Being a Radical Has Led Me to Sometimes Live a Double Life

Posted on May 7, 2023 by Reid Mukai

Is that a good thing?

By Mickey Z.

Throughout the 2000s, you’d find me regularly riding NYC’s subways during the very early morning hours — specifically from Queens into Manhattan — to work with personal training clients in gyms. In fact, right up to the plandemic, I was still training a couple of clients in their homes.

On those subway rides, I’d sometimes grab a copy of Metro — one of NYC’s free newspapers delivering a daily dose of corporate media propaganda. However, there was a brief period of time when Metro would allow some subversive voices into the mix. That included yours truly.

From about 2004 to 2007, Metro went through a phase of paying edgy freelancers so I jumped in with both feet. This even included an author photo shoot!

Thus, for a couple of years, my decidedly non-mainstream perspective — and my decidedly non-mainstream photo (wearing a “dumpster diving team” t-shirt, no less) — were on display for millions of New Yorkers to peruse during their morning ride to work or school (see image up top).

As someone who can remember when newspaper columnists held sway in my hometown, let me tell you, it was pretty cool to be jammed into a crowded subway car next to someone reading my latest article.

I’ll never know how many New Yorkers read my Metro columns. To the best of my knowledge, none of my affluent clients saw my column or photo (probably because none of them would ever ride the subway).

Over the years, I did make a select few clients aware of my double life (a couple have even bought my books and attended my talks). But, since many of them were wealthy and mainstream, I typically chose not to divulge anything about my radical writing.

As a result, I sometimes found myself making up elaborate fabrications to account for why I wouldn’t be around for a day or two when, for example, I just so happened to be heading up to MIT to lecture on US foreign policy in 2003.

Yep, this high school grad addressed a huge audience there on the topic of Henry Kissinger and the 1973 Chilean coup on a Monday night… and by Wednesday morning, was back in the gym — working with dumbbells (insert rimshot here).

Looking back now, I ponder my strategy of keeping a big part of myself a secret in the name of maintaining personal trainer income. Why was I so sure that wealthy capitalists would shun me and maybe fire me as their trainer if they encountered my radical mindset?

Perhaps a better question: What did it do to me emotionally to hide something that’s always been very important to me?

I contemplate questions like this now because, well… it’s never too late. I may not have affluent gym clients anymore. But, in Covid-era NYC, I have plenty of others around whom I could start speaking far more openly.

After all, it’s not like I can’t point to cases from the 2000s when my double life was exposed and things went well.

For example, I trained three high-powered lawyers at their high-powered law firm’s gym. This arrangement required me to check in with the doorman — or was he a concierge? (It’s funny to me that I might insult a concierge by calling him a doorman.) Anyway, doormen display one of three basic behavior patterns towards personal trainers.

The first and most common is indifference (we’re used to that). Secondly, they relate to us as fellow blue-collar common people saddled with the same fate: serving the well-heeled. Lastly, in a futile attempt to align themselves with a winner, some doormen openly look down their noses at us.

This was definitely the case at the law firm until a certain concierge saw my handsome face staring back at him from the pages of Metro.

The guy was completely flabbergasted when he read a little something of mine called “Re-Examining Rumsfeld’s Ratio” (which talked about, among other things, the United States unselfconsciously using “Apache” helicopters to quell “ethnic cleansing”).

A political junkie, the concierge now saw me as an “expert” and fell all over himself to shake my hand and introduce himself.

My new best friend could not get enough of me and it became the new norm for him to quiz me about current events before and after my training sessions.

One morning, as I was passing through the lobby, he called me over and pulled out a legal pad. Believe it or not, he had written a page or two of notes to remember all the things he wanted to ask me!

Yeah, just another tricky day in the life of a muscular militant…

In 2001-2, I worked evenings in a corporate gym (cue the shame and self-loathing) in midtown Manhattan. One night, I was wearing a Yankees t-shirt with the name “Justice” emblazoned on the back (for former Yank David Justice).

A woman named Mary, probably in her late 60s, asked me if I was a Yankee fan. I told her my real reason for wearing the shirt was all about the word “justice.” She smiled and declared that justice was a “noble idea.”

I braced myself for the inevitable “we need to show those towel heads some justice,” (remember, this was early post-9/11 NYC) but instead, Mary told me — albeit in a stage whisper — she was soon going to DC to march against the impending US invasion of Iraq.

After this confession, Mary looked genuinely nervous. Her facial expression seemed to ask: Have I gone too far? In my best French Resistance voice, I reassured her: “Don’t worry, I’m with you.”

After that, we’d talk each and every time she’d come to work out. The corporation eventually phased out its gym facility but just before my last day, I saw Mary and complimented her on how hard she’d been training.

She leaned close to me and whispered: “When the revolution comes, I’ll be ready.”

As for me, my next revolution is to be even more open and transparent about my “controversial” stances. No more hiding.

After all, “a truthful witness saves lives.”

How Does Degrowth Apply to Our Minds?

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Reid Mukai

By Erin Remblance

Source: resilience

As an Australian, it troubles me that if the whole world lived like us, we would need 4.5 planet Earths. Thanks to over-consuming nations like mine, worldwide we are living as if we have 1.75 planet Earths, a figure that has increased from 1 (that is, living within our means) since 1970. What this boils down to is that those of us in the global north are taking from both countries in the global south and future generations to fuel our lifestyles today. The ‘Earth Overshoot’ research is supported by the work of the late Earth System Scientist, Professor Will Steffen, who brought to our attention The Great Acceleration, whereby “[a]fter 1950 we can see that major Earth System changes became directly linked to changes largely related to the global economic system.” Steffen is referring to our growth-based economies, and while three percent economic growth each year might sound small, it means that within 24 years we will be consuming twice as many resources as today, and within 100 years 19 times as many. As economist Kenneth Boulding said: “[a]nyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”

For this reason, I am a big proponent of degrowth in over-consuming nations in order to fit back within planetary boundaries. For anyone not familiar with the term, degrowth is a planned, democratic reduction in material and energy use in high-income nations while improving the well-being of people in those nations. It is more than this though. While very often the focus of degrowth is on how life can be better in a smaller economy, Federico Demaria and Serge Latouche argue that “[t]he point of degrowth is to escape from a society that is absorbed by the fetishism of growth…. It implies decolonization of the imaginary and the implementation of other possible worlds”. In this respect, the former definition of degrowth applies only to over-consuming nations, while the latter definition applies to all nations, and to all people. It is this second definition of degrowth to which this essay relates.

The concept of degrowth is powerful because it is clear that we need systemic change to avoid ecological collapse: business as usual with a “green tinge” isn’t going to be enough. It is also true that individual change drives cultural change which can be the key to unlocking political change leading to fundamental change. On this point, I find it fascinating to consider how “growth has entered our minds and souls”, and how an awareness of these “mental infrastructures of growth” might free us from growthism and help unlock the cultural changes that will bring about the necessary systemic changes.

With this in mind, here are a couple of points to consider in relation to how growth may be enshrined in the psychological structure of our collective minds, largely based on the work of Harald Welzer:

Our dreams for the future are centred around it being better than today, in the sense of ‘more’ (e.g., a bigger house, a larger salary, more travel).
We see ourselves as something to continually develop and optimise, our lives are seen as a process of creating biographies or filling curriculum vitae.
While we used to see paid labour as drudgery and something we did until we had met our needs, now we view it as noble, esteemed even, to be sought out and with no end. Sadly, this cultural 180° turnaround becomes a regret of many as they are dying.
Similarly, society views ‘hard-work’ as virtuous and thus ‘hard-work’ entitles those who undertake it to whatever their heart desires without limit or consideration of the harm caused, their purchases being the fruits of their labour.
We typically live by the rhythms of the industrial workday via a standardised worldwide time regime, unaware that there is a natural rhythm of time (for example, consider that in 2023 there will be 13 moons but only 12 calendar months or that, on the whole, our pace of work is unchanged by the seasons).
It is a collective belief that we should be able to own parcels of land, excluding others from that land. An example of this is that home (and correspondingly land) ownership in Australia is described as the ‘Great Australian Dream’, a term derived from the ‘American Dream’ of the same nature.

In various ways, these – and probably many more aspects of our modern day lives – relate back to the surpluses created by industrialisation (enabling the future to have more than today, a concept that is “historically quite recent”), the enclosure of the commons (the very foundation of growth-dependent capitalism) and the subsequent imperative to work to have our needs met (rather than simply being able to directly meet our needs). Our ability to recognise and unpick these ‘mental infrastructures’ – that is, the worldview that influences all of our actions – will be key to throwing off the shackles of growth and unlocking a culture of sufficiency, whereby we recognise when we have ‘enough’ in a material sense and from then on meet our “nonmaterial needs nonmaterially”, increasing our sense of wellbeing and contentment.

The work of Antonio Gramsci on cultural hegemony is relevant in unlocking a culture of sufficiency. Michael Mezz describes Gramsci’s theory on how the ruling class maintains power via a cultural form of dominance:

“…the ruling class creates an ideology in which its own values become common sense for the rest of society and Gramsci argued that the role of the state is to maintain institutions such as media and the education system that educate the masses on the cultural ideology of the ruling class. The goal of that education being that the working class develop a sense of freedom and a good life that serves the purposes of the people in power. In other words, the working class starts to value things like innovation and productivity and economic growth that doesn’t actually serve them.”

Gramsci tells us that the way to overcome cultural hegemony is by creating a new culture that is not based on the values of the ruling class. A counter-culture, if you like.

So, what are the counter-hegemonic narratives that we can begin to embrace? What would a mind and soul not infiltrated by growth look like? There is much to learn from indigenous cultures on this topic. As Jeff Sparrow highlights in his book, Crimes Against Nature, First Nation Australians found paid labour to be antithetical to their egalitarian lifestyles:

“Today, we take the wages system for granted. It appears normal, almost eternal, since we can barely conceive of an alternative. It did not seem normal to pre-colonial people. In Australia, as elsewhere in the world, they found capitalist practices utterly horrifying…. Indigenous people, accustomed to an egalitarian ethos and to work carried out for the collective good, saw the authority exerted by employers as tyranny. As late as 1888, a churchman complained of the difficulty he had in persuading Indigenous people that one man was innately better than another, that a certain individual, by virtue of his possessions, mandated obedience from his fellows…. Indigenous people did not despise wage labour primarily because of the effort that it entailed. Rather, they thought the work demanded by capitalists stripped life of its humanity.”

Furthermore, First Nations people lived with the rhythms of nature, not the industrial workday, and there was no private land ownership, they had the wisdom to know that “… you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).

