The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

I cannot agree with- and stress this statement enough, with specific emphasis on the second sentence.

I think that this last part should be our main focus…given that Nietzsche is too popular to be dismissed as another bigot and too smart to not have already spoken about these reactions to his views.

I don’t know what antisemitic means. I fit means killing them off or hurting them then no he, nor I are, but if it means that he was against their thinking, their spirit, the disease they brought to Europe and that he spoke against them in that sense, then yes he was definitely antisemitic, as he was vocal about his disgust with Christiani9ty and Christianity is most definitely an outcrop a universal more inclusive form of Jewish thinking and of the Jewish spirit.

I know demonizing the Nazis is easy these days, as the victor gets to define his vanquished enemy, and nobody is saying that those tactics were right (mostly because they were ineffective) but you people have to look into what Nazism represented, why it took hold, how and why it used the occult, what it proposed and why it hated the Jews and the Marxists.

But to do so you must actually break free from your modernistic culture and your liberal views and your human vanities and weaknesses and think objectively rather than emotionally.

What happen to paganism?
Why was it censored and Christians massacred them by the millions in those early days?
Why are pagan symbols currently being used to represent the evil, the bad the primal the vile?
What’s the difference between polytheism and monotheism and what kind of minds do these attitudes produce respectively?
Why is Christianity nihilistic when ti proposes such seemingly happy and hopeful and “positive” messages?

I don’t anyone to answer in any insightful way.

Ta, Ta,
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Mostly it took hold the way most things take hold. Desperation. The German economy was decimated by the way in which the end of WWI was handled. Hitler took advantage. Everything else is window dressing.

Satyr, you said…

Then I said…

Then you said…

OK. Clearly I took some liberties with your views. You were obviously not saying, “I am concerned that the Jews own the American National Debt.” I’ll grant you that.

But, you did say, “Washington D.C. is the inheritor and epitome of the Jewish spirit.” Washington D.C. is obviously a stand-in here for “global presence of the United States.” I assume you don’t mean simply that the geographic/population area encompassing parts of Maryland and Virginia. You’re saying, the United States, which happens to be the hegemon of the global system, epitomizes the Jewish spirit. Then in your successive posts you make it clear that you’re not talking figuratively about Hebrew metaphysics, you’re talking about actual Jews. So, I stand by my assertion that you have paranoiac ideas about literal Jewishness running the world.

Even if you don’t think that holds water, I do worry that you may have actually “gone,” as it says in that last post, thinking that you have “ta-ta”-ed this discussion into oblivion, in which case I would respectfully ask you friend to please, stay awhile.

OK. So these are the moments where you reference Hellenism, usually in association with Nietzsche. I understand why you’re doing this, and comparing Hellenistic ideals to Hebrew is not necessarily anti-semitic or bad at all. Cool. I come to an understanding of what you mean by “Hellenism” mostly through Plato’s Republic (the critique therein of Achilles’ and Odysseus’ psychologies in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey respectively), but also through Nietzsche.

My understanding of “Hellenism” is closely tied to the Greek word Thumos. Thumos is very difficult to translate, but it is something of a personality trait, though in the context of Plato’s Republic it is understood that individual personality traits can also stand for the character of a people. Thumos is something like Spiritedness, but it is not exactly Spirit as one third of the tripartite body/spirit/mind. In Achilles, Thumos manifests as anger. Achilles is driven mad by Thumos upon the death of his compatriot. Thumos is double-edged, it is what gives him Achilles his ferocity as a warrior, but it is also what drives him to sulk and be inactive at times.

Plato, I would argue, makes the point that in Odysseus’ psychology, we see a sublimation of Thumos, where through a harmony [diche] of the tripartite mind/spirit/body, Thumos may manifest as Justice. I suppose at this point you might say that this is exactly what you mean. Western Philosophy as such is wholly devoted to the task of “harnessing,” and “putting the yoke on,” our Thumos. Enslaving our masculine warrior-spirit. In Western Philosophy this sublimation of Thumos has everything to do with understanding the world as representation, the total takeover of Rationality.

You say,

This is what is nihilistic and slavish in understanding the world as representation. This is what Nietzsche critiques in much of his work. The Greeks are credited with “inventing Rationality” because they are the first thinkers to think in this way. They think by turning away from the world, and “reflecting.” We say that they “reflect,” in part because they spend their time looking at a reflection of the world. This reflection must be understood as an imperfect reflection of the Real. We lose our hot-blooded engagement with the world and become alienated. We do not care for our own bodily life and engage in passive altruism in order to enrich our souls. This is an aspect of Nietzsche’s critique of Western morality, that it is based in altruism, which is an outcome of a representational, nihilistic worldview.

So, with Nietzsche, you level a critique of modernity in these terms. I am familiar with your anti-liberal critique, and to an extent I sympathize. Personally I come to it less through Nietzsche, and more through thinkers like G.K. Chesterton and Slavoj Zizek. You have no patience for tolerance. You can see through the rhetoric of multiculture. Great!

The problem is, the way you level this critique comes up short. In order for your critique to succeed, the reader needs to already have some basic assumptions in her belt. First, you clearly have a very healthy appreciation of Hellenism and Ancient Rome. I worry that you are harboring a covert nostalgia, which undergirds many of your assumptions and basic values. It’s fine to love Ancient Rome, I think it’s cool too. When I watch 300 or something, I’m inspired by these muscular badasses with weaponry and abs. Power plays such a big role in all of these period dramas about Ancient Rome. We want to be like the Caesars.

You have a related assumption that “Feminization” is inherently bad. You write that you have posted an essay which deals with this in detail, and I plan to read it. Perhaps there you deal with some basic reasons why feminization is a bad thing. In your posts I have read though, you only describe how feminization looks. You successfully claim, “There is feminization,” without saying, “This is why feminization is the wrong path.”

I think both of these come together in a desire to reconfigure contemporary masculinity, and give this masculinity a place in the world. Where I think I differ from you, is that I don’t think that the masculinity of Achilles, that of unchecked Thumos, performs well today or ever really did. However, I think the new liberal multiculture is not the answer either. Its attitude toward Thumos is one of covering up. Political correctness does not sublimate Thumos, it simply buries it, or constricts it. Tolerance is a skirting the issue of anger and will. All too often feminism falls into a trap of glorifying passivity and condemning all things masculine as “manifestations of a rape culture.” (I do need to say here unqualifiedly that I am a feminist).

I too am interested in a strong masculinity. I look more at Leopold Bloom of Joyce’s Ulysses perhaps, to the boisterous catholics of G.K. Chesterton’s fiction, or to Alyosha and his Brothers in Dostoevsky. I think the characters in these stories manifest a sexual union of Hellenistic and Judaeo-Christian worldviews in which noone is “giving fellatio to the circumscribed penis” as you so eloquently put it. The new masculinity is the offspring (not a child) of this dual heritage. An outcome of Love as Diotima would have it in Plato’s Symposium. One who tolerates nothing and noone but is at the same time no longer shackled by the sort of hate which I am afraid at times shows itself in your posts. I guess, ultimately, the hoplites and the spears just don’t do it for me.

Thanks for the run-down of what I said…and then the admission that you were talking out of your arse.

It happens…look at the Emotion thread…you’ve got a sheep now trying to justify an absurdity with esoteric ambiguities based on her liberal Jewish nihilistic views.

Metaphysics, a spirit of being, leads to culture. the culture reflects its underlying psirit, its metaphysics permeate its structures and beliefs.

Culture doesn’t come from outer space, although some gorillas might think so (picture 2001 Space Odyssey) they are continuations of genetics, they are a convergence of histor8cal events, including naturally selected ones…that’s what memes are.

The U.S. is indeed the representation of Jewish cosmopolitanism…or universality.
It’s “liberal” democracy stinks of self-negation and of that disease that infected the west through the Romans…actually in Corinth when Saul spewed his venom into the Hellenic spirit.

