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Our inability to settle upon shared universal values has to do with legitimate tensions that arise out of dichotomies in many many branches of human thought. I will list a few and invite you to add to the list. The important point I am making is this; as these polarities overlap one another it creates complexities that exist outside of rational efficacy. In other words, we would have to avail ourselves of some higher form of intelligence to parse the data. In even other words, the machine is generating its own social environment, one obscure to us, by its nature.
2 Parties
Solar Time vs. Interval Time
Manned missions in space vs. Robotic Exploration
Humans are good vs. Humans are selfish
Tradition vs. Innovation
Left vs. Right
Darkness vs. Light
Positive charge vs. Negative charge
The speed of light is constant vs. The speed of light changes
Return to nature vs. Technological progress
Gender reality vs. Gender neutrality
May 16, 2012 | Categories:concepts, Contemporary Culture, Futurism, Juxtaposition, Language, Philosophy, politics, Universals | Leave A Comment »
Democracy and Enlightenment are mutually dependent. Therefore, because we are far from the latter, we cannot expect, any time soon, to have anything like the former. We are doomed to experience either the tyranny of power, or the tyranny of the mob, and these too are mutually dependent. Our laws are poems we write to record our highest moral expectations of one another. Political reform is impossible without moral reform.
May 09, 2012 | Categories:aphorisms, concepts, Contemporary Culture, Curent Events, history, Philosophy, politics, Revolution, Universals | 4 Comments »
Imagination is the primary driver of compassion, as it enables us to feel what those who suffer feel.
Compassion drives revolution, because shared feelings compel us to act in solidarity.
Thus Imagination is the primary threat to all empires, and so every measure is taken to squash it.
In our time, Imagination is squashed by commercializing it, creating the illusion of ownership where such a thing is not possible.
May 04, 2012 | Categories:Art, concepts, Conspiracy Theory, Contemporary Culture, Copyrights, history, Philosophy, politics, Revolution, Slavery, TheMachine, Universals | 1 Comment »
May 03, 2012 | Categories:comedy, Curent Events, Environment, Film, politics, Science, Survival, TheMachine, To Save Your Kind | Leave A Comment »
Very rarely will I post links here to articles that would take you away from my site, as I wish to capture you virtually, like we all do, so that I can get more attention, and live there in your neural network, and secure my perpetual affect upon the tapestry of forces that make up this reality.
That being said, I am going to defer to the wisdom of an article written by somebody other than myself. Glen Coco (I’m not sure if that is his real name) has written a brilliant HILARIOUS little article, a response to the ridiculousness of the current art world. He shoots from the hip, but does so because the target is so easy to hit, to anybody willing to break the taboo…so, it is not really that he all that insightful in this article, although I assume he is, but that he is courageous to speak plainly and truthfully to the glaring fact that art has turned into the haven for freaks and the intellectually handicapped, and has thus made all intellectualism a threat to the status quo.
I support this person’s writing, and I hope to cross paths with him someday, so we can share a beer and draw up plans for an artistic underground. read his article, and breathe some fresh air.
I’m Sick of Pretending : I don’t get art.
May 03, 2012 | Categories:Art, Art Blogs, Art Coverage, art history, Contemporary Culture, Revolution | Leave A Comment »
If I have a gift, in the realm of revolution, it is for creating linguistic frames that allow us to perceive the problem in a way that implies a next step.
And one of these problems is found in our use of the word Solidarity. There are two forms of solidarity; negative and positive.
Negative Solidarity is the type of solidarity we have in the Occupy Movement. We are united against a vast array of things we DON’T want…this is a negation of culture…and this helps us understand the symbolic strength of the Black Bloc approach, the darkening destruction of self, the chasm of anonymity that, in its own way, is the ultimate expression of our cultural crisis. This is a kind of condemnation that will ultimately weaken the movement because it is frightening…even though its legitimacy cannot be denied.
And then there is Positive Solidarity - This is the magic entity that we were hoping the Occupy Movement would give rise to. Positive Solidarity is people united in favor of things they DO want. Positive Solidarity gives rise to culture, and allows people a reason to sacrifice time and energy in risky behavior. Positive Solidarity is distinct from demands. Demands are submissive gestures, as it legitimates the power of those who are there to satisfy these demands. Positive Solidarity lends itself to WILL, the will to move toward the shared goals with or without the help of others. We have the tools to build any society we want. WE REALLY DO. But, we don’t have the positive solidarity, we don’t know what we want. This is always the problem in a crisis, of defining the direction out.
I hope this framing will help stir this conversation within the movement, not because I want to divide people, but because I want to reveal the division that is ACTUALLY there. Negative Solidarity is disempowering, but Positive Solidarity requires a kind of soul-searching that is horrifying and complex, and will reveal values that will demand behavioral compromises. The changes we seek are within, we cannot dump them on a bunch of rich guys, even though they are assholes.
May 02, 2012 | Categories:concepts, Contemporary Culture, Direct Action, Economics, Language, OccupyWallStreet, Philosophy, politics, psychology, Revolution, Slavery, To Save Your Kind, Universals | Leave A Comment »
Here are some things I’m doing or thinking about.
1. I have committed myself to provoking members of the Occupy Movement (I still consider myself a member) into asking what the movement means now that, you know…there is no occupation, and we have become what we said we were not, a protest movement. I believe the solidarity we have is of a negative sort, arising out of what we don’t want, rather than what we do want….if we were able to shut down the machine, our true value differences would reveal themselves, as they have for very many smaller local movements…if you would like help me critique the movement, for its own good, use the #OccupyGadfly….start trending…let’s shake it up a bit…It’s May Day and what I see is just more people fighting with cops, and that feels very 2011 to me.