There are many examples of counter-hegemonic narratives arising more recently too. The following list is skewed more towards examples from the global North because the global North represents the vast majority of the over-consumption and is therefore where cultural change is most needed. Such examples include:

Those people, like the Futuresteaders and others who practice voluntary simplicity and frugal abundance, who appreciate the simple things in life, and find happiness in what they have rather than what they want. Seeking only ‘enough’ and not ‘more’ represents an affront to the dominant culture of dreams of the future being materially greater than today. This point is relevant only to those whose needs are already met. Of course, those who are living in conditions of deprivation should have access to ‘more’, until they too have ‘enough’.
People who choose to spend their time doing work that is traditionally undervalued and lacking in both career trajectory and pay increases, but is socially valuable, forgoing future surpluses (think of the stay-at-home parents, childcare workers, teachers, nurses, carers, small farmers, those who work part-time voluntarily, and those who volunteer their time to worthy but under-funded causes).
The move towards minimalism which seeks to value time and non-material items over ‘the grind’ and the accumulation of things as a reward for hard work. The Tiny House Movement shows us that it is possible to enjoy living with less, including the freedom of a smaller mortgage.
The tang ping (lying flat) movement in China and quiet quitting in the U.S.A. are taking back our right to be humans, not simply workers who devote more time than they would like to paid labour.
Anyone advocating for job guarantees, enabling anyone who wants to work to do so. Job guarantees seek to remove the artificial scarcity of employment we see today, where the threat of joblessness looms ever large and we constantly need to better ourselves so that we can compete for work. Those who advocate for a Universal Basic Income – an unconditional liveable wage for all – are fighting to remove the need for waged employment at all.
People organising for the community rather than the individual are prioritising others over their own interests, giving up the opportunity to build their own CVs in favour of the greater good, and there are some wonderful examples of such union building here, here and here.
The move towards a 4-day work week challenges the dominant narrative that more time at work is better.
The Nap Ministry and the related manifesto Rest Is Resistance empowers us to value rest over productivity.
The many activists calling out the harm caused by the carbon-intensive lifestyles revered by the dominant culture, such as Greta Thunberg (who beautifully articulated in her book, The Climate Book, that “we all have a responsibility to find quick ways of making that [extremely high-emitting] lifestyle socially unacceptable”), activists who block private jets, people promoting going flight free, and those seeking to reduce the dominance of cars on our streets. For these people, simply having the means to live a materially intensive lifestyle – regardless of the hard work involved in acquiring those means – isn’t enough to justify the harm it causes.
The locals of the Greek Island Ikaria, who do things in their own time, not that of the industrial workday. This fascinating paper describes “people arriving to appointments in ‘Ikarian time’, that is, a ‘few hours late’ or shopkeepers telling bewildered tourists that ‘the shop will open when it is time to open’”.
Co-operative housing, community land trusts and Vienna’s enviable form of social housing show us that there are other ways of providing a community’s housing and land needs that don’t rely on private ownership.

There are, of course, many other wonderful counter-culture examples beyond this short list – this is merely scratching the surface – but the point is that we need to advance these, and those of the same theme, until they become the leading narrative.

Unpicking the dominant, growth-based worldview will mean closely analysing the stories we have been told (and who those stories might serve), and bravely and courageously assessing whether all of this growth really does bring us ‘the good life’. We will likely find that we can achieve ‘a good life’ (that is, harmony with ourselves, our community, and the physical world) by living simpler but more meaningful lives. Perhaps we will even come to realise the very wise words of English writer, Alan Watts: “the meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves”. The way that growth manifests in our minds, our thoughts, our dreams, and our souls is important to consider because if we can create a culture of sufficiency, we will have found the key to systemic change and avoiding ecological catastrophe. I’m sure we can all agree that this is a worthy task indeed.

“Facing Clear Evidence of Peril” in a Country of Lies

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Reid Mukai

By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

“In my seventy-plus years from 1946 to now, the chorus of fear-mongering bullshit has never ceased – only grown louder. The joke is on us. Ha Ha Ha.”

– Oliver Stone, Chasing the Light

Perhaps silence is the best response to the endless cavalcade of official lies that is United States history. The Internet and digital technology have allowed those lies to increase exponentially in number and frequency with the result that people’s minds have become like 7-Eleven stores, open 24/7 for snack-crap “news.”

But once you become conscious that it’s lies night and day, it sets your head aswirl and plunges your soul into depths of despair. You are tempted to retreat from such knowledge and talk of trees and trivia. But you are ashamed of your country. It’s hard to laugh. You feel you are drowning. You flounder and gasp for air. You look around and wonder why most people are able to go their merry ways believing the lies and whistling in the dark. Junk news nation, indeed.

Yes, there are alternative voices who tell the truth, but their audiences and monetary support are very small or non-existent compared to the corporate mainstream media and those who shout and scream across the Internet as they take in a lot of money from naive followers. The recent revelations about Alex Jones’s wealth probably don’t bother his diehard fans, but they should. Likewise, the funding sources for websites and writers of various persuasions are important to know, for they reveal possible biases in their work. Snake oil salesmen are commonplace, and there are many naive customers lining up for their wares.

Wealth and power are the main drivers of the media chicanery that has captured so many minds. Writers, of course, should be fairly paid for their work, but in this Internet age, most are not. As with the movies and book publishing, the income gap between the big names – the celebrity stars – and less well-known writers, even if their work is excellent, is huge.

Some sites and writers make a lot of money, but who they are is a guessing game. No one’s talking. Some regularly tell their readers that if they don’t receive enough contributions, they will be unable to continue to write or publish, even when the sites do not pay their contributors. Whether this is good marketing or income-by-threat is up for grabs. Whichever it is, it seems to work, as far as I can tell, for these writers and websites don’t disappear.

Money is the dirty secret of all news and commentary. To paraphrase someone: It is very difficult to get truth from writers whose income is dependent on pleasing those who fund them.

You may have noticed how many former military officers, CIA agents, mainstream journalists, pharmaceutical company executives, and sundry other government and corporate bigwigs appear in the mainstream and alternative media to support or oppose government policies. The mainstream ones doing the propaganda they always did, while the alternative ones appear as converts to the dissident faith. No one ever explains how and by whom these people are financed or how their lucrative pensions affect their consciences. “Former” is a funny word. Ha Ha Ha.

Confidence “men” come in all shapes and sizes with no one talking money.

So let me fess up. I received about $200 in support last year for edwardcurtin.com, my website. Nothing before that and not a cent over the last 5-6 years for many hundreds of articles that have appeared very widely across the Internet. Before the Internet, publications paid for work, mine and others. Not now, at least for me. How much money writers are receiving, and who is supporting their sites, is a taboo subject.

So I am thinking about selling mugs at my site with my name and mug shot on them and a line of supplements that will increase one’s testosterone and estrogen in equal measure to make sure no one takes offense in this era of delicate feelings. Ha Ha Ha. Yes, the joke is on us. I identify as a man since I am one. Don’t be offended.

Jokes aside, as Leonard Cohen sang:

“Oh, like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free”

If you are stubborn enough and have the good fortune to find inspiration from those brave dissidents who have gone before us and those who continue to lead us on, you realize silence is betrayal and that you must speak, even if all seems hopeless at times. Even when no one is paying you, or maybe more accurately, because no one is paying you. Even though it is hopeless, even though it isn’t. This is another secret. There are many.

It’s been twenty years since the U.S. brutally invaded Iraq. When George W. Bush, at a staged pseudo-event in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, as he set Americans up for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, said, “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” no one laughed him out of the house. His claim was simply an evil joke that was reported as truth. It was all predictable, blatant deception. And the media played along with such an absurdity, which is their job and what they always do. I pointed it out at the time in a newspaper column, but who listened to a hick writer in a regional newspaper.

Iraq obviously had no nuclear weapons or the slightest capability to deliver even a firecracker on the U.S. But the mainstream media, Senator Joe Biden, politicians galore, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey with her guest, the eventually disgraced Judith Miller of the New York Times, the despicable Tony Blair, et al., all supported Bush’s blatant lies. Soon Colin Powell, the “hero” of George H. W. Bush’s 1991 made-for-TV Gulf War of aggression against Iraq, would do his Pinocchio act at the United Nations and the U.S. military was off to get Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden’s evil twin, both the latest Hitlers until Vladimir Putin replaced them. I guess I skipped some others such as Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar Al-Assad. New Hitlers proliferate so fast it’s hard to keep track of them. Ha Ha Ha. The joke is on us.

As everyone knows, or should, more than a million Iraqis died because of George W. Bush, but how many cared? How many cared when once Bush was gone, Barack Obama, aided and abetted by the cackling Hilary Clinton, destroyed Libya and ignited the war against Syria? You want examples? There are too many to name here. But let it be said these lies span all American administrations, whether it’s Bill Clinton continuously bombing Iraq and Serbia through Trump bombing Syria and Somalia, up to the present day with Biden attacking Russia via Ukraine, etc. All these presidents are liars, but their followers treat them otherwise. Biden says Jimmy Carter asked him to deliver his eulogy. What does that tell you? Shall we laugh? Sing?

On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen
Shall we laugh?
Shall we laugh?
Shall we laugh?

Shall we laugh harder if I mention the Covid-19 propaganda and all those writers who have failed to even address it, as they have failed to question 9/11 and other obvious official lies? Is it not evident that if they did so, their money flows might dry up? Here and no further is a widespread rule, for they must adhere to the boundaries imposed by “responsible thought” and the “no go” zones with which they tie their own hands in order to keep their wallets full.

If you are lucky, as I was, when you are young you discover how fearful of free thought and how corrupt our institutional authorities are. You don’t spend decades feasting off the spoils of those institutions only to “wake up” once you have made your name and secured your fortune, which seems to be the way of so many wise luminaries of the Internet Age who are either trying to ease their consciences as they get ready to kick the bucket or are perhaps putting us on.

When I was twenty-four years-old, I accepted my first teaching job at a small Catholic college where I taught theology. I had been trained in the latest and best scholarly work of the most renown international theologians. Rather than indoctrinating my students with rote learning, I taught them to read widely and think deeply in the tradition of a liberal arts education. To seek out the best scholarship.

But doing so became quickly apparent to the college and Church authorities who were stuck in the inquisitorial age of obedience or else and no thinking allowed. Although my students loved my courses and felt freed up for the first time to think about their spiritual lives, I was hounded to correct my heretical teaching, which of course I refused to do.

At one point when I was at lunch in the cafeteria, a nun who was a professor, stole my brief case with my notes and left the cafeteria. One of my students saw her do this and chased her into the ladies’ room where the nun hid in a stall. The nun kept flushing the toilet to scare the student away, but the student wouldn’t let her out until she returned the briefcase. Ha Ha Ha. It sounds funny to recount but was an example of my experience at this college. Someone vandalized my office door and ripped down anti-war posters that were on it. I was gone from that college soon thereafter. It taught me a lot. Obey or else.

Heresy: The Latin word is from Greek hairesis, a taking or choosing for oneself, a choice.

At another teaching job a year or so later, I had a more chilling experience. I was known as an anti-war activist, a conscientious objector from the Marines, etc., and one day, a late Friday afternoon when few were around, an administrator asked to meet me on a deserted stairwell where he proceeded in hushed tones to try to convince me to join him in Army Intelligence to spy on others. He said I would be perfect for the job since I was known as an anti-war dissident. I told him to fuck off, but I was shocked by his double life and his request.