I am forbidden to speak, as the authorities have a permanent casus belli against me. You see they need to protect inlcusivity, the popularity of their forum, keep it accessible to all, to quantity…and so they must limit any excesses in quality…upwards or downwards.
Ergo mediocrity.

Did you know I was recently banned for a period for daring to respond to idiots taunting and offering sarcasm instead of reasoning with personal innuendos…ignored up until I responded to them in kind?
This is what this forum is about. The fish, they say, stinks from the head down.

How else would a woman infected with Christian bullshit dogmatism be acceptable and an ape talking about spaceships and magical patients retain his respectability…with his many diplomas?
We live in an er where you can get a degree in anything, proving you are it. Get a paper saying you finished an art course…bingo you are an artist.
See philosophy is no longer about the world, it is now the discipline of talking about itself. We are philosophizing when we speak about philosophy.

But there is a link to my forum where free-speech, no matter how childish and absurd is accepted, if it does not disrupt free-speech, as in the case of the autistic boy who was put in a cage.

If you like you can visit Know Thyselfif not ta da!!!

Listen to me closely now…Nietzsche did not discover the Greeks.
I know for most he was the primary source through which Hellenism got on their radar…but he did not invent Hellenism.
Hellenism existed before the Germans took it up again, and Nietzsche was only one voice in this. A very eloquent, formidable one, but one amongst many.

Very food…anger. Anger, see?
But we live in a Jewish world now, so we must speak of love or else we might be accused of being dysfunctional and ill and unloved, you see?

Anger yes is a reaction to what?
Love is another reaction to it. One repels the other submits. One is masculine the other feminine.

Very good.
You are thinking.
So we are talking about balance, and what is the notion of infinite love but an unbalanced numbness, a madness a narcissism?

When I speak of feminization am I saying the feminine is undesirable, evil or am I saying that it is being unbalanced?
Am I saying women should be raped or disrespected or that there is no femininity in all men?

Read Evola Julius, de Benoist Alain, Baudrillard Jean. Weininger, Heisman, Bataille, Stirner, even Hitler…Read more than this liberal crap with that happy face offering you a leveling of mankind down to a non-distinct paste.

This is a very simplistic version of Hellenism and the masculine spirit.
i am currently writing something on nobility and the aristocratic ethos - should be finished in a few months - but a Renaissance does not been a romantic idealization of the past. One takes what was good in the past and establishes it or applies it in current conditions.

We’re not going to walk around in togas sipping wine, obviously…this is a spirit of becoming a way of engaging and interpreting and reacting to the world as it is, not as we wish it were.

I think I’ve done so in my essay.

I speak of uniformity and nihilism and how this leads to a nihilistic view ans stagnation and retardation, a stunting of the human spirit.

That’s too bad. you look forward to what has never been…to a Utopia.
The moment you speak of a female, as in feminism, you accept the category and all that it implies…it’s entire reason for being.

But you then offer a redefinition, a hope, a what if…and this is human intervention upon natural processes. do you know what happens when man intervenes too much upon natural processes?
Pollution…in this case the genetic kind or the mimetic kind as in noise pollution and an avalanche of bullshit claiming to be rational.
Then you get childlike reasoning where aliens are visiting and all is a product of a conspiracy and magic is possible.

I remember once this feminist accused me of proposing an inauthentic man savoring the delusion that her eradication of gender (social roles based on sexual types) was a “return to authenticity”.
Can you imagine the level of stupidity involved here? the very one proposing a “correction” to natural processes and contexts and types is not the bringer of purity…as in the fallen angel returned to godliness. The “noble savage”, void of greed, or prejudice or sexual specialization. The Ideal Man.

And that’s the irony of you feminists.
You propose an ideal man which you then find unattractive.

Guided by social conventions and cultural forces you succumb to some Jewish leveling bullshit and then when you see it manifest before you, as in homosexuals and metrosexuals and effeminate men and stupid girlish men, you find the type unacceptable on a genetic sexual level. On a primal level - stripped of all the post-modern “progressive” garments and makeup and perfumes you hide your body under.
But hiding isn’t overcoming.

Typing this response to your response feels a bit like yelling at a brick wall, nonetheless we share such similar frustrations with liberal/progressivism that I can’t help but try and explicate our differences, and defend my end.

This is not central to the rebuttal that I’m coming to, but it is a perfect example of both your failures at actually reading my post and your resulting tone of condescension. What I said is this. I’ll quote your quote of it:

What it says in that sentence is that, although I have read a little Nietzsche, I primarily and originarily come to the Greeks via the Greeks themselves. If you have some notion that Plato’s Republic is already past some golden age of pre-Socratic thought, I’ll say now that I prefer Heraclitus to Socrates. There’s just not a huge amount of surviving text of Heraclitus’ thought. I’m sure you’re a fan of Heraclitus. The blatant misanthropy in your way of expressing ideas is basically tagging along this Hericlitean meme, this fire-worshipping prose of crushing the weak and glorying in the lamentations of the women. Its Schopenhauer’s meme, its Nietzsche’s meme, its your style.

Every time you take some shitty hack at my manhood I’m just going to pretend you’re Heraclitus. Fine.

The Emotion thread is nine pages long. I’m not going to sift through all that. This is problematic red thread running through your response to my post. To my central challenges, “What is so good about Ancient Rome?” and “What is so bad about feminization?” you respond with references to other things you’ve written. That’s all well and good, but let me just give you a piece of rhetorical advice. Even if you point your adversary toward something else you’ve written that is more or less readily available, you should nevertheless also include some sort of encapsulation of the thesis you present in this other text. These were points central to my refutation, and you answer them with vaguely defined footnotes? Unacceptable.

However, I did go and read your initial post in The Feminization of Man thread, which takes the form of a short essay. Here: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?t=143894

I will reference this text of yours in the response that follows.

First something from your recent post in this thread, Decline and Fall of the American Empire.

I think what happened here is that I caught you off guard by actually agreeing with your presentation of the critique of Western Metaphysics. Being caught off guard you resort to this talk about “balance.” Balance?!?! This is uncharacteristic of you. So we should balance work with play, diet with feasting, madness with sobriety? Like Plato’s Democratic man in the Republic? I can’t imagine you feel this way. Especially because you are so against leveling. In your post, “The Feminization of Man,” you begin and end the essay with:

Do you see how these metaphors of balancing and leveling are ultimately aimed at the same trimming of excesses and drive for mediocrity? If you are truly against levelling then should you strive for the trenches and peaks of imbalance? Of constant overcoming? This balance talk doesn’t suit you.

But then again, neither does this talk of levelling! One of the most prominent critics of the “levelling force of modernity” is Kierkegaard! A militant Protestant! This man is Saul of the 20th century, no? But you take up his meme. You are disgusted with the mediocrity of meaninglessness. The alternative to a levelling of meaning is that some things are significant! That some things might be significant and thus holy, this is antithetical to the paganism you espouse!

You invoke the spectre of levelling as a critique of contemporary collectivism as envisioned by Marxists and feminists, but your articulation here too is rife with contradictions. You spit vitriol about the downfall of the individual:

Here you pick up the misanthropic meme, in the mode of Rousseau’s “putting on the social mask” for the sake of social survival. This is all well and good. I like best Vonnegut’s critique of the American attack on individuals, he says something like, it grinds us all up until we are all the same mush. After that you get to pick whatever lifestyle you like. What is lost is precisely our individual throwness, our birthright. But here’s the kicker, you also attack lineage and heritage as a mark of individuality

The alternative to the American grinder of sameness is that status is something passed via kinship, consanguine paternity. Yet you attack this. You have some nostalgia for a “self-made man.” But, the self-made man is part and parcel of the levelling of modernity which you claim to despise!