2. Ideas on CBC Podcast on Carl Jung’s RedBook – I was blown away by this podcast yesterday, and it reaffirms a growing trend of looking into the duality of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud as the founding fathers of the neurotic orientations of our time. The dichotomies are fascinating, especially since they are so deeply intertwined with the politics whose shadow we still live within. I speculate there is no greater place, right now, to embed coded agendas. Beware though, whoever enters into this realm is subject to its personal backlash.
3. This is my new puppy Rosy…isn’t she cute?
May 01, 2012 | Categories:2012, concepts, Contemporary Culture, Curent Events, OccupyWallStreet, Peace, Philosophy, Podcast Review, politics, psychology, Required Listening, revelation, Revolution, Spirituality | Leave A Comment »
I have reached the point philosophically where the liberals accuse me of being a neo-conservative and the conservatives accuse me of radical liberalism. I exist in a quantum moral state and I like it.
Apr 24, 2012 | Categories:concepts, Contemporary Culture, Language, Philosophy, politics | 4 Comments »
I was talking with my friend E.D. last night about my theory of ‘The Miracle Dream.’ I have long believed that the only thing that could create the kind of lasting progress that many in the world hunger for is a genuine miracle, something unexplainable that appears real to everybody. There can be no political solutions in a world of such value-fracture, so there are only 2 things that can bring people into the feeling of sameness from which all political solutions arise; utter catastrophe or miracle, or a combination of both. The value of a miracle is that it cannot, by definition, be explained by current scientific theory. This would deal a crushing blow to the mechanistic worldview that has trapped the minds and bodies of so many people, and reawaken us to the mysterious nature of existence. It is only when the integrity of our world views are shaken that we can realize our freedom, and it would take a miracle to have this happen globally.
So, after becoming convinced of the need, I realized that it was a bit difficult to imagine what such a miracle would look like. But once I put my mind to it, I found I could describe an event that would be impossible to ignore. I imagined one night everybody in the world, when they slept, had the same exact vivid dream. The content of the dream would of course have a deep relationship with the consequences of the miracle, but for the purposes of my argument, it does not matter. What matters is that the next morning the dream would have been so powerful that people would feel compelled to share it, and would be shocked, even skeptical to hear that the person they were telling reported having the same dream. They would investigate further, seeing reports of the dream on Facebook. Within 24 hours the world would realize that everybody had had the same exact dream. This would, of course, be inexplicable, and universal. Such a dream, depending upon the content, could catalyze real change, of the sort that has become impossible by traditional means.
I would love to believe that more traditional means of political leadership could provide the kind of cultural guidance our new global community needs, but I don’t. I know how absurd this is, but so is it absurd to believe that 18th century representative democracy is a valid response to the needs of 7 billion world citizens who have different religious, political and scientific beliefs…the vast majority of whom hold onto their beliefs gun in hand.
As my friend E.D. was helping me flesh this idea out, I realized that it might be helpful to share the idea of the dream, to prepare peoples’ minds for the idea of a miracle, at a time when this word has lost all meaning to intellectuals, whom will suffer most from such an event.
So, in the spirit of a miracle that would bring people together, and foster the kind of change that could bring us into balance with our world and its citizens, I invite you to describe your own miracles, as a thought experiment. See if you can describe an event, that would be undeniable, and force all people simultaneously to accept the reality of something mysterious. I also invite you to describe the dream content…What type of dream would be most effective to the ends I’ve described?
The dream comes.
Apr 24, 2012 | Categories:2012, concepts, Globalization, Performance Art, Philosophy, politics, Religion, revelation, Singularity, Spirituality, TheTopic, Universals | Leave A Comment »
It is often the case when we think about Freud and Jung that we project backwards our ideas about what it means to be a doctor, what it means to provide treatment, as the world in which we live, at least in theory, has very rigid notions about how we are to relate to medicinal approaches. But this movie is successful in taking us into a time where these ideas were just beginning to take hold, and had to, of necessity, craft its boundaries through the process of error. In other words, it was a revolutionary time, and these were people engaged in the kind of self-exploration that was akin to later cultural revolutions, whereby standard codes of morality are tested.
But more important than this, I was transported into the more subtle cultural and political dynamics that hindered more expansive leaps, and restricted these practices from their beginning. I realized that the ‘science’ of psychoanalysis arose within the industrialization of society, when, as a result of the Enlightenment, human beings were left without a spiritual anchor, in the form of religion, to stabilize their emotional lives. So, hospitals began to ‘contain’ those who were not adjusting to the new mechanized social landscape, and there was an urgent need to ‘cure’ people who were unable to put aside their more ‘primitive’ intuitions. I am using all these quotes to indicate perspectives that are time bound, but perhaps prejudiced toward the very idea of progress…and there are parallels that can be drawn today, in the relationship between mental health, conformity, and materialism.
Ironically, Freud and Jung do exactly what priests were doing before the Enlightenment, standing in the place of God and seeking to provide answers that would allow their ‘patient’s’ to comply with society’s rigid demands. This film is very instructive. It is enjoyable, but only to those who enjoy movies made to illustrate ideas. The mechanics of the film are sufficient to perform the act of exploring the question with a nuance that is kind to our species, that is forgiving…and by this I mean, the whole 100 years that have followed have made Gods of these men and their works, and this film gives us permission to start over, to begin this process all over again with many of their burdens now lifted.
Apr 21, 2012 | Categories:anxiety, Film, Film Review, Philosophy, psychology, Science, Spirituality, TheMachine, Universals | Leave A Comment »