I have since learned that this guy the spy was not an anomaly, for government confidence men are widespread.

I’ve had many other such early experiences for which I am very grateful, even though when I was fired from jobs and lost income it was traumatic at the time. By my thirtieth year, I knew the system was corrupt to its core and subsequent experience has only ratified that conclusion. I got the joke.

I recount these incidents not because my experiences are singular and I’m special, for others have suffered the same youthful fate. But such good fortune can fortify you for life or break your spirit. If the former, you don’t wait to retire to push back against all the lies or regret your past. You find that it’s all good and life has set you on the heretic’s path of freedom and choice. You realize that what you went through is absolutely nothing compared to people around the world who have and continue to suffer at the hands of the U.S. military industrial complex. You realize your experiences are trivial in the larger scope of things and that your government’s conduct is beyond condemnation. It is an abomination. You feel ashamed to live in a land where killing is a game.

The sociologist Peter Berger puts it well in his little classic, Invitation to Sociology, when he discusses experiences that lead to seeing through the play-acting nature of social life:

Experiences such as these may lead to a sudden reversal in one’s view of society – from an awe-inspiring vision of an edifice made of massive granite to the picture of a toy-house precariously put together with papier mâché. While such metamorphosis may be disturbing to people who have hitherto had great confidence in the stability and rightness of society, it can also have a very liberating effect on those more inclined to look upon the latter as a giant sitting on top of them, and not necessarily a friendly giant at that. It is reassuring to discover that the giant is afflicted with a nervous tick.

Notice the giant George W. Bush’s clicking eyes as he delivers his “facing clear evidence of peril” lies for the invasion of Iraq. He and his presidential good friends are cardboard cartoon characters whose eyes reveal their evil intentions. “It’s a Barnum and Bailey world/Just as phony as it can be,” but it would all fall to pieces if it weren’t for you and me failing to see through all the bad actors, not just presidents but the whole cast of characters that populate the Spectacle of news and opinion.

The Russians are coming! Ha Ha Ha. Yes, Oliver, the joke’s on us.

But it’s not really funny, except in the most sardonic and dark way, for we now do really face clear evidence of peril as a result of Biden and his crazy predecessors who have run U.S. foreign policy for so long. They have brought us to the edge of nuclear war with Russia by surrounding Russia with NATO bases and nuclear weapons, while doing the same to China.

Bertolt Brecht was right in his poem “To Those Born After”:

Truly I live in dark times!

Frank speech is naïve. A smooth forehead

Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs

Has simply not yet heard

The terrible news.

What kind of times are these, when

To talk about trees is almost a crime

Because it implies silence about so many horrors?

When the man over there calmly crossing the street

Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends

Who are in need?

Reality Tunnels: How to Control & Re-Program Your Mind

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Reid Mukai

By Jack Fox-Williams

Source: Waking Times

When I was in secondary school, a teacher showed me an animated optical illusion in which a dancer appears to be spinning in one direction. I was adamant that the dancer was spinning clockwise, while my teacher insisted it was spinning counterclockwise. She then told me that you could change the direction of the dancer by focusing on the feet. I gazed with meditative fixation, and suddenly, to my amazement, the dancer started spinning counterclockwise! My teacher explained that since there are no visual cues for three-dimensional depth, your mind can determine what direction the dancer spins.

At that moment, I realised that reality is a construct of the mind, and we all potentially see the same world differently. I may have put it in less eloquent terms than that (considering I was only a teenager), but there was a fundamental shift in my understanding. The illusion made me realise that the notion of ‘objective truth’ was essentially arbitrary since our subjective beliefs mediate sensory experience.

My teacher and I could have argued for hours, days or weeks as to which direction the dancer was spinning; science couldn’t have proven either of us correct since it was a matter of perception rather than ‘truth’. In ‘reality’, the dancer was spinning in both directions, but since the brain has a natural tendency to classify, categorise and catalogue information in binary terms (up/down, left/right, black/white, clockwise/counterclockwise), the animated optical illusion appears monodirectional.

There are numerous examples of this in our day-to-day lives, like when we fail to appreciate other people’s viewpoints because we perceive the world differently. We believe we are right despite the multiple (if not infinite) interpretations about the nature of reality.

What are Reality Tunnels?

The countercultural guru Timothy Leary coined the term ‘reality-tunnel’ to describe our filtered perceptions of the world. Robert Anton Wilson later developed the concept to describe “pre-composed patterns of thinking which limit and distort the perception of reality by reducing complexity and options.”¹ According to Wilson, reality-tunnels shape our phenomenological sense of self, editing out experiences that do not support our beliefs while focusing on those which do.²

An advocate for capitalism, for example, will gather facts to support the view that capitalism is the most effective socioeconomic model, discarding any information that runs contrary to this viewpoint. Similarly, a Marxist will construct arguments based on select information to support the view that communism is the best system, often neglecting evidence that contradicts their position.

As the psychedelic scholar Ido Hartogsohn states, “all of us harbour established ideas about minorities, religions, nationalities, the sexes, the right ways to think, act, feel govern, eat, drink, and what not. Reality tunnels act to help us fortify these ideas against challenging information.”³ In this sense, there is a crossover between the concept of reality-tunnels and confirmation bias, the latter described as the “human tendency to notice and assign significance to observations that confirm existing beliefs while filtering out or rationalising away observations that do not fit with prior beliefs and expectations.”⁴ The phenomenon of confirmation bias helps explain why people who ascribe to a reality-tunnel are oblivious. Most people believe their worldview corresponds to the “one true objective reality,” however, Wilson emphasises that many reality tunnels are artistic creations, a culmination of biological, cultural and environmental inputs.⁵

The notion that reality is shaped by the conditions of the human mind is not new. The 18^th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed in his Critique of Pure Reason that experience is based “on the perception of external objects and a priori knowledge.”⁶ We receive information about the external world through our five senses, which is then processed by the brain, allowing us to conceptualise its contents. When I look at an object, such as a chair or a table, I have no understanding of its external nature. The qualities that enable me to denote the meaning of the object, such as shape, colour, size etc., have no objective existence; they are merely by-products of the brain.

The French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jacques Lacan proposed his theory distinguishing between ‘The Real’ and the ‘Symbolic’. Lacan argued that ‘The Real’ is the “imminent unified reality which is mediated through symbols that allow it to be parsed into intelligible and differentiated segments.”⁷ However, the ‘Symbolic’, which is primarily subconscious, is “further abstracted into the imaginary (our actual beliefs and understandings of reality). These two orders ultimately shape how we come to understand reality.”⁸

The Harvard sociologist, Talcott Parsons, uses the word gloss to describe how our minds come to perceive reality. According to Parsons, we are taught how to “put the world” together by others who subscribe to a consensus reality based on shared beliefs, norms and associations.⁹ A gloss constitutes a total system of language and/or perception. For example, the word ‘house’ is a gloss since we lump together a series of isolated phenomena – floor, ceiling, window, lights, rugs, etc. – and turn it into a totality of meaning.

The author and anthropologist Carlos Castaneda commented on this notion, stating, “we have to be taught to put the world together in this way. A child reconnoitres the world with few preconceptions until he is taught to see things in a way that corresponds to the descriptions everybody agrees on. The world is an agreement. The system of glossing seems to be somewhat like walking… we learn we are subject to the syntax of language and the mode of perception it contains.”¹⁰

The French philosopher Jacques Derrida stated that our understanding of objects (and the words which denote them) are only understood in relation to how they are contextually related to other objects (and denotive words).¹¹

We can break free from prescribed reality-tunnels by using objects and language in unusual or disjointed ways, thereby creating new discursive meanings, associations and connotations. This was the aim and outcome of certain art movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism, as well as Brion Gysin and William Burroughs’ cut-up method.¹²

The famous ethnobotanist and psychonaut, Terence McKenna, argued that ideology and culture are tools “which give other people control over one’s experience and identity since they lead individuals to shape their identity according to pre-conceived forms. If a person identifies with commercial brands or with popular ideas of what is beautiful, true or important, they give away their power to other people.”¹³ McKenna once said that you should not see “culture and ideology as your friends,” implying that you should understand reality on your own terms rather than buying into “pre-packaged ideological and cultural ideals” such as communism, capitalism, democracy or some form of totalitarianism.¹⁴ Belief in itself, argued McKenna, was “limiting to the individual, because every time you believe in something you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite. By believing something, you are virtually shutting yourself from all contradictory information, thus once again performing the sin of imposing a rigid simplified structure upon an infinitely complex reality.”¹⁵

Much like McKenna, Wilson recommends that a “fully functioning human ought to be aware of their reality tunnel and be able to keep it flexible enough to accommodate and, to some degree, empathise with different ‘game rules’, different cultures.”¹⁶ According to Wilson, constructivist thinking, which considers how social and cultural processes determine our perception of the world, constitutes an exercise in metacognition, enabling us to become aware of how reality tunnels are never truly objective, thereby decreasing the “chance that we will confuse our map of the world with the actual world.”¹⁷

How Your Reality Tunnel Is Formed

The constraints of human biology partially limit our models of reality. As Wilson states, our DNA “evolved from standard primate DNA and still has a 98% similarity to chimpanzee (and 85% similarity to the DNA of the South American Spider Monkey). We have the same gross anatomy as other primates, the same nervous system and the same sense organs. While our highly developed pre-frontal cortex enables us to perform ‘higher’, more complex mental tasks than other primates, our perceptions remain largely within the primate norm.”¹⁸

The neural apparatus produced by our genetic coding helps create what ethologists call the umwelt, or “world-field.” Birds, reptiles and insects occupy a separate umwelt or reality-tunnel to primates (ourselves, included). For example, bees are able to perceive floral patterns in ultraviolet light, which we cannot (unless certain technologies are utilised). Canine, feline and primate reality-tunnels remain similar enough that friendship and communication can occur between these different species, however, a snake (for example) occupies such a different reality tunnel that their behaviour appears entirely alien.