In this quote from your Feminization of Man you seem to invoke Baudrillard’s critique (you say in this Decline thread that you read Baudrillard), his critique of consumerism and the circulation of signs whose referential weight is ambiguous or arbitrary. However you misunderstand Baudrillard, and this misunderstanding gets to the heart of my disagreement with you. You are hanging on to a nostalgia for some sort of before-time, be it Ancient Rome or what-have-you. You find an answer to the Decline and Fall of the American Empire in some sort of return to Hellenistic values, or you find no answer at all and are nihilistic yourself, I assume you are finding the former.

Baudrillard harbors no nostalgia, and this is precisely the step he takes to surpass Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Baudrillard is talking about simulation on the 4th phase of the image, where the problem is no longer this: We circulate signs that mask the abscence of a profound reality. The italicized states the workings of the 3rd phase of the image. In the 3rd phase we are still in Plato’s cave dealing with that old problematic. Baudrillard is important because he brings to bear the 4th phase of the image: The image has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum.. Thus, you Satyr, the Perrennial Carrier of the Misanthropic Meme turn out to be an optimist! You believe that there is some masculinity to be regained by violently crushing those who oppose you. By being a nonconformist. However, your very nonconformity is a form of self-contained self-as-representation nihilism that you yourself claim to hate! You correctly refute the conformist. Baudrillard is the refutation to the nonconformist.

And thus I say: No Satyr. It is you who is the Kierkegaardian Christian! You are the self-styled man! You are the Utopian!

Yes. It’s a pagan attitude, a pre-Socratic one. A masculine one.

Plato was a symptom of decline and his character Socrates was its highest representation.
He was the Jesus persona of that time, using that culture’s contexts.
No wonder the Jews then adopted him to make their own nihilism marketable to the lowest segments of the worlds growing populations and the increasingly urban setting they were forces to coexist within.

It also explains why the masses took to it so easily at that time, when the ideas presented were around for centuries before that and messiahs were everywhere.

Let me give you a summary then: I post my views on emotions.
This creates a stir in the herd. Some, the bravest, come forth with sarcasm patronizing remarks, claims that I bore them or I am entertaining.
They taunt and insult.
The usual defensive crap from the same kinds of idiots that have no idea what is going on or why. One of them Caldrid you can witness here. Her mind’s quality is obvious. The other is the helper of herd. She’s feels proud of her status.

The Drunk ignores this. Probably thinks it is cute, given his own emotional involvement.
I take things into my own hands and respond to them in kind, but not as harshly as I can; I am banned, they probably get a spank on the hand.
Earlier I had been banned for three months for doing the same. The evidence is there in all the threads I’ve started.

Later Pavlov bans one of them when she follows me around posting patronizing links and pics and remarks, knowing that the stupid Drunk, who fancies himself an intellectual to moderate intellectual discourse, will do nothing about it. She is right, as the precedence speaks of his blindness to her rule-breaking. Probably because he (Pavlovian) likes me and mostly agrees with my views, having a better understanding of them than either the Drunk or his idiot minions who he presides over like a king.
The other douche-bad moderators only offer word-association games and trite commentaries, basking in the glory of their status. The just come here to socialize.

The Drunk then suddenly changes his tune, he discovers a more objective bone in his thick skull, and comes here telling her that I am not offering the usual antisemitic crap, as she thinks I am and that this idiot hopes I am, because that’s all she is accustomed to and the only thing she can deal with. Ergo her willingness to confront me, particularly when the Drunk is there to protect her from her own stupidity. Because in any other place at any other time I would rip her a new asshole - not difficult 'cause she’s obviously a bit simple.

Nah, I’ve done that so many times, it’s not worth it to me anymore. Wasted time.
I’m done with taking morons seriously.
How many times can I explain my positions to newcomers or children who just will never understand it anyway?
The reason I wrote it down was so that I did not have to do so. I’m not here to offer a personal lesson to everyone who comes along.

If you are not willing to put in the effort then I will not either.
Better you don’t try at all and stay away.
Soon I wont be here so it doesn’t really matter. I really don’t care, to be honest.
My reasons for coming here have been stated and successfully carried out.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. I decided to make it a symbolic date for a rebirth.

Balance it is a fundamental aspect of Hellenic thought. Akin to Buddhism’s “the way”.

Nothing catches me off-guard, dear, but please think of yourself as special.
When in a room full of naive optimists, my positions seem overly pessimistic; when in a room full of nihilistic pessimists, my views appear overly optimistic.
I only express my views concerning reality. How you see me is up to you.

Balance is of self in reference to nature. Nature is not leveling, it depends on strife and challenge and overcoming otherness and surpassing self.

My balance is in myself. It is an ascetic/athletic disposition, where one denies one’s self to enjoy it all the more.
This is not the same as the christian or in certain segments the Buddhism form of asceticism. In Hellenism it is a means to an end, not the end itself.
I seek to find the center of my being, as it manifest in the particular within me, without denying any part of myself.
I want to find it so as to then use it to surpass myself, as much as possible.

In the world I strive for conflict and thrive on inequality. I wish to remain distinct, as I am happy with the outcome thus far.
I simply love being me.

Are you preaching to the choir or making a power play, dear?
There is no freedom in eradication. The leveling I speak of is the one that destroys so as to build upon the ruins a collective monastery and an idol to worship.
Diagnosis and prescription are not the same thing, dear.
Maybe Kierkegaard diagnosed correctly (I wouldn’t’ know as I’ve only just began reading one of his books) but given what you say about him then he most certainly does not prescribe correctly.
Same goes for Schopenhauer, whom I admire. He diagnosed correctly, he prescribed incorrectly. Then again he prescribed using his own dispositions and his own strength and weakness. So he prescribed using himself as a standard.

Who said I am disgusted by the “mediocrity of meaninglessness”? There is no such thing. There is a mediocrity in meaning, dear.
Meaninglessness is fundamental as meaning is my affair, not yours, nor the other’s who wishes to push his community one down my throat.
Get it yet?!
It’s the mediocrity of meaningfulness I speak agaisnt, dear. That’s why I am taken as an evil spirit, the annihilator.
Did not Nietzsche call himself a nihilist?

No I attack it when it is passed on as a birthright and supported by institutionalized Law and Order and Morality.
Thou shalt not this and that, to preserve the wealth for the offspring of the wealthy.

When a child inherits his kingship or his daddy’s money this goes against nature’s ways.

There is a difference between accepting one’s lineage and then retesting it applying it to an ever-changing reality and that of inheriting it as an automatic victory salute.
Capitalism fails in that, dear. The wealth is passed on, and those that inherit it posses undeserved power, protected by their forefather’s very institutions.

Because this “self-made” man makes himself in accordance to communal ideals. He thinks he is free when his activities are guided through indoctrination towards the same paths. He speaks the same words; offers the same hopes, talks the same talk and walks the same old walk…then he claims to be a free-spirit.
In fact to be “made” at all one must bow to the common god…accept the common morals and play the common game. One is promoted through a series of intermediate authorities that test your loyalties and commitments to the common thinking. At the end of the path, and if you make it, you are too habituated in your ways to then suddenly begin thinking for yourself.The game was sod demanding, the rules so stringent, that they’ve become nigrained in your mind as universal.
By then you’ve invested too much, you are too old to change…your youth has been dedicated to worshiping the common divinity, and even if you realize it, in a moment of epiphany, you are shamed to admit it, so you continue mouthing the same shit, gaining the accolades your previous slavishness now is paying off in dividends: admiration, status, wealth, privilege, respect.
But the truth is you’ve prostituted yourself, and now you enjoy the comforts of the head concubine in the harem’s court.
Wake, the fuck, up!!!
Self made man give me a break.

I be the only self-made man you know are the ones in the economic and academic field…wherever communal and popular acknowledgment is required. Would you speak of the self-made man who resides outside your institutions and makes Himself in accordance to his own values; does not require your paperwork or your admiration?
Even a gorilla now can get a PhD in philosophy, and then use this paper to pretend that his opinion is worth more, through he might speak of stupidities and absurdities every time he opens his mouth.

