is Rick Simpson up to these days? He will be touring in Europe with the most well known cannabis icon on the planet, Jack Herer, who is among the list of people that he has cured. Yes, it seems like the cat has been definitively let out of the bag with this one. This process is starting to catch on all over the world.
In closing: Some things are not too good to be true. The blessings of nature are available as always; now in the modern age health and happiness should be the watermark.
Resources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0cSg5CW6PQ -- Dr. Robert Malamede, University of Colorado.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsK21EJDAPc -- Rick Simpson's 'The Run from the Cure' Documentary
Sunday, April 05, 2009
200 People
As reported in 'In Search of the Miraculous', Gurdjieff has said that 200 people belonging to the esoteric circle of humanity could greatly change the world if they so chose. Perhaps this is false, or there are not yet 200 of these individuals. This whole threshold concept has conceptual friends, like the 100th Monkey Syndrome. The validity of these things can relate to the nature of timing. They don't necessarily have to, but that is where I want to focus.
The word exoteric means outer. Outside the mind; public. The word esoteric relates to both inner experience, and also the inner aspect of society. Hidden; introspection at one level or another. A buddhist monk is a cliched but accurate example: some truths are inexpressible, but it doesn't mean they are not there.
Most esoteric schools of thought maintain there are objective dynamics to things, (even if ever-changing) that of course the universe is not some public school random happenstance of things. What's further, most see the current time as the fulcrum of future existence; a window of opportunity which can only occur at specific times. The Yuga Cycle, in Hinduism, for example, holds that existence flows through four different Yugas which correspond to the nature of the soul. The ever-shifting legs of the Dharmic bull. Repetition, filtering.
So this brings me to timing. It is something which has always nagged at me.
I remember when I was a kid, playing video games, there were invariably these things which only occurred once during the game and if you didn't do it, or failed, you couldn't go back and do it again unless you started another game. No saves. You get the idea. When I failed on those things I got this feeling which seemed to extend beyond video games and my life itself. It made me think: This is only a game, but so is life. Many esoteric schools and some religions hold this to be true. The sense in which, if we do not get say, 200 individuals by a the time the 200 dark elites of the social consciousness do, and ultimately themselves, then we will have to start at the beginning again.
...there is another option: there are now 200 of these individuals but they choose not to intervene with your free will. For in the end, is it the decision of 200 people anyways? Would they be any better than those 200 directing the social agenda? If someone would rather re-start, then who am I to tell them it is wrong? Who would listen?
The Dharmic bull steps; it waits for no one.
The word exoteric means outer. Outside the mind; public. The word esoteric relates to both inner experience, and also the inner aspect of society. Hidden; introspection at one level or another. A buddhist monk is a cliched but accurate example: some truths are inexpressible, but it doesn't mean they are not there.
Most esoteric schools of thought maintain there are objective dynamics to things, (even if ever-changing) that of course the universe is not some public school random happenstance of things. What's further, most see the current time as the fulcrum of future existence; a window of opportunity which can only occur at specific times. The Yuga Cycle, in Hinduism, for example, holds that existence flows through four different Yugas which correspond to the nature of the soul. The ever-shifting legs of the Dharmic bull. Repetition, filtering.
So this brings me to timing. It is something which has always nagged at me.
I remember when I was a kid, playing video games, there were invariably these things which only occurred once during the game and if you didn't do it, or failed, you couldn't go back and do it again unless you started another game. No saves. You get the idea. When I failed on those things I got this feeling which seemed to extend beyond video games and my life itself. It made me think: This is only a game, but so is life. Many esoteric schools and some religions hold this to be true. The sense in which, if we do not get say, 200 individuals by a the time the 200 dark elites of the social consciousness do, and ultimately themselves, then we will have to start at the beginning again.
...there is another option: there are now 200 of these individuals but they choose not to intervene with your free will. For in the end, is it the decision of 200 people anyways? Would they be any better than those 200 directing the social agenda? If someone would rather re-start, then who am I to tell them it is wrong? Who would listen?
The Dharmic bull steps; it waits for no one.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
The 11th Hour
The other day I watched a video of an interview with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He is an interesting man because he belongs to a group of people who are retired from politics formal, but who essentially continue to work twelve hour days in some geopolitical fashion or another. I don't refer to any group in particular; just look around the world and you'll find the Kissingers, the Brezinski's. They're simply there, working hard. The particular video in question was filmed in 2007, when Kissinger was eighty-four years old.
World elites such as Henry seem to be striving towards “the rule of law, as opposed to that of the jungle” as George Bush Senior once famously said in reference to global direction. The key word there seems to be ‘rule.’ On the other side of the ethical coin we have the localized religious/nationalist tendencies which Kissinger and Co. would paint as the ugly villain of our modern times. That is, the good and bad of sovereign nations and their people self-governing.
So are they right?
The idea of a worldwide revolution is a varied one, ranging from the depths of conspiracy to the heart of the public sphere. Tinfoil hats to Obama and Oprah -- there is a mutual recognition that things seem to be coming to a head. Some would say it is only inevitable. We are surrounded by technological potential caged and delayed by the politics of greed; this is a world where people starve to death, and modern countries somehow slide into recessions. Things should be getting better, but they’re getting more fearful, and less free.