As Wilson argues, the belief that human umwelt reveals “reality” or “deep-reality” is as “naïve as the notion that a yardstick shows more reality than a voltmeter or that ‘my religion is better than your religion’. Neurogenetic chauvinism has no more scientific justification than national or sexual chauvinisms.”¹⁹ He goes so far as to suggest that “no animal, including the domesticated primate, can smugly assume the world created by its senses and brain equal in all respects the ‘real world’ or the ‘only real world’.”²⁰

Reality-tunnels are also influenced by “imprint vulnerability,” periods in our lives when early childhood/adolescent experiences “bond neurons into reflex networks which remain for life.”²¹ The psychological researchers, Lorenz and Tinbergen, won a Nobel Prize in 1973 for their research into imprinting, which demonstrated that “the statistically normal snow-goose imprints its mother, as distinct from any other goose, shortly after birth. This imprint creates a ‘bond’ and the gosling attaches itself to the mother in every possible way.”²² These imprints can be imposed onto literally anything. Lorenz observed a case in which a gosling, in the absence of its mother, imprinted a ping-pong ball. It followed the ping-pong ball around and, on reaching adulthood, “attempted to mount the ball sexually.”²³

Wilson estimates that the age at which we are imprinted with language determines lifelong programs of “cleverness” (verbal intelligence) and “dumbness” (verbal unintelligence), since linguistic models enable us to articulate mental processing, evaluate complex ideas and communicate with those around us.²⁴ Furthermore, how and when our first sexual experiences are imprinted can “determine lifelong programs of heterosexuality, brash promiscuity or monogamy etc.”²⁵ In more obscure imprints, such as celibacy, foot-fetishism and sadomasochism, the “bounded brain circuitry seems quite as mechanical as the imprint which bounded the gosling to the ping-pong ball.”²⁶

These examples suggest that experiences during childhood, when the brain exhibits optimal ‘neuroplasticity’ (a term used to refer to malleability of neural networks in the brain), can shape our reality tunnels far into adulthood. As Sigmund Freud proposed, many “rational” thoughts and behaviours are typically the result of “repressed” memories, impulses and desires, which dwell in the murky depths of the unconscious mind.²⁷

Furthermore, reality-tunnels are shaped by social conditioning, the “sociological process of training in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society.”²⁸ Manifestations of social conditioning are multifarious but include nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, spirituality and family life. Unlike imprinting, which usually requires only one powerful experience to set permanently into the neural networks of the brain, conditioning requires “many repetitions of the same experience and does not set permanently.”²⁹

The processes of social conditioning vary greatly, depending on the cultural environment to which one is exposed. For example, an individual born in a Muslim country (such as Saudi Arabia) will likely believe in the teachings of the Quran and adhere to certain religious norms, customs and traditions. However, individuals born in a Western capitalist/consumerist country, or an Eastern country with Hindu or Buddhist traditions, will adhere to different cultural and behavioural codes.

Reality-tunnels are also formed through the process of learning. Much like conditioning, learning requires repetition, but it also requires motivation. Therefore, it plays “less of a role in human perception and belief than genetics and imprinting and even less than conditioning does.”³⁰ Learning marks a major difference between how mammals, reptiles, insects and birds perceive the world. For example, snakes share the same reality tunnel since they merely act on biologically determined reflexes, with only minor imprinted differences. Mammals show “more conditioned and learned differences in their reality tunnels.”³¹

Humans demonstrate a higher aptitude for learning due to our highly developed cortex and frontal lobes as well as our prolonged infancy. This variability functions as “the greatest evolutionary strength of the human race” since it enables us to pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. But it also means that we can become brainwashed and label other people who do not share our beliefs as “mad,” “anti-social,” or “blasphemous.” In fact, it could be said that the majority of all wars are the result of two (or more) opposing reality tunnels fighting for supremacy. This is particularly evident in the case of religious conflict, where people kill each other in the name of “God.”

Tunnel Vision: The Politicisation of Reality

The rise of “identity politics” in the 21^st century perfectly demonstrates how reality-tunnels prevent us from considering alternative perspectives and viewpoints. During the last decade, the political domain has become increasingly polarised as the left and right engage in a battle for cultural supremacy. Such polarisation was apparent in the Brexit referendum of 2016, in which 51.9% of the British public voted to leave the European Union while 48.1% voted to remain.³² The marginal success of the ‘leave’ campaign highlighted the strong division between both sides of the political spectrum. The former stressed the importance of the Union in promoting social and economic stability, while the latter emphasised the importance of national identity, sovereignty and independence.

The rhetoric employed by both the ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ campaign was so binary in its articulation that neither side engaged in meaningful dialogue; instead, the referendum became a series of baseless slogans, mottos and catchphrases – an advertising campaign designed to appeal to target demographics. The referendum was more about two separate reality-tunnels competing for ideological supremacy than a balanced analysis of benefits and risks.

The US presidential election of 2016 was a similar drama of competing reality-tunnels, shaped by masterful spin doctors and hidden persuaders who exploited modern advertising techniques to capture specific demographics based on class, age, sex, religion, geographical location and other criteria.

Donald Trump was well-known for his campaign slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ and other catchphrases that employed a lexicon of patriotism, populism and protectionism to appeal to those on the right. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton used the slogan ‘Stronger Together’ to evoke feelings of unity, compassion, and solidarity. The election became a battle between two contrasting reality-tunnels, grounded in meaningless rhetoric and hyperbole.

Another example of politicisation is the Covid-19 crisis, with the public divided into two camps – those who supported measures such as lockdowns versus the other side that rejected many of these same measures. Political polarisation demolished a sane balanced approach to the crisis, exacerbated and intensified by the ongoing political divide across the media landscape.

‘Echo Chambers’ & Identity Politics

Social media has fuelled identity politics by enabling groups and movements to generate an online presence and have real-world impacts. According to independent scholar and author Ilaria Bifarini, this results in the emergence of ‘echo chambers’ in which internet users “find information that validates their pre-existing opinions and activates confirmation bias.”³³ This mechanism, says Bifarini, “strengthens one’s beliefs and radicalises them, without adding anything to information and knowledge. The result is the ideological extremism that we are observing today and in which we are taking part, where political debates have been replaced by supporters and verbal violence.”³⁴

Another way this happens, for example, is how Google’s online video sharing and social media platform YouTube utilises algorithmic data to show users similar content to their prior engagements – content they are likely to engage with in the future, thus creating a feedback loop in which they are exposed to media reinforcing their political preferences.³⁵ As media scholars Brooke E. Auxier and Jessica Vitak state, “many social media platforms structure their content-feeds based on what an algorithm determines to be the ‘top’ or most ‘relevant’ stories. While these tools may help users control their information and news environments – making consumption more manageable and mitigating information overload – it is possible that these tailoring tools will expose users to redundant information and singular viewpoints.”³⁶

Both sides of the political spectrum fail to engage in meaningful discussion when they are entrapped in a single reality-tunnel, the stability of which is threatened by competing narratives. Instead, political dialogue becomes characterised by inflammatory insults, name-calling and defamation.

Loaded language – such as ‘virtue signallers’, ‘snowflakes’, ‘racist’, ‘transphobic’, ‘Islamophobic’, ‘hetero-normative’, ‘privileged’ – enables identity groups to protect the integrity of their reality-tunnel by excluding those who hold a different opinion. In the same way that religious cult leaders isolate their members from the outside world, so too do identity groups orientate themselves around a closed belief system, which is immune to criticism, contention or challenge.

In order to facilitate a more meaningful discussion, it is important that both sides learn to break free from the constraints of their reality-tunnel.

Rising Above the Fray

In his book Prometheus Rising, Robert Anton Wilson provides various techniques for challenging dominant reality tunnels. Writing in the early 1980s, Wilson suggested that “if you are a liberal, subscribe to the [conservative magazine] National Review… Each month try to enter their reality-tunnel for a few hours while reading their articles. If you are a conservative, subscribe to New York Review of Books for a year and try to get into their headspace for a few hours a month. If you are a rationalist, subscribe to Fate Magazine for a year. If you are an occultist, join the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and read their journal, The Sceptical Inquirer, for a year.”³⁷

To put a modern ‘spin’ on this exercise, if you follow conservative thinkers online such as Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro, expose yourself to leftist thinkers such as Slavoj Zizek or Noam Chomsky, and do the opposite if you are on the left. Subscribe to internet channels that do not align with your reality-tunnel. By performing this exercise, you will find that you can think about political issues in a more balanced, neutral and multidimensional way, free from the constraints of ideological dogma.

You can use the same technique with religion. In one exercise, Wilson says, “become a pious Roman Catholic. Explain in three pages why the Church is still infallible and holy despite Popes like Alexander VI (the Borgia Pope), Pious XII (ally of Hitler), etc.”³⁸ Then explain why the Church is an immoral and outdated institution; also write three pages detailing why you believe this to be the case. If you have the time, you can perform the same exercise with other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Satanism. Explain why these religions hold the key to the ‘true’ nature of ‘reality’ and then refute yourself by providing a counterargument.

You can use the same technique to become more conspiratorial in your thinking. In one exercise, Wilson says, “start collecting evidence that your phone is bugged. Everyone gets a letter occasionally that is slightly damaged. Assume that somebody is opening your mail and clumsily revealing it. Look around for evidence that your co-workers or neighbours think you’re a bit queer and are planning to have you committed to a mental hospital.”³⁹ Observe how these assumptions influence your perception of other people and their behaviour – it won’t be long before you find evidence to support your paranoid thinking!

Once you have sufficiently experimented with this reality-tunnel, “try living a whole week with the program, ‘Everybody likes me and tries to help me achieve all of my goals’.”⁴⁰ Then try living a whole month with the program, “I have chosen to be aware of this particular reality.”⁴¹ Then try living a day with the program, “I am God playing at being a human being. I created every reality I notice.”⁴² Then try living forever with the metaprogram, “Everything works out more perfectly than I plan it.”⁴³ By adopting these different reality-tunnels, you will notice how malleable your perceptual faculties really are – the world can become a place of conspiracy and collusion or a place of benevolence and positivity, depending on how you view it.

Wilson provides another interesting exercise to expand the boundaries of consciousness, in which you “list at least 15 similarities between New York (or any large city) and an insect colony, such as a bee-hive or termite hill. Contemplate the information in the DNA loop, which created both of these enclaves of high coherence and organisation, in primate and insect societies.”⁴⁴ Then, “Read the Upanishads and every time you see the word ‘Atman’ or ‘World Soul’, translate it as DNA blueprint. See if it makes sense to you that way.”⁴⁵ According to Wilson, “Contemplating these issues usually triggers Jungian synchronicities. See how long after reading this chapter you encounter an amazing coincidence – e.g., seeing DNA on a license plate, having a copy of the Upanishads given to you unexpectedly…”⁴⁶

Experimenting with different reality tunnels is a necessary practice if one wishes to challenge dominant narratives, perspectives and viewpoints and expand the boundaries of human consciousness. As we find ourselves in a post-modern ‘information age’, where an increasing number of political factions compete for informational authority, we are exposed to the hidden forces of propaganda more than ever before.

Every time we log into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, we allow ourselves to be manipulated by a complex system of algorithms that generates content based on our likes, dislikes, and even our differences. In order to escape the trappings of ideological dogma, we must become conscious of our biological, social and environmental conditioning and adopt a more multidimensional way of thinking.