This is the illusion of freedom where the individual self-censors himself makes himself his own guard in the prison he puts himself within, and then ascends the ranks within the institution.
Find his place…knows his place, understand?

But here again the test is in the pudding. If a man comes to me and tells me that he played the game, knowing it was bullshit, I can respect that, but when he comes here telling me that the rules of the game he played are divine and that his status now proves his worth outside the system’s premises, then I will shatter his delusions every chance I get. There’s a difference between playing the game and buying into it.

I think it is you who misunderstood Baudrillard when he speaks of self-contained solipsistic environments that reflect themselves back to themselves in a perpetual self-referential delusion.
But I am not here to debate who got this thinker the best. I couldn’t care less about your crotch-sniffing, nor is Baurdillard the final authority on reality. I take the parts he says which I consider valuable and disregard the rest.
I can accept Freud’s insights and appreciate them, without accepting that all is reduced to sex and we must stop there. For nistance what makes sex necessary?
Death…and this underlies his comments of sexuality. But he didn’t go into it far enough.

The crime nobody speaks of, but he does, is the death of reality.

I’ve answered the rest.
I speak of the Hellenic spirit of becoming. There is no nostalgia as I have no personal experience with it. There is admiration for a spirit that birthed philosophy and science, loved life and promoted self-responsibility and beauty…and resulted in a nobility of spirit.
I look at the outcome via the text left behind. I see its effects on those that also admire it, as I do, and I wish to emulate this.
I see a beauty a strength in it. I covet it. I want to make it a part of my identity.
But instead of resenting it it inspires me to reach for it in myself.
Get it dear?

For you Nietzsche might be an idol, a hero, an eternal teacher, as he is for people like Sauwelios who after decades still laps up his master’s words as if they were nectar from the god’s lips. I see him as a thorn that urges me towards higher grounds, wanting to leave him in me stead. he troubles me and confronts me. For others he is a shade they can sit under.
But of course his spirit is my own…because we both have a common ancestry in Hellenism. He might have ascended higher, but I am following up my own paths.
We are both children of Heraclitus and those anonymous unknown ones that came even before him, but who’s essence reverberates through the ages.

That is your reading.
My misanthropy is directed to what the majority of mankind has become and the ruses it uses to deal with the world and the hypocrisies it constructs to pretend it is the very ideal it espouses.
I am like a wolf sniping at the herd’s hoofs, not to kill them but to rile them up, stir them, make them expose their inner nature, and perhaps find some other predators lurking in their midst.

I am masculine, there is no nostalgia. I want to break the barriers that prevent its full expression, accepting the consequences.
If you think crushing is my motive then you are deluded. I want them to stay as they are, dear, just as I want you to think as you do.
I am not here to change the world, because the world is perfect as it is. I like it just the way it is; I like you just the way you are.

I seek the rare amongst them. The rest can go to hell, for all I care.
I use them, dear. The herd is where I feed and it is where I find my own gathering on the periphery.

Self is always a towards.
What this towards uses as its destination defines the individual; knowing and accepting that you will never reach it, is the heroic spirit.

Ha!!
=D>

It took a while but… whoop! there it is!!!
Haven’t read Kierkegaard (coincidentally I just started reading his Either/Or book, which I had lying around for a year).
So far he’s overly dramatic, but I figure it comes with belonging to that more literary age, like Nietzsche, with that eloquence and flowery prose and mythological referencing.

I sense in you a need to prove yourself against another.
You poke, without holding the poker firmly. You are uncertain.

Good.

And yes love comes after fear, as fear is primal and only requires a rejection of otherness whereas love requires some level of self-consciousness and finds in the other similarities which it might then exaggerate to make the otherness familiar.
Ergo fear preceded love and love is a later development in respond to fear. We are talking about emotions produced by gradations in lucidity.

Love is considered “progressive” and advanced because it is current, in evolutionary terms, and it enables social operative unities amongst species with an already established sense of self and a powerful fight/flight instinct.
Most of all it inebriates the already developed discriminating consciousness…because consciousness evolved TO discriminate and to judge and to choose.

This function makes it essential in survival for a species that cannot compete with other beasts on an individual to individual basis. In other words a weaker species. This is why it has risen to the status of a divine force, and has acquired mystical qualities amongst the simplest of this species.
See how God for the christian is synonymous with Love. Love for the Ideal Being, in this case, turns to Love for the Ideal Man, in the liberal’s case.
In both cases the identity must be placed outside the individuals. It is made into an abstraction which he must commit to. He immerses himself in it and cannot think of himself outside its premises.
He now loves himself indirectly, through this mediating ideals entity, because directly he really hates himself and the world that made him possible.
This is why both function under the direction of a Utopia, or a Paradise yet to be established.

There is no Utopia, dear…never was…never will be…never SHOULD be.
I don’t romanticize the ancient world, dear, I admire its essence and what is lead to.

We can now find the connection between the Jew Marx and the Jew Jesus, making Spinoza comprehensible in this context.
We also see the relationship between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and how they come together under the globalizing cosmopolitan universal umbrella, the New World Order of humanitarianism, egalitarianism, feminism, all spurred on by the outcome of Hellenic decline: democracy.
We still speak of Hellenic decadence when we refer to the ephivophilia (called pedophilia today) and the homoerotic practices of the upper urban classes of that time.
We might even call this a conspiracy to slander them by the Jews who could never be like them.

I’m more for its precursor Timocracy, by the way, if any such communal living must be had.
An agrarian based system where citizenship is earned and the citizen must take up the responsibilities of his own powers (service in wars and in political life and in the maintenance of the states health so on).
See Hanson’s The Other Greeks.

Now my time is almost up.
Tomorrow I begin anew.
You stay here where you belong.
May the Drunk take pity upon your soul and may he protect you from any monster that comes along to disturb your feminized comforts.

Send me a postcard from this state of purgatory.

Ta, Ta,

This is true, but if you look at nature, and the way the universe seems to operate, this is always what’s been going on. When you put arbitrary stress on a muscle, it grows bigger. I will put this in a sports analogy, as I often do, as I used to play at a high level. When I practice on my own it is inspired, and I truly like doing it - that’s why I’m there - but actually going to practice is far less inspired, and far more inauthentic in a certain regard. That’s what comes with social agreements. Sometimes I hated basketball, mostly I loved it. You endure through other people needing, or necessitating that they enforce their intention onto you for the betterment of the whole. Now, obviously we’re not on a team, but society is a team of sorts.

I think this phrasing - in the context of authenticity - was vital for me. I will try and break down why.

I think a powerful example here is asking someone to listen to a song that you really like. I say that because, pretty much in any real life example, you can almost cut the resistance that develops with a knife. Music is powerful. Trying to change someone’s whole… energy by introducing a song to them is a very, very hard thing to do and have it come off as successful. That defiance comes from a less evolved brain state; or to say it differently, it comes from a brain state concerned with with protection of self, as opposed to promotion of the whole.

Under this example, though, what would a higher state look like/be concerned with? I have a close friend who is now the drummer in a bad. He’s a talented musician. If someone were to try and force a song onto him - even if it’s one that he hates - he has the ability to pick up things in the content the person is not aware of, and reference it back to them such that he learns something new, and the other person does as well; but more importantly, or perhaps this is in essence the same thing, the energetic outcome of this situation promotes a higher state of awareness.

So this brings up a question: what would be the optimal ratio of new information being introduced to you, versus you learning something new of your own volition?

This is kind of an extreme position - don’t get me wrong, I get your point - but it is kind of extreme. It is certainly a possibility, but I would not let that hang over your head too much. You seem like you have a lot you could say.

