War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
And what exactly is so dark about Orwell's vision? The lack of freedom? It's merely freedom rechanneled into forms more useful to the society at large. Society at large is a system, an organism, especially that within specific societies. As an organism, we can assume the system follows the mechanism of natural selection as outlined by Darwin, namely survival and replication. The movement towards restriction of freedom for the sake of system stability is an inherent, natural flaw of the rational which underlies biological humanity. Red blood cells are free to flow where they "like" through the blood vessels as it is by means of their freedom that life of the system is maintained. Viruses are not free to exist within our veins because viruses preoccupy themselves with the destruction of the system for the sake of them selves. Perhaps the grander human DNA structure of the individual is a virus in and of itself, but that is a moot point given that foriegn viruses are those that are denied entry and existence. Just so, an individual society must exist by means of an infastructure that permits all activities which encourage life of the society and death to those that do not.
American society exists in this very conundrum. It's condition, however, seems self evident. The freedoms we enjoy in terms of capitalism permit us the vitality which has made us the world power that we are today. We are free to purchase whatever we bloody feel so matter we have the extra ATPs to afford the pleasure. Yet if we drink too much, productivity suffers. On a grander sense, the question arises as to whether we're partaking in nutritious foods or merely high fructose corn syrup. We're certainly moving fast, but the energy derives not from a well-balanced diet, rather a perpetual sugar high. Damn the rules of the universe.
17.8.05
9.8.05
Imperative Towards Revolution
One sometimes wonders if truly it is not a clash of mutually exclusive ideologies that defines our modern dilema of the 'Global War on Terror,' but rather it is merely a head game for the status quo of modern political states... an internal battle of forces that exist simply due to the necessity of balance within the emerging global culture.
Largely, in the West, we have accepted the current political reality within modern states as relatively ideal and search out methods to tweak it further towards that ideal, to change the system in an evolutionary sense from within. However, as time goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer that the systems themselves are far too flawed to ever be adequately fixed. Granted, they will remain afloat for another twenty years, or at least until the next atomic bomb explodes. Yet the end of the road and the descent into darkness looming on the periphery of our vision is becoming increasingly apparent. The reserves of both our individual and societal life blood dwindle. Fresh water and oil look to become quite precious quite soon. On top of this, with the ice caps set to melt, whether due to natural cycles or global warming, the spark that lights the city ablaze is a visible reality. Can modern states deal with this evantualities within the context of a 'Global War on Terror?' Their concern lies not with the survival of the human race, but for the survival of the states themselves. Darwin at his finest. Thus the threat of full scale nuclear winter. Thusly the imperative for a new political context, a rejuvenated political sphere, becomes quite clear.
Yet the so-called failure of Marxism lends many cynics to cry foul and maintain the status quo. Current prosperity encourages them to refrain from a reexamination of the social and political cultures. Why risk everything on possibilities whose logic rests on science and conclusions that may prove faulty in the future. Afterall, the good science, the one that makes the gadjets, will certainly bail us out of this mess. New technologies to dig deeper for oil, or perhaps replace oil all together with the looming promise of free-energy, cheaper and more efficient techonologies to exchange salt water for fresh water, spy technologies that allow us to eliminate local terrorism once and for all. All this rests on the horizon. Together, these discoveries will slice the noose before the hangman can drop the box. God is on our side.
These fools are the true idealists.
So now we return to the war on terror understood as a head game, something to pass the time so that we might avoid serious contemplation of our end, the more imminent crisis on the horizon. Afterall, we can't change horses midstream. We're at war ladies and gentlemen. We're at war with the necessary creations of our cultural lifestyle. We're at war with the extreme ascetism that naturally rises to counter extreme hedonism. Our cultural shadow is alive and well. Simply stabbing it would be a dream. Therapy dictates the necessity of acknowledgement and inclusion into a greater whole.
How?
A recognition, perhaps, that our positively materialistic culture demands, by pure fact of its existence, a negatively materialistic counter culture. Although the existence of God or an absolute moral remains a highly questionable enterprise, the symbolic employed by religious metaphor can be utilized quite effectively as a logic towards patterns within the cultural world. Of course, we come to the essential argument called forth of what symbolic we might be best to use. After the Tao dictates the necessity of an extreme reaction to any extreme, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism would all have us believe that Good will win out the final battle. Each, in turn, calls for their adherents to fight on the side of Good. Yet our literalists have, sadly enough, often interpretted this fight in the most physically violent manner, a use of the symbolic which only leads to further chaos and battle on earth. Perhaps Christ offers us the best solution to the whole matter, as he indeed breaks from all these traditions in his response. Turn the other cheek he says. And, before I scare you off with blatantly Christian overtones, let us take for example one very real figure who effectively employed such a method in our very material world: Mahatma Gadhi. Ahimsa, roughly translated as non-violence, was the method he employed. Symbolic acts which only invited a bloody nose. His actions, however, brought about the release of India from the imperial grip of the British Empire.