What is going on here?
Is this a natural progression, or is it all part of the plan? Is shady fiat banking causing these problems, or does our jungle need more authority than we already see? The coincidence theorists are scolded by skeptics as delusional for their claims of clandestine planning and occult method, while the paranoid scold the skeptics for not looking far enough. Whatever the objective truth, in the 11th hour it truly doesn't matter and time stops for no species.
Right and wrong, good and bad, it all depends on how you define autonomy, for it can be defined in a great number of ways; the many derivations in which certain ignorance can mix with certain intelligence. As Henry points out, the engine of globalization will of course require the redistribution of geopolitical power and that will be a tough time economically for the West. Some will go broke, surprised and angry. Beyond that, should Kissinger and Co. get their way, will be a world devoid of many things, some of which would admittedly be some of the problems we now face. Absolute power is absolute peace. For some this is a peace of mind; for others, this is a piece of mind.
Some stand in opposition to people like Kissinger who play higher reasoning on those who cannot understand it for control, others welcome the Darwinian logic entirely. On one side is the accumulating worry that one version of freedom is about to be lost; on the other there is the growing attitude that maybe those questioning power should just shut up and let it do its thing.
Depending on where you place your values, you may be welcoming that which I fear most. Whatever the outcome, the clock is forever ticking. It is up to us to discern the hands from the face.
World elites such as Henry seem to be striving towards “the rule of law, as opposed to that of the jungle” as George Bush Senior once famously said in reference to global direction. The key word there seems to be ‘rule.’ On the other side of the ethical coin we have the localized religious/nationalist tendencies which Kissinger and Co. would paint as the ugly villain of our modern times. That is, the good and bad of sovereign nations and their people self-governing.
So are they right?
The idea of a worldwide revolution is a varied one, ranging from the depths of conspiracy to the heart of the public sphere. Tinfoil hats to Obama and Oprah -- there is a mutual recognition that things seem to be coming to a head. Some would say it is only inevitable. We are surrounded by technological potential caged and delayed by the politics of greed; this is a world where people starve to death, and modern countries somehow slide into recessions. Things should be getting better, but they’re getting more fearful, and less free.
What is going on here?
Is this a natural progression, or is it all part of the plan? Is shady fiat banking causing these problems, or does our jungle need more authority than we already see? The coincidence theorists are scolded by skeptics as delusional for their claims of clandestine planning and occult method, while the paranoid scold the skeptics for not looking far enough. Whatever the objective truth, in the 11th hour it truly doesn't matter and time stops for no species.
Right and wrong, good and bad, it all depends on how you define autonomy, for it can be defined in a great number of ways; the many derivations in which certain ignorance can mix with certain intelligence. As Henry points out, the engine of globalization will of course require the redistribution of geopolitical power and that will be a tough time economically for the West. Some will go broke, surprised and angry. Beyond that, should Kissinger and Co. get their way, will be a world devoid of many things, some of which would admittedly be some of the problems we now face. Absolute power is absolute peace. For some this is a peace of mind; for others, this is a piece of mind.
Some stand in opposition to people like Kissinger who play higher reasoning on those who cannot understand it for control, others welcome the Darwinian logic entirely. On one side is the accumulating worry that one version of freedom is about to be lost; on the other there is the growing attitude that maybe those questioning power should just shut up and let it do its thing.
Depending on where you place your values, you may be welcoming that which I fear most. Whatever the outcome, the clock is forever ticking. It is up to us to discern the hands from the face.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
We. Are. Robots. -- A Rant.
Teachers indulge in this annoyance that I find particularly short-sighted. Here, caught in a school system clinging to the inverse proportion between social intelligence and a greed-driven technological potential for control, we have a generation of kids who have seen more cultural novelty than perhaps every previous generation combined, a culture inundated from birth deliberately with chemicals, violence, sex, and beyond hours of brain-numbing television, every possible conceptual option one could ask for via the internet --anywhere, at any time-- sitting in a classroom with some old professor giving them the disapproving stare because they are not engaging the material like they used to: with some vague notion of the wonder years pizzaz. We didn’t decide to flush the untamed human spirit from the emotional lexicon. How is this our fault? With public education systems which --worldwide-- relegate anything but technologically based avenues of learning to some one-room broom closet orchestra with a mural behind it class, I’m personally amazed students arrive in post-secondary education with the ability for any sort of intuitive lateral ability at all, and you’re giving us the generation eyebrow because we’re not as lively as you used to be? I don’t know about my friends, but my brain works in a holistic fashion. You cannot subject an entire generation of people to what functionally equates to city after city of electromagnetic sludge, and the trance-like depths of right-brain overload, and expect too much. I dunno about you but I grew on up on TV. How about this: if you were content enough to hand us a world run by clandestine corporational exploitation you didn’t bother to address because fiat bankers were too busy throwing free credit at you, then why don’t you quit the complaining and just shove the information down our throats like the robots we are?
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