At first when I read this I agreed, but I have changed my mind somewhat because I don’t think that is what will happen. In fact I’m fairly certain it will not. In my hay days of conspiracy readings I would read these ‘army documents’ as we colloquially dubbed all of them on another forum. One of them was from the US and it had to do with military strategy for the next upcoming 50 years or something. They would just say ‘there will be massive global rioting’ in this matter of fact tone, or talk about these diseases that they know about, but will somehow only hit in 2017 or whatever. Now, is this evidence any of that will happen? No, but it’s evidence that the military is certainly planning on it. Of course they are. So where I’m going with this is the ‘rapid discovery’ is…well… what is that? I mean what would it even entail? Can you explain further what you think that would look like? Cause to me it’s like after a lifetime of not being exposed to this information they are not going to suddenly ascend to new levels of consciousness just because they lead a ‘genuine’ life? The architecture to deal with the emotional outburts (riots) that should have happened sooner will quickly, and efficiently simply kill these people or black bag them somewhere. This idea of ‘eh… just wait it out’ doesn’t bode well with me.

It’s similar to my basketball analogy. If our practices only consisted of us scrimmaging (playing real games, just with ourselves) that would be completely authentic in the sense that everyone wants to be there (learning) but when it comes time to play the game for real we’re going to get schooled by a team that has plays scouted to our weaknesses, and a honed method for implementing them.

As I kind of hinted at previously, I don’t think it’s anywhere near that extreme. If I strap someone to a chair and force them to listen to Alex Jones’ screaming for an hour nothing irrevocable has occurred. They just know some things that are going to quickly (and thus uncomfortably) expand their horizons a little bit. You kind of present a rise in consciousness as like this chemical thing, but it’s more alchemical. You must involve intention. The person has to decide: ‘this is uncomfortable, but I’m going to do this for self-betterment.’ Also, there is no fine line in which one passes into these discussions. lol. You make it sound like I’m ripping a hymen.

Yes, we share a difference of perspective here, differing paradigms, probably because we have had different life experiences in our pasts. This will shape what perspective we come from. In truth both perspectives are the case, as some people will buckle and suffer psychologically by contact with these ideas, while others will be edified and grow as a result. So it would be imperative to try and see which will be the case when disseminating this information – either that, or take a moral stance that either dissemination as such is more valuable than any individual person’s psychological wellbeing, or that people’s psychological wellbeing is more important than dissemination as such.

I am not entirely ready to accept the latter of these two, but I lean in that direction. Especially considering I see these “elite plans”, generally speaking of course, as nothing but, at best, a necessary utility in the further evolution of man, and at worst, a temporary stumbling block. Of course I do not dismiss entirely the possibility, and especially in light of modern technology, that such a stumbling block might become more permanent than temporary; if this is the case, and again I consider the odds of this very small here when contrasted with the alternatives, then in my view it does not serve worry about anyway. Such inherent control and power on a global ubiquitous scale must have already achieved so much that resistance is, as they say, futile. And even were this the case, I still side with Nietzsche that this sort of situation might be what is needed to give rise to an entirely new type of human (the superman), one over and above all that is human as we know it now. This would be “beyond good and evil” in an essential way, and so growth of this type would certainly require a strange new sort of world in which to take root and grow on a mass scale. Certainly the large scale destruction of what humanity now considers its morals, beliefs and values would seem a necessary condition for such a world, were the development of such supermen to become possible. We need an entirely new paradigm, is pretty much what I am saying, and I do not see it happening in the current state of the world at large. But that is probably a different discussion entirely.

True. This base animal state of mind is what we encounter when we try illuminating others with ideas that are a challenge for them to grasp – the instincts reject it out of hand. This is natural, and healthy for them, it is as you say self-protection. The question then becomes, as before, are we to attempt an individualized approach wherein we seek out the merit and ability in others before trying to “wake them up” or do we establish a moral rank order where either “waking up others” generally speaking or protecting the psychological wellbeing of others attains an essentially more valuable status (this is ignoring the notion that dissemination as such, without restraint, is in itself more harmful than good even toward its own stated goals, but I am willing to dismiss this argument here for the sake of conversation, and in light of the fact that I do not think you are acting entirely ‘without restraint’)?

I sort of avoid this issue entirely in so far as I do not take personal responsibility for waking anyone up, nor do I take personal responsibility for the fate of the world. Because of this, I default to the latter position without needing to expressly will it, so to speak – I default there but nonetheless keep an eye out for those who show desire and ability for reaching out beyond their habitual consciousness… this goes far over and beyond “conspiracy” ideas as well; I am speaking of philosophy-psychology in general too, and not least of all. Any encounter with a thought or idea or meaning that would radically alter someone’s consciousness, comfort zone or paradigms. These need to be altered, if one is to grow in terms of consciousness and self-awareness – but I also know that such growth is not important or necessary to most people. So I just let them be. Again, I do not take responsibility for them at all. I suppose that makes me heart-less, in a way. Your passion for waking them up, for enlightening and ennobling them and for working on the side of saving humanity from that which threatens it, these are all noble aims to be sure.

This must be something that is individual for every person, and probably changes over time. The more we take responsibility for out growth into our own hands, the more we are able to be self-movers and generate our own knowledge through exploration and introspection, so the less we need it from “outside”. At first a large amount of outside information is required, certainly, but still the internal impulse to stretch out and grasp it, to accept it, must also exist. Again, perhaps this point is moot here, in so far as while I know what you are saying and it is not untrue, and all people will require some outside agent and stimulation to “get started” and even to keep up their journey of self-discovery, I do not take responsibility for this, for anyone in this regard, and so I do not come up against the question at all (unless theoretically such as in our discussions here).

I am happy when I can assist someone on their own journey, but I wait until they reach out before I do anything. And even then I am reserved, patient, passive even. Typically I find it is entirely enough work and effort taking responsibility for myself, for my own growth in understanding and consciousness. I have also reached the point where it has become almost impossible for me to relate to anyone, in any serious or genuine manner… I just have absolutely no respect for them at all, in terms of how I conceive respect as my self-respect. Not that I do not value them as people, but just that it is impossible for me to find any common ground. Others have to a large extent somewhat become invisible to me… most people anyway. But of course there are things which we can learn only by teaching them to others, and as I said I do value and enjoy when others are helped along in their own paths.

Yes, I do give people too much credit in so far as their willingness and openness to these sorts of potentially threatening and psychologically destabilizing ideas – but that is because the people I know in my life are generally this way, open in an authentic sort of way. Probably because I surround myself with such people when I can, and I refuse to be around people who are not genuine. That being said, I have a bias toward people who are fundamentally open to themselves and genuine, but who typically do not explore these sorts of paths of consciousness that I do, for one reason or another. Thus I am careful not to push them too far. Your position may be different, perhaps you encounter and know mostly people who could be exposed to these sorts of ideas and thoughts and they would just ignore it, willingly or unconsciously. In that case, then exposing those you know to the idea becomes a litmus test whereby those who do grasp the idea/thought are likely to be ennobled by it, and those who do not grasp it are in no danger because they are unable to sufficiently encounter the idea at all, being essentially ingenuine in their nature as they are.

Again, there is room for disagreement here. I see your position, and as long as you see these subtle issues as well and are coming from a position without ignorance, ego or lust for power, and a position of conscience, reflection and compassion then I respect your perspective and your methods, even where I do not share them myself.

Yes, that is because we come from different places. You seem to instinctively shoulder the responsibility and drive for waking up others, and for confronting and confounding these “elites” when and how you can; I rather come from the perspective where I do not take such responsibility and where I mostly ignore these “elites” because I see, in the (very) long view, that one way or another either something essentially positive (and even perhaps necessary!) will come out of it, or, if not, there is really realistically nothing I can do about it anyway. But I do truly believe that these sort of things serve historical and evolutionary ends, and that in the end it will lead to tremendous positives for mankind. To attain the highest evolutionary growth the highest resistance is required.