Understanding about ‘reality-tunnels’ becomes instrumental in achieving true inner liberation since it enables us to think about the mind as a form of technological software that can be continually updated and reorganised. We achieve a state of metacognition, an awareness of one’s thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them. It is what the pioneering mind explorer John Lilly called our capacity for “metaprogramming,” the creation, revision, and reorganisation of mental programs.⁴⁷

Although we are constrained by the limitations of biological programming (to a certain extent), the creativity of human consciousness is infinite, a maze of endless possibilities and potentialities waiting to be explored. As the Buddha said, “All that we are is the result of all that we have thought. It is founded on thought. It is based on thought.”⁴⁸

Footnotes

1. Hartogsohn, I. (2015). The Psychedelic Society Revisited: On Reducing Valves, Reality Tunnels and the Question of Psychedelic Culture, Psychedelic Press, 3

2. ultrafeel.tv/reality-tunnel-how-beliefs-and-expectations-create-what-you-experience-in-life

3. Op cit., Hartogsohn, I. (2015), 4

4. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias 

5. Anton Wilson, R. (1983). Prometheus Rising, Tempe, Arizona: New Falcon

6. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

7. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_tunnel

8. Ibid

9. Parsons, T. (1951). The Social System, Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1951

10. Sam Keen, Castaneda interview, Psychology Today, December 1972

11. Derrida, J. (1978). ‘Genesis’ and ‘Structure’ and Phenomenology, in Writing and Difference, Routledge.

12. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

13. Op cit., Hartogsohn, I. (2015), 1

14. Ibid, 2

15. Anton Wilson, R. (1990). Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You & Your World, New Falcon Publications

16. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_tunnel 

17. Quantum Psychology, 74

18. Ibid, 74

19. Ibid, 75

20-24. Ibid, 76

25-26. Ibid, 76-77

27. Wollheim, R. (1971). Freud, Fontana Press

28. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conditioning 

29. Quantum Psychology, 77

30. Ibid

32. Ibid

33. Bifarini, I. Cognitive bias and echo chambers: The social media trap, www.academia.edu/40650380/Cognitive_bias_and_echo_chambers_The_social_media_trap

34. Ibid

35. Nguyen, C. Echo Chamber and Epistemic Bubbles, www.academia.edu/36634677/Echo_Chambers_and_Epistemic_Bubbles

36. Auxier, B. and Vitak (2019). Factors Motivating Customization and Echo Chamber Creation Within Digital News Environments. Social Media and Society, April-June 2019

37. Prometheus Rising, 83

38. Ibid, 159

39. Ibid, 241

40-43. Ibid, 242

44-46. Ibid, 190

47. Lilly, John C. Programming & Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer, New York: The Julian Press, Inc., 1967

48. The Dhammapada

Arguments Against Despair

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Reid Mukai

By David Edwards

Source: Media Lens

Eliot Jacobson is a retired professor of mathematics and computer science who regularly appears on our Twitter feed discussing the climate crisis. He sends tweets under the grim title, ‘Your “moment of doom” for the day’. These channel the latest news on rapidly rising carbon emissions and temperatures, catastrophic examples of extreme weather, and so on. It’s depressing fare, and Jacobson is candid about the level of anguish he feels:

‘I woke up feeling angry at about 2:30 AM this morning.

‘It’s easy to find something wrong with just about anything I look at. It’s all projection. I’ve been writing and deleting Tweets, but I still feel angry.

‘I’m angry that there’s very little I can do and there’s no way out.’

In a blog post, he wrote:

‘This sadness is so overwhelming, so all-consuming, that it takes my breath away. The things I do to cope with the weight of it all are mere distractions from this sadness. Volunteer for a few hours, then sadness. Go for a walk, then sadness. Listen to music, read, visit websites, then sadness. Visit with friends or family, then sadness. Sadness returns every time I have a moment to reflect on the predicament of the present moment.’

I’m no stranger to this emotional roller-coaster. 1988 was the big year for me, when NASA scientist James Hansen told the world we were heading for disaster. I had no difficulty believing him.

It seemed inconceivable to me that the profit motive driving global industry could be restrained, let alone reversed, in time. I was then working as a marketing manager for British Telecom in the West End of London where I set up a Green Initiatives Group. Small changes were made, but they were just window dressing – deeper changes impacting profit were completely unthinkable. It seemed obvious to me that this fundamentalist corporate resistance must, sooner or later, lead to disaster.

I first protested for action on climate change with Friends of the Earth on the streets of central London in October 1989. I was 27 when I started campaigning; I’m now 61. I’ve thought a lot, worried a lot, talked a lot, read a lot, and written a lot about these issues for three and a half decades, more than half my life.

It seems absolutely incredible to me – by which I mean it seems something that I honestly would not have believed was possible – that what seemed like an urgent crisis to me in the late 1980s can still seem like ‘hype’, a ‘liberal tax scam’, an ‘oligarch plot’ and ‘bourgeois hysteria’ to large numbers of people in 2023. In the 1980s, we said things would change when there were ‘bodies in the streets’ – but the bodies are all around us now, and there is still no sign of meaningful change.

I say all this to make clear that I am in no way complacent about, or indifferent to, the looming climate catastrophe (it seems absurd to even describe it as ‘looming’). My comments below are not intended to detract from the vital need to take immediate action; they are addressed to the despair that I know many people, like Jacobson, are feeling.

You, Me And The Mysterium Tremendum

After everything I have myself suffered, it seems to me that we have two main tasks at the present time: first, to do everything in our power to avert the terrifying crisis threatening us with extinction. Second, to do everything we can to transform the fear and suffering of our predicament into love and bliss.

The first of these is new. The second may sound preposterous, even annoying, but it has actually always been the great human task.

Many activists devoted to action, to change, despise the very idea that our own happiness should be any kind of concern. The suggestion is dismissed as self-indulgent ‘navel gazing’. We have to dispense with all such ‘sentimentality’ and focus on ‘hard politics’. We have to plunge into the darkness of realpolitik and fight for our lives. It’s going to be bruising, to hurt – forget all kitten-cuddling ideas about ‘love’ and feeling good. And how on earth can you feel ‘bliss’ when the world is falling apart? Such nonsense!

As so often, the anger is rooted in fear – the fear that such concerns will divert energy and attention away from what really matters. The counter-argument is that not giving a damn about personal feelings, about our needs as human beings in this short life, is actually one of the key factors that got us into this fine mess in the first place. (See my Cogitation: ‘Our Indifference To Ourselves’ – Beyond The ‘Virtue’ Of Self-Sacrifice – Parts 1 and 2)

Just as I can’t understand how so many people can fail to see the truth of the existential crisis we’re facing, I can’t understand how people can feel so absolutely certain about the significance, the meaning, of this crisis that they fall into absolute despair.

First of all, we need to remember that despair is a function of mind; it is not something mandated by Existence. As Thoreau noted, we have a choice:

‘However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.’ (Thoreau, ‘Walden’, Oxford University Press, 1997, p.292)

This has been as true for everyone in human history facing death from illness, starvation, genocide, as it is for all of us now, facing extinction.

I find the universe so mysterious, so fundamentally Unknown, and even Unknowable, that I cannot establish a solid base of existential certainty that allows me to be confidently desperate about even this situation.

Of course, climate collapse is terrible for us – I don’t want to die, you don’t want to die; we don’t want so-called human ‘civilisation’ to disappear. But we all do have to die and the deeper significance of even a disaster on this scale is fundamentally unknown.

We are a miniscule part of billions of years of existence involving 200 billion galaxies each containing 200 billion stars, and who knows how many planets, swirling over distances that completely defy imagination – all of it emerging out of the mysterium tremendum, the how and why of Existence (we can’t say Creation; we don’t even know if it has a beginning or an end).

This immensity of space and time has led to this moment that stands before us. Here we are! Everything in this cosmos has led us here. We can’t just blame politicians, corporate executives and their journalistic enablers – the universe made them as they are and this is what the universe has given us to deal with.

Who are we to break down in despair as if we were certain about the final meaning of what is happening? What do we really know about anything? Do we really know enough to find a solid position from which we can cast judgement even on the extinction of human life, or even of all life, on this planet?

In November, spiritual writer Steve Taylor posted a poem, ‘Being Watched by The Moon’, on Facebook. Taylor wrote of our cosmic near neighbour:

‘Then I noticed a look of concern on her face.

There was a glint of disapproval, a hint of dismay

in her gaze, as it followed me home

as if she was witnessing an accident, or a crime.

Had I done something wrong? I wondered.

Had I injured or offended someone?

Had I gone astray, and lost the meaning of my life?

But then I looked closer, and realised:

she wasn’t just watching me.

She was watching the whole world.’

A glint of ‘concern’, ‘disapproval’ and ‘dismay’, as if ‘witnessing an accident, or a crime’? Is this really the most likely reaction of the Moon? After all, she has seen a lot – she’s around 4.5 billion years old, about the same age as the Earth. Human beings have been around for just 2.8 million years, and in our problematic modern form for just 200,000 years. The Sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago from an enormous molecular cloud that gave birth to numerous other stars. Our star has about 5 billion years of life left; she’s in her prime. The universe itself is about 13.8 billion years old – at least in this cycle, if it is a cycle. We don’t know where all this comes from, what it means, what lies at the base of it all.

Worst case scenarios suggest that human-induced climate change might devastate most animal and plant species to such an extent that it could take five million years for life to recover. But 5 million years is a blink of the cosmic eye to old-timers like the Moon, Earth and Sun whose memories stretch back, not millions, but billions of years. And if things don’t work out here post-climate collapse, maybe they’ll go better among the billions and billions of stars out there – that’s a lot of stars, a lot of possibility. From this perspective, one might surmise that human despair at the prospect of human extinction is one more manifestation of an egotism that causes us to vastly overestimate our own importance.

Might it alter our despairing perspective to consider that the enlightened mystics might be right in declaring that, not just plants and animals, but the entire universe is alive? We think life arises miraculously, ‘accidentally’ (what on earth does that mean?), Lazarus-like, from dead matter. But atoms are pretty lively phenomena; they are whizzing flea circuses of jumping sub-atomic particles, quantum waves and other forms of energy. Might we one day conclude that what we call life arises from these subtler forms of life? Is energy in some sense life?

And might our despair be leavened by the possibility, as mystics also insist, that, not just human beings, but the entire cosmos is conscious? What would it mean, if it turns out that even rocks are consciousness in a kind of coma; that evolution is ultimately a process of consciousness awakening from the slumber (not the death) of matter?

If everything is alive and everything is conscious, then even human beings are unable to inflict any real damage – a manifestation of eternal life rises and falls, comes and goes, but the ocean of living consciousness continues completely unharmed.

The universe seems to consist of objects, of material ‘things’. But that is not all: these rocks, animals, planets and stars appear in the something that is no-thing that we call space. Likewise, our awareness also provides an internal space in which sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions can appear and be known. We assume the universe is material and yet awareness seems non-material, seems entirely other than that which is material. Is it possible that external space and the internal space of awareness are related? Could they actually be the same phenomenon? We tend to see our internal space as an epiphenomenon of the brain, but is external space an epiphenomenon of matter?

Could the mystics even be right when they insist that awareness evolves in the universe by moving from ageing bodies to new ones? Westerners find this a childishly obvious example of wishful thinking. But does that make it untrue? Do we imagine that Buddha, Bodhidharma, Nagarjuna, Lao tse and all other enlightened humans were inventing when they made this claim over and over again? Could they even be right in arguing that consciousness moves from old, exhausted planets to fresh, new planets better suited to the continued evolution of consciousness?