Where now?
I suppose the obvious reapplication of this metaphor demands that we stop bombing the Middle East. Will the Muslim community support terrorists who attack, not an enemy, but a friend? Is it impossible for us to sacrifice our short term safety for our long term existence? Can we find the moment in our cultural dialectic where creation of the third term occurs, the opening of Buddha's middle way?
Largely, in the West, we have accepted the current political reality within modern states as relatively ideal and search out methods to tweak it further towards that ideal, to change the system in an evolutionary sense from within. However, as time goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer that the systems themselves are far too flawed to ever be adequately fixed. Granted, they will remain afloat for another twenty years, or at least until the next atomic bomb explodes. Yet the end of the road and the descent into darkness looming on the periphery of our vision is becoming increasingly apparent. The reserves of both our individual and societal life blood dwindle. Fresh water and oil look to become quite precious quite soon. On top of this, with the ice caps set to melt, whether due to natural cycles or global warming, the spark that lights the city ablaze is a visible reality. Can modern states deal with this evantualities within the context of a 'Global War on Terror?' Their concern lies not with the survival of the human race, but for the survival of the states themselves. Darwin at his finest. Thus the threat of full scale nuclear winter. Thusly the imperative for a new political context, a rejuvenated political sphere, becomes quite clear.
Yet the so-called failure of Marxism lends many cynics to cry foul and maintain the status quo. Current prosperity encourages them to refrain from a reexamination of the social and political cultures. Why risk everything on possibilities whose logic rests on science and conclusions that may prove faulty in the future. Afterall, the good science, the one that makes the gadjets, will certainly bail us out of this mess. New technologies to dig deeper for oil, or perhaps replace oil all together with the looming promise of free-energy, cheaper and more efficient techonologies to exchange salt water for fresh water, spy technologies that allow us to eliminate local terrorism once and for all. All this rests on the horizon. Together, these discoveries will slice the noose before the hangman can drop the box. God is on our side.
These fools are the true idealists.
So now we return to the war on terror understood as a head game, something to pass the time so that we might avoid serious contemplation of our end, the more imminent crisis on the horizon. Afterall, we can't change horses midstream. We're at war ladies and gentlemen. We're at war with the necessary creations of our cultural lifestyle. We're at war with the extreme ascetism that naturally rises to counter extreme hedonism. Our cultural shadow is alive and well. Simply stabbing it would be a dream. Therapy dictates the necessity of acknowledgement and inclusion into a greater whole.
How?
A recognition, perhaps, that our positively materialistic culture demands, by pure fact of its existence, a negatively materialistic counter culture. Although the existence of God or an absolute moral remains a highly questionable enterprise, the symbolic employed by religious metaphor can be utilized quite effectively as a logic towards patterns within the cultural world. Of course, we come to the essential argument called forth of what symbolic we might be best to use. After the Tao dictates the necessity of an extreme reaction to any extreme, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism would all have us believe that Good will win out the final battle. Each, in turn, calls for their adherents to fight on the side of Good. Yet our literalists have, sadly enough, often interpretted this fight in the most physically violent manner, a use of the symbolic which only leads to further chaos and battle on earth. Perhaps Christ offers us the best solution to the whole matter, as he indeed breaks from all these traditions in his response. Turn the other cheek he says. And, before I scare you off with blatantly Christian overtones, let us take for example one very real figure who effectively employed such a method in our very material world: Mahatma Gadhi. Ahimsa, roughly translated as non-violence, was the method he employed. Symbolic acts which only invited a bloody nose. His actions, however, brought about the release of India from the imperial grip of the British Empire.
Where now?
I suppose the obvious reapplication of this metaphor demands that we stop bombing the Middle East. Will the Muslim community support terrorists who attack, not an enemy, but a friend? Is it impossible for us to sacrifice our short term safety for our long term existence? Can we find the moment in our cultural dialectic where creation of the third term occurs, the opening of Buddha's middle way?
6.8.05
Wars and the Like
"Attacking Iran is a Bad Idea"
The inevitability of the first real world war hangs over the head of our collective generation. To deny this is to live blindly. No greater ideology of world peace holds sway over the immediate gratification of modern consumer capitalism. The defense industry builds bombs, states purchase bombs, states use bombs, the defense industry builds bombs. World politics, at the present, can easily be viewed as a war, albeit one who's physical violence has existed only at the lowest intensities. Yet the economic and geo-political manueverings point clearly towards a final confrontation, a climax in this chapter of the nuclear age. Perhaps, indeed, the turning point lies two decades off, but perhaps only two months. Mazarr effectively demonstrates the axis of the current American/Iranian relations. Notably in relation to the continued nuclear activities of Iran. If the United States were to be so foolish as to engage in a limited bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear installations, there is no doubt that Iran, acting out of intelligent self-interest, would respond emphatically. I feel the question that deserves to be asked out of this is indeed, would such a turn of events act as the lynch pin for the world war we're all waiting to fight?