True, but the relevance of the analogy is somewhat lost on me here, in light of what we are talking about. I am not primarily concerned with “win the game”, so my lack of “playing” and my preference for “scrimmaging” seem irrelevant (and not to mention imperfect and flawed metaphors), at least to my perspective here.

Well, for some people, this is what happens. But not most, I concede that point. And yet, these sorts of broad ideological ideas are extremely potent – look at how people become obsessed with them. It is like religion in this sense, and truthfully conspiracy theory is a form of religious thought in so far as its form and effects in the mind are similar in many ways. It can lead to paranoia, obsession, detachment from reality, loss of rationality, fundamentalism and even psychological illness. I know people who have had varying degrees of this happen to them as a result of encounter with “conspiracy” ideas. Likewise with encounter with religion. So I am wary about dismissing the effects that these potent and powerful ideas can have on the mind. Although I do understand that many people will not be able to mentally digest them and will remain mostly unaffected. So again it comes back to our differences of perspective, as well as our different goals and motivations.

If I had the power to kill off 90% of the people on the earth and select 10% to live on afterwards in some technological utopia then, in a way, that is a perfectly reasonable ‘positive’ outcome. The people I picked are smart, and illuminated, and evolution continues towards the next paradigm. Maybe a superman comes of this and goes into the galaxy to represent all that is human. Maybe, it’s predicated on an intellectually lazy solution which doesn’t see sentient life as having any value. Maybe you can elevate consciousness through murder. Intuition tells me no, but I have never murdered anymore. I don’t know.

Regardless, there are ways to raise the consciousness of the planet without simply amputating off the parts we don’t like and raising it by default. When I say ‘winning’ I mean striving for that outcome that serves the function you are talking about but in a different/more evolved way. Maybe at this point wishing for no bloodshed really is an impossible task. I have not dismissed that. To me that is what life is all about, though, trying to do that thing that is hard, but possible. If I fail at least I can say I tried. I’m down here on this rock. I might as well. I do not think that there is nothing I can do. ‘Realistically cause change’ is kind of playing into a linear conception of change. This little butterfly will continue to flap his wings.

It can lead to all of the things you described. I used to/still do suffer from some of them, but that is the nature of this stuff. You have no reference points so you must stumble around in the dark at first. Admitting everything is a lie is hard. Some don’t, but most recover, and the ones who do are better people for it. Paranoia, when the fear finally wears off, is perception. Dunamis told me that once.

I have reached this point as well, but in a way I have moved past it. That involved a lot of meditation, and, admittedly, hallucinogenic drugs. Bless all forms of intelligence, even if some of them are irrelevant to your own personal evolution.

Yes, that is a good way of putting it.

Hopefully you’ll check this one more time before midnight. After that, Happy Birthday!!!

At this point I’m pretty much assured that I’m preaching to the choir. I’m sorry that you’re leaving the board, because no-one else here seems interested in discussing the critique of liberalism that we’re unpacking here. Three Times Great is pretty clearly into Heidegger, but I like your cruel Heidegger for contrast with his cosmic Heidegger. I’ll just rest assured you’ll be back.

I’m with you 100% on that one.

Also, I agree that I am self-censoring myself and unsure with my poker. You are a better-informed, more self-accepting version of the more misanthropic voice in my head, and that is why I can’t help by try and test myself against you. Personally, I think I owned your ass. But in any event, I like to think that we could have a better discussion about this than your apparently shitty experience with the drunks and mods in the aforementioned emotions thread.

Also, if you’re not already into Kierkegaard, don’t waste your time. Read the Catholics. Dostoevsky, Chesterton. I think you’d love G.K. Chesterton. As an aside, Nietzsche is in no way a hero of mine. The extent of my Nietzsche reading is a few aphorisms from The Gay Science. I just assume everything I’ve read in Heidegger can be found in Nietzsche but in shorter chunks of more colorful prose.

I part ways with you here, but then if we’re supposed to be talking about the Decline and Fall of the American Empire, then arguing the point would just be off topic. So, I’ll leave you with this token of aggressive goodwill: You’re off topic bitch! Suck it!

Sure, that would be quite reasonable for the 10% that live, but fairly unreasonable for the 90% who have to die.

Sentient life only has value to sentient life.

What sort of value are you speaking of here, something beyond the human, beyond our own personal stake in our own survival and quality of life?

I think you miss the point here - death is inevitable, and natural. And necessary. I understand it is sad and hard to accept. But it is just the way it is. There is no evolution without the loss of the unfit, likewise no evolution without the clearing away of sufficient space in which adequate resource use becomes possible, and where the survivors can grow and thrive.

The overgrown forest chokes on itself. Forest fires are necessary. And no, it is not pleasant to talk about with respect to humans, I agree. But its being unpleasant doesn’t make it untrue.

Yes, this happens naturally with time, but of course still involves the passing away of generations, either by “natural” means or “human” ones. Regardless, this sort of default slow evolution is no longer sufficient for man - we have achieved, through technology and science the power to dominate this planet and each other, in a very real way. We can wipe most of us out in a day along with much of our cultures and knowledge. If we care about the survival of the human race, quantity as well as quality, we need to face tough choices. Like I said, it isn’t pleasant to talk about, I know. But what do you propose as an alternative? Do you really see the natural “slow growth” evolution taking man anywhere significant, in time to save him from himself? Particularly in light of the fact that man has already grown in terms of population far more than his environment can handle in the long term?

No, a radical self-awakening and maturing of man is needed, desperately needed. I think you might agree with that - so, what do you propose as a solution?

Yes, that is certainly true, I do not give in to any sort of linear idea of change, I understand how chaotic and unpredictable it all is. But if I may say so, I think maintaining the position of “well butterfly effect is always possible” as a justification for maintaining hope at the expense of looking realistically and honesty at the dire situation is true intellectual laziness. Butterfly effect is fine and good, and we always maintain hope that small changes will snowball and lead to substantive change, but we do not use this idea as a substitute for a realistic, dispassionate and honest appraisal of the situation we are in - we ought not use it as a basis for false hope. We are fed false hope all the time, intentionally, so that we are kept in a false world with unrealistic expectations - in this way we are rendered impotent to effect real change, which would be predicated first of all on a hope rooted in reality.

I can not agree with that, I think paranoia is very harmful in the short and long term and I do not see it as necessary. I think paranoia warps one’s sense of perception and one’s ability to be objective, rational and dispassionate, and this warping seems to extend deeply into one’s unconsciousness - I do not know how one could rid himself of these thought-patterns once they set in, even if one eventually “overcomes” his paranoia.

But I can admit that i have never “moved through” paranoia and come out the other side - I have been immersed in these sorts of conspiracy “worlds” that lead one to anxiety or worry or even terror and hopelessness, but it never made me paranoid. I experienced these as eye-opening, and I moved through the difficult sentimental states and defeated them by edifying my philosophical instinct with greater understanding, purifying my motives and growing my capacities for thought, feeling and experience. These “negative” emotional reactions are a necessary effect of confronting the situation honestly, but I do not think they need to, or should, lead to or include paranoia. To me, paranoia is a sign that one is not strong enough, instinctively and unconsciously, for the idea one is confronting. Paranoia is essentially a sign of mental illness, for even when one is faced with overwhelming fear or anxiety or desperation or doubt, a healthy mind maintains its sense of self and its orientation with a personal sense of identifiable reality, even as the contents of this reality shift and change drastically.

Whatever works. But I personally feel, and have seen first hand, that drugs used to “expand the mind” actually break it down and weaken it, substitute a fake “enlightenment experience” for genuine self-discovery and awareness. Be very wary of any achievement that comes with little or no effort.

there are no fixes for this decline.

it was set in motion a long time ago.

we can just ride it down.

Agreed, but it is not “the end” by any means - all things decline. It is a natural and healthy part of growth.

Turtle - if it’s any consolation, americans are constantly told that our lifestyle sucks and that our high standard of living is a myth. Probably we’d all be better off if we were more like the second-rate countries from which these comments come.

thank you faust. my lifestyle is great today.
i wouldnt live anywhere else.
but my mind tells me we are on the way down.
i am sad for all of us.