If that sounds ludicrous, is it any crazier than the idea that the universe suddenly emerged from nothingness – nothing, nothing, nothing, then, Bang! – or that it has somehow always existed? These appear to be the only two possibilities, and yet both seem totally nonsensical to us. If the only logical possibilities seem impossible, how can we so confidently root our despair in our clearly inadequate human capacity for logic?

‘Satchitananda‘

I controversially suggested our task was to find bliss in the face of looming extinction. Is that possible? Is it moral even to try in the face of so much suffering?

Seasoned meditators tell us that the mysterious awareness perceiving these words is inherently blissful. Not just pleasurable, mind you – ecstatic. We are told the bliss is already there, is always there; that it is the very nature of awareness. The idea is captured in the Sanskrit epithet ‘satchitananda’, or ‘reality, consciousness, bliss’ – existence is aware and awareness is blissful.

This sounds counter-intuitive standing at a bus stop on a rainy Monday morning commute to work. We are here, we are aware, thank you very much, and we are emphatically not beaming with delight.

There are two possible explanations for this contradiction: either all the enlightened mystics were talking nonsense, or we are not in fact here, not in fact aware, and are therefore not able to experience the bliss that is here.

But if we’re not here, where on earth are we?

We are physically here, of course, but our minds are not in the present; they are in the past and in the future. Because the past and future do not exist, because they are mere ideas in the mind, when we are thinking we are absent; we are not truly here.

There are times when I sit in meditation for an hour when thoughts finally drop away; thoughts by which I am otherwise unceasingly plagued by day and night (dreams are thinking in pictures). When thoughts drop away, even for a moment, something very subtle, but very powerful slips through. In my experience, it emerges like a wispy strand of pink candy floss spinning out from some completely unknown depth and melting into my heart (my ‘dantian’ and ‘lower dantian’, in the terminology of Qigong). The melting is experienced as a sweetness, a delight, that glows with unconditional love for everyone and everything.

It is clear, sitting alone in a room, that this loving bliss is uncaused. I may have been as miserable as sin about the state of the world before slumping down to watch my thoughts and feelings – nothing in my world has objectively changed in that hour. In fact, as all the mystics insist, this loving delight has not been caused; it has simply been unveiled, revealed.

Thought is the veil. This is why we can’t feel the bliss of existence: it is hidden from us by layer upon layer of thought, rather like the multiple layers of cloud that typically greet solemn holidaymakers returning to Britain.

Human beings are the only animal that can become lost in the unreal world of mentation. All the virtuous, politically correct and well-intentioned thought by which we have always hoped to make the world a better place – the whole, misguided 17th and 18th century dream of the European ‘Enlightenment’ – has combined with all other thoughts to form an almost impenetrable barrier between us and the real source of civilisation, of personal and global salvation, within us.

The truth is that we have destroyed our planet and become almost completely estranged from the inherent bliss of being because we have sought civilisation and happiness in our heads. In reality, true civilisation – not the ability to build machines to pyrrhically ‘conquer’ nature, other animals and humans – is found when we transcend thought and connect deeply and often with our hearts.

‘The Best People In The World’ – Actual Human Civilisation

The very idea of technological ‘progress’ implies some kind of ‘Manifest Destiny’. It is our ‘destiny’ – the natural path of any ‘advanced’ civilisation on any planet – to develop ever more powerful technology, that we might one day voyage across the cosmic ocean just as we once voyaged across the water and air of our home planet.

But this may be wrong. It may be that the right option is to journey inwards in an exploration of being, of consciousness, to an unimagined brave new world of love and bliss.

Perhaps we don’t hear anything from highly technological ‘civilisations’ out there in the cosmos because the whole effort is a suicidal wrong turn that leads to near-instant decline and extinction. The cosmos may nevertheless be teeming with genuinely civilised beings who have gone in a very different direction.

After all, even on our planet, there have been examples of authentically civilised humans – people who live in their hearts rather than in their heads, who are free of our obsessive thinking. They appear to have rooted their daily lives in the kind of love and bliss that we in the West can only find in meditation.

In his book, ‘The Conquest of Paradise’, writer and ecologist Kirkpatrick Sale described the low-tech, Taino society encountered by the Spanish conquistadors in 1492:

‘So little a part did violence play in their system that they seem, remarkably, to have been a society without war (at least we know of no war music or signals or artifacts, and no evidence of intertribal combats) and even without overt conflict (Las Casas reports that no Spaniard ever saw two Tainos fighting).’ (Kirkpatrick Sale, ‘The Conquest of Paradise’, Papermac, 1992, p.99)

But the lack of violence was only one aspect of the Tainos’ towering civilisation:

‘And here we come to what was obviously the Tainos’ outstanding cultural achievement, a proficiency in the social arts that led those who first met them to comment unfailingly on their friendliness, their warmth, their openness, and above all – so striking to those of an acquisitive culture – their generosity.’ (p.99)

Even Admiral Cristobal Colon (‘Christopher Columbus’ in old money), the man who brought death and disaster to the lives of the Taino, recorded in his journal:

‘They are the best people in the world and above all the gentlest. They became so much our friends that it was a marvel… They traded and gave everything they had, with good will.’ (pp.99-100)

He continued:

‘I sent the ship’s boat ashore for water, and they very willingly showed my people where the water was, and they themselves carried the full barrels to the boat, and took great delight in pleasing us. They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal.’

Colon added:

‘They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.’ (p.100)

Sale wrote poignantly:

‘It is to be regretted that the Admiral, unable to see past their nakedness, as it were, knew not the real virtues of the people he confronted. For the Tainos’ lives were in many ways as idyllic as their surroundings, into which they fit with such skill and comfort. They were well fed and well housed, without poverty or serious disease. They enjoyed considerable leisure, given over to dancing, singing, ballgames, and sex, and expressed themselves artistically in basketry, woodworking, pottery, and jewellery. They lived in general harmony and peace, without greed or covetousness or theft.’ (pp.100-101)

American geographical scholar Carl Sauer concluded:

‘…the tropical idyll of the accounts of Columbus… was largely true’. (p.101)

The Tainos were human beings who lived in their hearts, not in their heads. They had no august universities packed with thinkers, philosophers and other half-crazed intellectuals; no 24/7 outpourings of media pollution – they lived in the bliss of awareness unclouded by obsessive thought.

As for us! By painful contrast, in his book, ‘Impact of Western Man’, historian William Woodruff commented on the society from which Colon had sailed:

‘No civilization prior to the European had occasion to believe in the systematic material progress of the whole human race; no civilization placed such stress upon the quantity rather than the quality of life; no civilization drove itself so relentlessly to an ever-receding goal; no civilization was so passion-charged to replace what is with what could be; no civilization had striven as the West has done to direct the world according to its will; no civilization has known so few moments of peace and tranquillity.’ (Sale, ibid, p.91, my emphasis)

To live in the head, to sacrifice the moment for the future, to prioritise the ‘serious’, ‘important’ work of the greedy, plotting mind over the bliss of the heart is to build a self-destructive, doomed version of fake ‘civilisation’.

Or consider the experience of the Mexican anthropologist Miguel Covarrubias on visiting the island of Bali in 1938. Covarrubias wrote:

‘No other race gives the impression of living in such close touch with nature, creates such a complete feeling of harmony between the people and the surroundings… The Balinese belong in their environment in the same way that a humming-bird or an orchid belongs in a Central American jungle.’ (Miguel Covarrubias, ‘Island of Bali’, KPI, 1986, p.11)

Covarrubias added:

‘A man is assisted by his neighbours in every task he cannot perform alone; they help him willingly and as a matter of duty, not expecting any reward other than the knowledge that, were they in his case, he would help in the same manner’. (p.14)

The result, Covarrubias wrote, was a village system which operated as ‘a closely unified organism in which the communal policy is harmony and cooperation – a system that works to everybody’s advantage’. (p.15)

In the late 1990s, I worked with the Swedish ecologist and activist Helena Norberg-Hodge who lived for many years among the people of Ladakh on the Tibetan plateau of Northern India. In her book ‘Ancient Futures’, Norberg-Hodge wrote of how she was bewildered by the strange fact that the Ladakhis were always smiling:

‘At first I couldn’t believe that the Ladakhis could be as happy as they appeared. It took me a long time to accept that the smiles I saw were real. Then, in my second year there, while at a wedding, I sat back and observed the guests enjoying themselves. Suddenly I heard myself saying, “Aha, they really are that happy”. Only then did I recognize that I had been walking around with cultural blinders on, convinced that the Ladakhis could not be as happy as they seemed. Hidden behind the jokes and laughter had to be the same frustration, jealousy, and inadequacy as in my own society. In fact, without knowing it, I had been assuming that there were no significant cultural differences in the human potential for happiness. It was a surprise for me to realize that I had been making such unconscious assumptions, and as a result I think I became more open to experiencing what was really there.’ (Helena Norberg-Hodge, ‘Ancient Futures – Learning From Ladakh,’ Sierra, 1992, p.84)

As amongst the Tainos, fighting in traditional Ladakhi society was unknown, disputes were settled quickly and peaceably, and when one person had a problem the entire community did its best to help:

‘In traditional Ladakh, aggression of any sort is exceptionally rare: rare enough to say that it is virtually non-existent… Even arguments are rare. I have hardly ever seen anything more than mild disagreement in the traditional villages—certainly nothing compared with what you find in the West.’ (p.46)

Norberg-Hodge concluded:

‘I have never met people who seem so healthy emotionally, so secure, as the Ladakhis.’ (p.85)

These societies that seem so ‘primitive’ and ‘uncivilised’ to goal-oriented, power-obsessed, head-trapped Europeans, were actually exemplars of authentic human civilisation.

I am not suggesting that we can become like the Tainos, Balinese and Ladakhis. If we are too high-tech primitive to save ourselves from climate disaster, we can obviously not hope to create that kind of paradise on earth.

What I am suggesting, though, is that the existence of these societies powerfully supports the contention of the mystics: that awareness unclouded by obsessive thinking is indeed in the nature of bliss and love. I am suggesting that such low-tech civilisations may exist in abundance, undetected, on other planets that will of course continue to thrive no matter what happens on our planet. I am also suggesting that you and I can create a little patch of this paradise in our own hearts.

Perhaps in our world as it is, genuinely civilised, loving societies are doomed to be destroyed by brutal, head-trapped, Western-style societies. But you and I still have the freedom, even in the face of this wider brutality, even in the face of environmental catastrophe, to live a life overflowing with love and bliss. Maybe that is all that is possible for us, and maybe that is enough.

Rage Against The War Machine: What Rage? ‘When Will They Ever Learn?’

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Reid Mukai

By Robert J. Burrowes

In his iconic 1950s anti-war hit song ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’, Pete Seeger posed the eternal question about war: ‘when will they ever learn?’ Of course, Seeger’s question was primarily directed at those individuals who choose to participate in the fighting. But it might equally have been directed at those in the ‘anti-war’ movement.