The inevitability of the first real world war hangs over the head of our collective generation. To deny this is to live blindly. No greater ideology of world peace holds sway over the immediate gratification of modern consumer capitalism. The defense industry builds bombs, states purchase bombs, states use bombs, the defense industry builds bombs. World politics, at the present, can easily be viewed as a war, albeit one who's physical violence has existed only at the lowest intensities. Yet the economic and geo-political manueverings point clearly towards a final confrontation, a climax in this chapter of the nuclear age. Perhaps, indeed, the turning point lies two decades off, but perhaps only two months. Mazarr effectively demonstrates the axis of the current American/Iranian relations. Notably in relation to the continued nuclear activities of Iran. If the United States were to be so foolish as to engage in a limited bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear installations, there is no doubt that Iran, acting out of intelligent self-interest, would respond emphatically. I feel the question that deserves to be asked out of this is indeed, would such a turn of events act as the lynch pin for the world war we're all waiting to fight?
2.8.05
Drugs and Medicine
Action is the only imperative of a happy life. Action leading to more action leading to more action.
Most denizens of this earth are caught in the downward spiral of failed action. Of an imperative to act and the choice to deny it. This spiral is perpetrated by those who claim most sincerely to wish to help it. Namely, self-help gurus and organized religions. Where in the past organized religions provided a function of social cohesion through whose interaction individuals could find added meaning to an otherwise meaningless life, modern religions have adapted through a Darwinian mechanism the function of self-help seminars. They do not assist individuals in finding solutions to problems but rather provide the individual with the fallacy that the individual is doing something about solving their problems. The individual is told to put their faith in god, to pray to god, to offer thanks to god in the hopes that evantually god with come through for them. But this is a passive strategy which requires no action and is therefore a tempting one to choose. Afterall, I would rather not act than act, for to act requires effort and opens up the possibility of failure. Fear of failure inhibits success. Modern religions, the New Age movement included, are quite happy to maintain the status quo of nonaction because through nonaction the individual will remain a willing consumer of the tainted products pushed by so called religions. Entities such as the soul, the spirit, and the gods are, in such instances, faux entities created solely for the purpose of enslavement of the masses. True freedom is found in the ability to act. The ability to act opens up the possibilities of success (solving the problem) and failure (realizing one more way not to solve the problem). Modern religious movements prove themselves to choose the path of not choosing, as Mr. Kierkegaard might be inclined to say, in their imperative to wait, to have faith. If indeed there is a God, only a fool would say that this God can influence an individual's chance at success when that individual fails to leap into the abyss of possibility. Failure to leap into action permenantly seperates the individual from God in any sense of the word, except of course the sense that allows God to be a passive observer of one's own cowardly indeterminancy.
Most denizens of this earth are caught in the downward spiral of failed action. Of an imperative to act and the choice to deny it. This spiral is perpetrated by those who claim most sincerely to wish to help it. Namely, self-help gurus and organized religions. Where in the past organized religions provided a function of social cohesion through whose interaction individuals could find added meaning to an otherwise meaningless life, modern religions have adapted through a Darwinian mechanism the function of self-help seminars. They do not assist individuals in finding solutions to problems but rather provide the individual with the fallacy that the individual is doing something about solving their problems. The individual is told to put their faith in god, to pray to god, to offer thanks to god in the hopes that evantually god with come through for them. But this is a passive strategy which requires no action and is therefore a tempting one to choose. Afterall, I would rather not act than act, for to act requires effort and opens up the possibility of failure. Fear of failure inhibits success. Modern religions, the New Age movement included, are quite happy to maintain the status quo of nonaction because through nonaction the individual will remain a willing consumer of the tainted products pushed by so called religions. Entities such as the soul, the spirit, and the gods are, in such instances, faux entities created solely for the purpose of enslavement of the masses. True freedom is found in the ability to act. The ability to act opens up the possibilities of success (solving the problem) and failure (realizing one more way not to solve the problem). Modern religious movements prove themselves to choose the path of not choosing, as Mr. Kierkegaard might be inclined to say, in their imperative to wait, to have faith. If indeed there is a God, only a fool would say that this God can influence an individual's chance at success when that individual fails to leap into the abyss of possibility. Failure to leap into action permenantly seperates the individual from God in any sense of the word, except of course the sense that allows God to be a passive observer of one's own cowardly indeterminancy.
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