One could argue that forest fires are a natural response to conditions found in nature. They purge the system back to a manageable level. Sure, I would agree with this. I don’t find that point hard to grasp, and I think I understand the context you are coming from.

At this point nothing is of a slow evolution. While this is not what I propose, exactly something that is easily conceivable is the prevalence of the groups existing near the top that are altruistic. It’s quite within the realm of possibility to disregard the burdensome chaff in a metaphorical way. The view that you seem to hold seems to be that people - a lot of people - have to die. I’m not so sure that is the case.

What I’m proposing is looking at this in a way beyond ‘kill em all.’ I will try to explain why mine is a bit more involved.

I’m not going to get into all of this right now, but you’ve bought into a lie. The earth isn’t in as bad a shape as many people think. That fear is perpetrated for obvious reasons. The essence of the coming global revolution is the implemented psychology that mankind itself is to be the enemy. As I said, this is outlined, in nearly a comical level of detail, in ‘The Next Global Revolution,’ published by the Club of Rome. Chemtrails, global warming - it’s all in there. It’s a great read. This is all discussed in other books as well, but this is by far the most poignant.

This ties in with the last point. The human brain, the internet, and a few other things exhibit a trait where the system grows until it reaches a threshold point (in the brain this is the oxygen in the skull) where it stop growing in ‘outward’ size, but continues to grow in complexity/density, which in turns orders that system. Few things grow in complexity while increasing order. I believe humans have the ability to do this. The internet is us, essentially. We’re not a virus that will populate until everything is exterminated. That is just a lie put forth by movies like the Matrix. My suggestion is to question where, exactly, you developed that particular belief.

I can see how you might think that simply buying into the chaos theory might come across as intellectually lazy, but what I hope I have conveyed is that I am acting in accordance with chaos theory - that is, the aforementioned systems view - not simply hoping that some anomalous outcome will simply happen because they do from time to time. The evolutionary issue here isn’t finite material: elites culling off enough people to continue because we’ve naturally reached a point where the earth cannot handle us - no, not even close - the issue here is that we are dealing with a Jungian Animus complex: a world with abusive daddy issues. Until we can buff up and stand up to the drunk we’re going to continue to see ourselves as the enemy, as his drinking as our fault. When an abused mother simply says that she’s had enough, and stands up for herself, it doesn’t matter how or what the change is that might happen, it just matters that she -wants- change.

So I put it to you to back up, a bit at least, the assertion you seem to keep repeating, which to me comes across as: there is no inherent value to human life; it’s not even really worth much because it’s eating the planet; let’s just kill a bunch of people.’ I see that as not very thought through.

As I explained with the Daath thing, one can pass through the abyss, or one can unite all of their sephiroths. There is no right way, but to view paranoia as something that one is unable to recover from is… well I’m not sure how or why you would come to that belief outside of anecdotal evidence. To answer your question, though, one of the ways that it could be done is through drugs. In fact, if I could sum up an operative definition for drugs it would be just that: a tool for helping you re-establish thought patterns. This can be horribly self-destructive, or horribly self-enabling.

Was it Schopenhauer who said you can’t know your limits until you go past them? Regardless, this doesn’t really make sense to me. I would rephrase this as ‘paranoia is the act(ion) of reasoning through abolutism.’ In other words, it’s a psychological function concerned with preservation of self. If you learn, for example, that everything is a lie, then it’s natural to unconsciously assume everyone is lying until you can consciously sort out who is, and who is not. The people, imo, who can not figure that out, probably wouldn’t have been able to figure out basic problems anyways.

No, that is circular at best. Fear and anxiety, or desperation of doubt, is paranoia. When you take those things away, you are left with perception. They go over this - kind of- in the movie 300. Fear enhances your perception. It has a very demonstrable purpose. Don’t count it out.

Be wary of mandating sobriety as a prerequisite for the genuine, as sobriety is an abstraction. Achievement and effort are irrevocably linked. Very few people who were not idiots before do what you are suggesting. Very, very few. I’ve seen the ‘point’ to life several times, and the next day I wasn’t trying to write down some magum opus. Anyways, I think this is one of those fundamental points we disagree on. Some monks meditate all of their lives to catch a glimpse of what one can easily expedite by introducing a psychoactive. Doesn’t mean the monk is wrong, but it doesn’t mean the other person is either. Some shamanic tribes do all of the ‘authentic’ types of things you’re talking about – but then they add peyote, or whatever. The whole ‘drugs are inauthentic’ line is just too simple for someone like you to be using, let alone buying into. This is saying nothing about your usage.

Actually these comments often come from countries with far better standards of living than your own, many of which have a higher per capita income and are per GDP/capita far more technologically superior.

Typical American supremacist nationalist thinking I see. You still haven’t outgrown that habit sadly.

Yeah they are all just jealous. Of what you are shit? Kinda hard to be jealous of a country that doesn’t really work very well, has become an elitocracy, is riddled with social inequality and poor social mobility, is downright dangerous in many of its more populous citites, has a ghetoisation that is seemingly endemic, racist bigots and nationalist assholes, abandoned all its well meant liberal values, but thinks it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Must do better see me.

America tries too hard to be something it is not and falls to the elitist lobby groups. A wasted opportunity to be something great messed up by its own hubris.

You’re kind of a running joke over this side of the pond.

If you want to find the American dream, best off not going to America, try somewhere where you actually stand a snowballs chance of hell of getting further than to your feet again when you are tossed into the gutter.

It was just another bash America post from somebody who doesn’t understand America until this. I have traveled extensively abroad (and still do so regularly) and have never run into this. Now it does, in fact, seem like jealousy. (too bad…ya reached just a little too far…)

I do not want, have a desire for, anyone dying. Quite the opposite in fact, I would desire that none of them have to die, as death is such a sad tragedy. However, this desire of mine to not have people die does not interfere with my ability to see the situation as it is, dispassionately and objectively - the earth is overpopulated, based on the needs (resource needs, generally speaking) of this population. Either a large number of people (mostly those who are unproductive) need to die, or the consumption needs of the average person needs to be severely reduced. We don’t get to have our cake and eat it too. The only reason our human systems are still going right now is because the top 30% or whatever is feeding on the slavery, poverty and death of the remaining 70%. In a very literal way, cheap oil, electricity, clothing, food, these are all predicated upon the enslavement, economic and otherwise, of the third world. The first world’s wealth and quality of life is entirely dependent upon the suffering and lack of quality of life of the third world.

Maybe you disagree with that? If you do disagree, then I can better see the paradigm from where you are coming, as you do not see an inherent sustainability problem in mankind’s population, population distribution (of people, of wealth, of power), as it currently stands.

I didn’t say the earth is in bad shape (although considering things like species extinction, the north pole melting, global temperatures rising, the size of the rainforests shrinking, I would not say the earth is in great shape either). I said our environment cannot handle supporting all of us, not for much longer at the current levels of quality of life (human consumption and production of goods and services).

Yes - and do these obvious reasons then mean that the fear is itself unjustified? Does the fact that these ideas are used for political ends mean the ideas have no truth to them? Of course not. In fact, the ideas are more useful politically the more true they are.

I do not believe mankind is a “virus”. Mankind acts like a virus in some ways, but so does all life - this is what it means to be life, to expand into one’s environment as far as possible. Some small groups of humans have, in the past, managed to maintain long-term balance with their environment (the Native Americans, for example), but this is the exception. Now, the fact that humans tend to expand, control and consume their environment, even to the point of irrationality (unsustainability) does not bother me, and it does not mean that man is “bad”. What it means is that man is a natural being, like any other life on this planet, and he acts according to natural needs and instincts. Our thoughts and feelings are entirely “natural” in this sense, a product of nature. Man is not morally to blame for how he is, because it is not man’s fault, man has yet to reach up and choose his destiny. Man has yet to define himself. Thus far man is a defined and determined animal, defined and determined by his past and by the demands of his environments. We do have the capacity to go beyond this, and in some ways we are already doing so, and starting to do so.