A few years later in 1963, Native Canadian Buffy Sainte-Marie penned the equally iconic ‘Universal Soldier’ to draw attention to ‘individual responsibility’ for war.

The question ‘Why war?’ has troubled human beings for millennia and individuals of conscience have long resisted it, sometimes paying a heavy price for doing so. And back in 1932, two of humanity’s giants – Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud – grappled with the question, exchanging letters on the subject.

See ‘Why War?’

Beyond war, a great deal of effort has gone into understanding conflict and violence, including their structural and cultural components, and I have noted some of these efforts, including my own, in a wide range of documents such as these:

‘Why Violence?’,

‘Comforting a Baby is Violent’,

‘The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War’ and

‘Einstein and Freud’s ‘Why War?’

Revisited: Why Anti-War Efforts Go Nowhere’.

Four things fundamentally missing from all previous efforts to halt a particular war or to end war generally, however, are these:

a serious effort to understand the dysfunctional psychology, and what causes it, that drives human violence generally,
a serious effort to analyse war as a system of power: Who is causing it, why and how? (This is important because understanding how power works in the world system as well as who, precisely, is driving what is happening, why, and how they are doing it are crucial prerequisites for developing an effective strategy to resist, or end, war.)
a sophisticated nonviolent strategy based on this understanding and analysis that is thoughtfully designed to address each of the foundational components of war, and
sufficient courageous people committed to implementing this strategy by participating in it themselves and mobilizing others to do so too.

Consequently, to say that anti-war efforts lack sophistication is to put it mildly in the extreme. As the very long history of ‘anti-war’ struggle clearly demonstrates.

And so it was listening to the anti-war speeches delivered in Washington DC at the Rage Against the War Machine rally on 19 February 2023. You can watch whole or abridged versions of these speeches here: Rage Against the War Machine.

Rage might give a person power in some contexts but, in itself, rage has zero strategic value. And are these people really feeling ‘rage’ about the ongoing war all over the planet or even the war in Ukraine? And acting on it? Of course not. Even if they were, as mentioned ‘rage’ is no substitute for acting powerfully (that is, strategically) to end war.

Moreover, there is a simple reason for this. Most anti-war activists do not feel rage against the war machine for the simple reason that they are terrified of it.

And this fear incapacitates them, leaving most anti-war activists too scared to seriously commit themselves to doing what is necessary to end war. Again, as the record demonstrates.

Hence, they complain powerlessly, rather than analysing, devising strategy and then acting powerfully knowing that their actions will contribute to the long-term struggle to end war once and for all.

So let me go back a step and analyze why the anti-war movement is so frightened and powerless and why it cannot learn from its own history of failure.

Why do most people complain?

In essence, this happens because when they were children, their parents interfered with their emotional expression which, in turn, stifled those innate behaviors bestowed by evolution to ensure that the baby, and later the child and then adult, acted to have their needs met. Usually by a young age, the child will learn to complain powerlessly when they do not get what they want. But complaining, rather than acting, does not meet their needs.

Thus, just as the child, endlessly thwarted by a parent who ignores the child’s genuine needs and then ignores their pleas to have these addressed, is trapped in the mode of complaining, most activists never learn that the role of politicians is to ignore them too. Of course, the value in this for those who genuinely wield power in society and whose aim is to facilitate perpetual war to achieve a variety of Elite ends (notably including the ongoing consolidation of Elite power and the maximization of corporate profits by financing both sides in any war) is that efforts of this nature, such as public protests against ‘government policies’ absorb and dissipate dissent, as intended.

And so it was on 19 February 2023 when a list of anti-war speakers echoed the eternal cries of powerlessness at one of the latest manifestations of an anti-war street protest:

‘Enough is enough! We demand change! Do the right thing! Implement ceasefire in Ukraine!’ See ‘Twenty Years after the Start of the War in Iraq, People Around the World are still Raging Against the War Machine’.

Einstein and Freud’s ‘Why War?’ Revisited: Why Anti-War Efforts Go Nowhere

Really?

As even former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig once noted about a massive anti-war demonstration: ‘Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes.’ See Alexander Haig. As a four-star general, Haig, not regarded as the most intelligent Secretary of State in US history, certainly understood that tactical choice is a question of strategy. Most activists have no idea.

So What Must We Do to End War?

Earlier in this article I identified four elements missing from the anti-war movement’s efforts. Let me restate them and offer my own learning in relation to these points.

a serious effort to understand the dysfunctional psychology, and what causes it, that drives human violence generally.

As the final stage of more than four decades investigating the cause of violence, I spent 14 years living in seclusion with Anita McKone. You can read what I learned in the document ‘Why Violence?’, in which I explain the destructive impact of the ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that adults relentlessly inflict on children – resulting in the bulk of the adult human population being unconsciously terrified, self-hating and powerless, with Anita’s description of our process in:

‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

If you like, you can also read other articles I have written such as

‘The Psychology of Projection in Conflict’ and

‘Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts’.

a serious effort to analyse war as a system of power: Who is causing it, why and how? This is important because understanding how power works in the world system as well as who, precisely, is driving what is happening, why, and how they are doing it are crucial prerequisites for developing an effective strategy to resist, or end, war.

I made considerable effort to explain this as part of a wider study identifying the Global Elite and how its power is exercised in the world system. This included explaining why the Elite has a vested interest in ensuring that war continues. For more than 200 years, members of this Elite have carefully facilitated the precipitation of war and then profited immensely from financing both sides in any war of significance as well as the rebuilding of infrastructure and the care of injured soldiers in its aftermath. Hence, preparations for war, the conduct of war and the rebuilding/healing necessary post-war is the most profitable economic venture, by far, conducted on Planet Earth and it greatly enriches Elite families, such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, as well as their agents.

See Historical Analysis of the Global Elite: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing.’

a nonviolent strategy based on this understanding and analysis that is thoughtfully designed to address each of the foundational components of war.

First, this requires a completely different approach to parenting if we want to raise powerfully nonviolent children.

See ‘My Promise to Children’ and

‘Do We Want School or Education?’

And given that strategy has long been a passion of mine and nonviolent strategy particularly, I investigated this thoroughly when I wrote The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

But for the simplest explanation of nonviolent strategy to end war, you can read it on this website starting with the list of ‘Strategic Goals for Ending War’.

sufficient courageous people committed to implementing this strategy by participating in it themselves and mobilizing others to do so too. This is important because nonviolent activism to end war has a price, measured in jail terms, adverse psychological assessments from people intent on stopping you, and a myriad other penalties depending on the legal jurisdiction in which the activist operates.

But if the antiwar activist is not willing to pay the price of their nonviolent activism, then the victims of wars in other places will pay the price of war with their lives.

Clearly, identifying sufficient courageous people is a primary challenge and the obvious shortage of courageous and tenacious people committed to strategically resisting war is just another outcome of our violently dysfunctional parenting of children mentioned in the first point above.

So if we are going to mobilize sufficient people willing to act powerfully over an extended period to resist all of those foundational elements that make war possible, we must profoundly alter our parenting model to produce powerful children and offer adults a chance to heal from the violence they suffered as children as well.

See ‘Putting Feelings First’ and ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

Otherwise we are condemned to watch people speak against war and march up and down in ‘anti-war’ rallies (or employ other tactics devoid of strategic impact) until the world is blown up.

An Obvious Criticism

An obvious criticism of the approach I have outlined above is that it is ‘too slow’. It offers no quick solution to deal with the immediacy of the threat we face at the current moment with the proxy war being fought by the US and NATO through Ukraine against Russia which includes the risk of the war ‘going nuclear’.

See ‘The Dire Significance of Putin’s Feb 21 Speech’.

And I am well aware of the many calls for negotiations on the one hand – see, for example, ‘The Ukraine War: Think Deeper Or We Shall All Lose’ – and long-standing US war-fighting policy on the other as routinely explained in a plethora of US Government ‘defense strategy’ documents.

See, for example, ‘2022 National Defense Strategy of The United States of America’ and a thoughtful discussion of US nuclear strategy by Professor Michel Chossudovsky in

‘“Preemptive Nuclear War”: The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity’.

I am also aware of calls, such as that by Scott Ritter, for US anti-war activists to focus on nuclear arms control as the highest priority for now.

See ‘Scott Ritter on the War Machine and the Future of the Antiwar Movement’.

And other perspectives and proposals besides.

But the obvious response to the ‘too slow’ criticism of my longer-term proposals above is simple: The result of the current crisis is so far beyond the existing anti-war movement to realistically influence, it is laughable. And so, in my view – which is consistent with my research into, and analysis of, what has transpired historically:

see Historical Analysis of the Global Elite: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing.’ – the war will most probably end when Russia has defeated the Ukrainian state but only after the war has been dragged on for as long as it can be conducted profitably, from an Elite perspective.

And while there is undoubtedly considerable risk of the war ‘going nuclear’ through policy or strategic miscalculation – see ‘Stanislav Petrov, “The Man Who Saved The World,” Dies At 77’ – accident – see Command and Control – or rogue local ‘initiative’, the Elite will ‘gamble’ against these possibilities while (presumably) constraining it at policy level, as has most likely occurred throughout the nuclear age.

Insane? Of course, it is insane. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’. It’s just that, in my view, there is nothing new to observe here: Just repetition of what we have seen before, which includes being taken to the brink of nuclear war and relying on ‘unknown factors’ – including, but not exclusively, background control by the Elite – to avoid it.

Conclusion

War is brutal. The Elite perpetuates war endlessly to capture control of people and resources to maintain the existing system of world power and make monumental profits. It will not be stopped because we make fine speeches, chant anti-war slogans at rallies or call for negotiations.

The human world is a system of power. And we need to understand how that system of power works to understand, and change, the world. This applies particularly when dealing with systems, structures and processes at the heart of Elite power, such as economics and war.

But underlying even this we need to understand the psychology of human violence because this also enables us to understand why the Elite controls world affairs to precipitate war (among a vast range of other violent and exploitative outcomes) as well as why ‘ordinary’ people fight in wars and the vast bulk of people who identify as ‘anti-war’ are so powerless.

In essence, war will be ended by analysing and understanding what makes it all happen and taking action intelligently, courageously and tenaciously to change what makes it possible; that is, by resisting in strategically appropriate ways the foundational components on which the entire system of war is built.

And given the ultimate foundation of the war system is our violent parenting model that renders virtually all humans into a state of fearful submission to violence, we haven’t even started the long journey to end war yet.

Nevertheless, while my own lifetime of effort has failed to remedy anything significant about the war system, out of love for my uncles, great uncles and humanity generally – see ‘Who Am I?’ – I continue to focus my own attention on undermining its foundations as documented above. It is slow, ‘unrewarding’ work in the short term.