The point I am making is that man is not “the enemy.” However, there are aspects of human nature that should be viewed as “the enemy” if we desire to overcome the detrimental effects of letting these run wild and unchecked. Greed, lust for power, desire to consume without concern for the where, why or how of that which is consumed, valuing one human life over another merely because of the coincidence that we know that one life more than the other, ignorance of long-term consequences of behavior, irrational hope predicated on fairy tales and a psychological inability to look honestly at the situations we are faced with, merely believing “it will all work out fine in the end.” These are all natural facts of human nature - but if left unchecked they spell our doom. Our world has just grown too small now, too essentially closed in itself, to allow for such inefficiency and irrationality at the heart of the human. In the past, the effects of these were dissipated as man’s systems and environments were essentially open. That is no longer the case.

You are right that our systems are now turning inward and growing internally, in complexity, as a result of reaching the threshold of outward linear expansion. But what shape will this complexity take, if entwined with it are these irrationalities and unexamined problems in the nature of how man thinks, feels, desires, acts? Man is being organized, as a species, by technology - a direct consequence of the turning inward of the growth of the system. How are we to interpret the likely consequences of this being organized? We see that man is being mechanized, turned into a cog among machines, robbed of autonomy and the desire for autonomy, passified and over-conditioned to accept strict closed roles within the system. Media, in all formats, tells us what to think and how to think it. We resist, instinctively, but this resistance too is channeled and directed by the system, for its own ends. We are fed images to which we unconsciously conform and are limited, and then we are fed more images in which the instinctive resistance and psychological friction generated by this is released. Don’t like your nine-to-five wage-slave job? Go to a rock concert after work. Go drink some beer, or play a video game. Just don’t forget to pay your taxes on time. It’s all part of the same system, and as you say, it has grown extremely complex.

The question is, then, what are we to do about it? Perhaps the view that man is a virus, that man is the enemy is a needed simplification (deception) in order to subtly point man in the right direction. Every lie must contain a truth, and the best lie is that one which is itself nothing but truth.

Yes, I do see your position better now.

You touch upon what I deem to be the real problem here, and should be priority number one: parenting. As I have said before here, children should not be left in the hands of just anyone, and the fact that as a society we allow any random person off the street to have and raise children is absurdity at its finest. Our society is insane, but because everyone thinks and sees in the same way the insanity remains unnoticed. However, this being the case that I view the parenting situation so strongly, does not mean I am going to reduce all of our problems on a societal or global scale to “mommy and daddy issues”. This is one way of conceptualizing the problem and its root causes, but not a sufficient way, the problem goes way beyond this. For example, to education. Which would then be priority number two. But it would take sane, free-thinking people to implement radical changes in our systems of parenting and education, and these people are nowhere to be found - they exist, but they know there is no way to move the blind inert masses. Not willingly, anyway - these masses must be subtly guided, which you probably disagree with. You see a lot of hope and faith in the average man, to make better choices and to want to see truth; I do not have this same hope. I think the self-deception at the heart of man is absolutely essential, and is not a “bad thing”, it is part of his essential nature. In many ways, it keeps him whole, as a subject, and his ignorance (his will to ignorance) preserves his heart and soul. Religion is that by which man’s soul is preserved, but that the cost of remaining forever blind to himself – likewise, the will to knowledge in most men is nothing more than the careful refinement of the will to ignorance, so that this will attains an invisible status in the hierarchy of man’s drives and desires. The problem is not these (necessary) self-deceptions and ignorances at the heart of man, but rather that these have now come up against their own limit. Thus man must to some extent move beyond himself, beyond that which now essentially limits him.

But I digress.

“The planet” is not valuable in itself, it is valuable to us living beings that value it for specific reasons. Likewise with mankind itself - humans have no inherent value, we have conditional value in so far as there are things about mankind that we, value-creating beings, find valuable for specific reasons. Also, you mischaracterize my position as “let’s just kill a bunch of people.” That is not what I am saying. Even if this did occur it would not of itself be enough to raise man’s level of consciousness. In fact it would probably hold this natural growth of consciousness back somewhat by dissipating the friction therein. Rather, my point has nothing to do with my personal desires, something that I do not think you have still grasped: I don’t care what I want, regarding mankind; I care what I see as the case, the situation at hand - what is true about our predicament? My personal desires do not play into this assessment at all. I keep them wholly separate. In this way I can see the situation objectively, that is to say, truthfully, in so far as I am not coming from a position of undue bias.

I see that man the species needs a drastic evolution in consciousness if it is to survive itself - man has grown too powerful not to have this evolution, if he is to survive himself. As a corollary of this, man is overpopulated and destroying his environment and his fellow man - the first world feeds on the rest of the world to keep its excessive levels of easy consumption going. While this happens, the polar ice caps are melting, the rainforest is shrinking, global CO2 levels are rising, species are dying off left and right. These are all used by political “elites” in order to further control man and his social evolution, that is true, but it does not make these facts themselves untrue. And yes, I am fully aware of the debate over global warming. I am not “taking sides” one way or another, as such would be a foolishly unthoughtout and intellectually lazy position - both “sides” have truths to express. I am looking at specific facts within this debate, such as the amount of ice over the north pole or the measure of CO2 in the atmosphere. And these are all secondary concerns, to me, and they do not so much as give reason in themselves that “man is the enemy” or anything like that, but rather add support to the position that is already justified on its own, that man is reaching the limits, has already reached the limit of his ability to live on this planet in a mature, sustainable and responsible manner.

Again, these have not been my personal experiences, but I trust and accept that they have been yours. I am not concerned with paranoia or drug use here, those issues do not matter to me.

Knowing my limits and pushing past them has never involved paranoia, for me. Anxiety, pain, doubt, anger, hopelessness, confusion, these have all happened to one degree or another, but never paranoia.

That is not a logical response. It is never the case that “everything is a lie”, this is an oversimplification of the more refined truth, “many things are a lie.” Since I, moving from a “normal” paradigm of “most things are not a lie” (that most people occupy) into a more enlightened paradigm of “many things are a lie”, I instinctively recognize that to oversimplify this as “everything is a lie” would be to falsify is, to confront it inauthentically as a caricature, as a skewed image of itself. So I do not do this, I instinctively resist such inauthenticity in the encounter, and thus I do not get paranoia that “everyone is lying to me”, which would be an absurd thing to believe. Perhaps you never instinctively resisted the oversimplification of the opposite pole of knowledge as paradigm, when moving away from the “normal” view of the masses. If so, then I can see why you think paranoia is an essential part of the process of moving into greater and greater lucidity.

They are not the same, not at all. Paranoia is the active belief that “something” or “someone” is out to get you, it is fear/anxiety/desperation/doubt mixed with the immediate sense that one’s direct environment has become threatening in unknowable ways (this belief can of course be rational or irrational, not all paranoia is unjustified). This has not been my experience. But I accept that it has been yours. As you said, there is no “one right way.” We all experience this sort of thing in different ways.

Again, fear itself is not paranoia. They are two different things.

Where did I do this? I am not advocating or mandating sobriety. There are ways of getting out of “sobriety” that do not involve drugs - which is my point, really.

Yes, and yet drugs give you “achievment” with absolutely no effort. Does this not give you pause for concern?

Did I say that drugs are inauthentic? No. I said be wary of achievement that comes with little or no effort. If you find drugs useful, more power to you. I have nothing against “drugs” in themselves - even the label “drugs” is a misrepresentation and sloppy thinking. Read my points here regarding this issue as nothing more than a warning to think about whether the experiences one has while “high” on “drugs” are really as genuine, useful or truthful as they may at first seem.