But my hope is that some future generations of humans, assuming we effectively resist a myriad of current and future threats notably including the vast range of threats we all face at the hands of the Elite now – see ‘We Are Being Smashed Politically, Economically, Medically and Technologically by the Elite’s “Great Reset”: Why? How Do We Fight Back Effectively?’ – will live in a world without violence and war.

Obviously, given the precarious state of the world in many respects, a tremendous amount of intelligent, strategically-oriented action will be needed for this hope to be realized.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here. http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

The World Wants to Be Deceived

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Reid Mukai

By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

My title comes from a 19^th century author whose name does not matter nor would it mean much if I mentioned him. It’s an old truth that has not changed a bit over the centuries. I think, however, it would be more linguistically accurate to say that most people want to be deceived, for the world, the earth doesn’t give a damn, as the French poet Jacques Prévert reminds us in “Song in the Blood”:

There are great puddles of blood on the world
where’s it all going all this spilled blood
is it the earth that drinks it and gets drunk
funny kind of drunkography then
so wise . . . so monotonous . . .
No the earth doesn’t get drunk
the earth doesn’t turn askew
it pushes its little car regularly its four seasons
rain . . . snow
hail . . . fair weather
never is it drunk
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It doesn’t give a damn
The earth

But people, the thinking reeds as Pascal called us, we, who through the support of wars and violence of all sorts, care just enough to want to be deceived as to what we are doing by making so much blood that is inside people get to the outside for the earth to drink.

I could, of course, quote liberally from truth tellers down through history who have said the same thing about self-deception with all its shades and nuances. Those quotations are endless. Why bother? At some very deep level in the recesses of their hearts, people know it’s true. I could make a pretty essay here, be erudite and eloquent, and weave a web of wisdom from all those the world says were the great thinkers because they are now dead and can no longer detect hypocrisy.

For the desire to be deceived and hypocrisy (Greek hypokrites, stage actor, a pretender) are kissing cousins. I write this to try to say something of value about the mass idiocy of the media’s daily barrage of lies and stupidities that pass for news on the front pages and newscasts of the corporate media. And the people who believe them.

It is not easy. No matter how obviously absurd the claims about Chinese “spy” balloons, the shooting down of unidentified flying objects, reports of how Russia is losing the war in Ukraine, all the support for presidents and prime ministers who shill for the war industries, etc. – a list that could be extended indefinitely on a daily basis – these media are relentless in presenting government propaganda juxtaposed with trivia.

When you think they must realize they have gone too far since even a moron could see through their fabrications, they double down. And I am referring only to what they do report, not what they omit – e.g. how the U.S. has restricted aid to the earthquake victims in Syria or Seymour Hersh’s report on the U.S. blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, two examples of terror by a terrorist state that must be protected at all costs. This is the protection racket by omission and commission.

Maybe an anecdote would help. A week ago, I ran into an old friend at a coffee shop. Hersh’s article, aspects of which I question, had just come out and I asked him if he had seen it. He said he hadn’t but didn’t know anything about such pipelines being blown up. I was stunned. A devout consumer of mainstream media, yet he somehow missed this major September 2022 event in the U.S. war against Russia that was reported widely by the media he relies upon. Those media went on to suggest that Russia blew up its own pipelines, a claim beyond ridicule but one that was part of its war propaganda narrative. My friend is a guy who has strong opinions about everything and finds NPR, The Guardian, The New York Times, CNN, etc. to be credible news sources. How could he have missed one of the major stories of 2022, one that The New York Times, etc. was reporting on into December, still suggesting that Russia did the deed? How could he have missed the pipeline story whose reverberations spread through all aspects of the U.S. war against Russia via Ukraine when it was referenced in so many reports of gas and oil prices, a cold winter for Europe, and so many other issues? Its ramifications are manifold and have been reported as such, but he had never heard of it. I was stunned.

I wanted to quote him Dylan’s facetious words from “The Ballad of the Thin Man”: “’Cause something is happening/And you don’t know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?” But I did not.

I have spent a week wondering how it is possible that he didn’t know anything about the pipeline explosions. I am sure he wasn’t lying to me. So how explain it?

In the interim, as I have been trying to comprehend these matters, the Super Bowl with its mesmeric half-time spectacle replete with crotch grabbing has come and gone, and I have read an interesting article by Ethan Strauss, a sports journalist, “Why America Needs Football. Even its Brutality” that raises important questions.

Much has been written about football’s violence and the injuries it causes, the most recent example being the near fatal injury to Damar Hamlin of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills that garnered headlines for weeks (even though why he suffered cardiac arrest has been left unanswered since that would raise the COVID vaccine problem, which is also taboo). Strauss notes the many arguments calling for the banning of football – the war game – because of its violence. He notes that it is very true that football is very violent but that this is part of its great appeal. He writes:

And the NFL gives Americans that war, as spectacle, week after week.

Today, at 6:30 p.m., eastern time, begins the biggest spectacle of them all: the Super Bowl, where we channel those ancient animal spirits into a highly commercialized event that ends with fireworks and a shiny trophy.

We should celebrate that.

He doesn’t argue for the celebration of war, which he opposes, but for the war-like game of football. To Malcolm Gladwell’s statement in support of the banning of football as “a moral abomination” – “This is a sport that is living in the past that has no connection to the realities to the game right now and no connection to American society.” – he responds quite rightly that Gladwell is wrong:

In 2022, 82 of the top 100 TV shows in America were NFL games, and the top 50 most viewed sporting events were football games or events that immediately followed football games. By contrast, in 2016, only 33 of the top 50 were football-related. The country has lost interest in so much else, but football remains a huge draw and, in fact, is gaining relative market share.

Americans love violence, not just the military propaganda that precedes the Super Bowl game, but the smashing hits that players make and take in the games. It is hard to deny. Strauss goes on to show how over ninety percent of former NFL players who suffer from daily lifelong pain say they would do it again. The violence is intoxicating and Americans get drunk on it. It is the American Way.

I don’t agree with all of Strauss’s points or assumptions, especially his imperative that “we have war within us, whether or not there’s one to wage,” but he clearly is right that despite all the rhetoric about how terrible violence is, there is something about it that Americans love. D. H. Lawrence’s point a century ago still applies: “The essential America soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”

But this killer soul must be hidden behind a wall of deceptions as the U.S. warfare state ceaselessly wages wars all around the world. It must be hidden behind feel good news stories about how Americans really care about others, but only others that they are officially allowed to care about. Not Syrians, Yemenis, Russian speakers of the Donbass, Palestinians, et al. The terrorist nature of decades upon decades of U.S. savagery and the indifference of so many Americans go hand-in-hand but escape notice in the corporate media. The major theme of these media is that the United States government is the great defender of freedom, peace, and democracy. Every once in a while, a scapegoat, one rotten apple in the barrel, is offered up to show that all is not perfect in paradise. But essentially it is one massive deception.

There’s a make-believe quality to this vast spectacle of violent power and false innocence that baffles the mind. To see and hear the corporate masked media magicians’ daily reports is to enter a world of pure illusion that deserves only sardonic laughter but sadly captivates so many adult children desperate to believe. This is so even as the propagandists’ trial balloons are popped in the society of the comedic spectacle.

But back to my friend I mentioned earlier. He hates violence in all its forms, is strongly opposed to war, and has a most compassionate heart, yet he remains devoted to the media that have lied us – and continue to do so – into war after war, a media that clearly fronts for the warfare state. I still can’t explain how he knew nothing about the pipeline explosions. Nor can I explain his allegiance to the media that lie to him daily.

Even as his government, led by that very media, leads the world toward nuclear annihilation, he remains true to his media informants.

I am stunned.

In the Blood

Born in a normal time,
The periodic slaughter of millions
By the civilized nations of the earth
I grew to adulthood half-crazed
With fear and numbed wonder.

I always wished to believe otherwise,
That people were good at heart,
Wanted to live in mutual peace
And tend the green earth as if
It were a garden
As if pity vivified all living things.

Somehow the blood that was in me
Said otherwise,
Spoke truth to the power
Of my wish,
While everywhere around me lay the lie.

But my blood, this blood that became me
While millions were being butchered
And Bing Crosby crooned I’m dreaming
Of a white Christmas,
This red blood said otherwise.

Do not accept the way they say
“Good Morning”
And the way they nod as they pass,
As though they didn’t want to kill
Each other.

Do not believe their eyes
And the way they pray to the skies
To save them.
Do not believe their beliefs,
All lies woven to deceive.
For at heart they truly hate
The green earth.

Do not believe the way they say
“Good Evening”
For they wish the darkest night
To descend upon us,
The nothingness of their knowledge
To swallow all.

That is what will release them,
That is all.

Thus my blood spoke to me,
A child of a sanguine century,
Born in a normal time,
The periodic slaughter of millions
By the civilized nations of the earth.

And despite all appearances,
I have never believed them.
Never. Not at all.

HOW TO DISCOVER YOURSELF THROUGH YOUR OWN PHILOSOPHY

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Reid Mukai

By Mickey Z.

Source: Waking Times

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ~Oscar Wilde

There are now over eight billion people on the planet. We each have a different psychophysiological reaction to any given stimuli, no matter how minute the difference. From forks to forklifts, spoons to spoonerisms, folklore to philosophy. Every single one of us perceives everything differently.

The way I perceive the concept of something as simple as a tree is fundamentally different than the way every single other person perceives the “same” concept. This is due to our historically unique experiences with “trees.”

The memories we form influence our experience of perceiving trees. I may have fallen out of a tree and broken my arm. You may be blind and can only touch or smell a tree. I may have chopped down twenty trees to build a house. You may have crashed into a tree and totaled your car. The point is, every single historical interaction with a tree has formed a unique interpretation of “tree” in our psychophysiology.

The same thing applies to abstract concepts such as love, God, and philosophy. We each have historically unique experiences regarding these abstract concepts as well.

Which brings me to the point of this article: we should own up to the fact that we each have a devastatingly unique perception of all things, including philosophy. And rather than merely piggyback, kowtow, or place all our eggs into a single historical philosophy forsaking our individuality, we should make our individuality foremost and create our own philosophy out of the mulch, fodder, and compost of past philosophies.

We should double down on our uniqueness and fatten our individuality on the food of philosophies past.

Most people settle upon one established philosophy (religion, ideology, worldview), unaware that they have a unique perception of what that philosophy is. It is already the case that we perceive the concept of philosophy in a fundamentally different way than others do even within the same philosophy. Developing our own unique philosophy is simply becoming aware and honoring our unique perception.

It’s a matter of awareness and honor. Becoming aware of our unique perception of all things puts us into an existential pickle: We either admit it and honor it, or we deny it and dishonor it. If you choose the former, read on. If you choose the latter, not even the one-dimensional philosophy you lean on like a cripple can save you from yourself.

Here are five ways to discover yourself through your own philosophy…

1.) Practice self-inflicted philosophy:

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.” ~Dostoevsky

What does it mean to inflict yourself with philosophy? It means being ruthless with your perception of reality. No excuses. No mercy. No self-pity. It means forcing your head over the edge of the abyss. No rose-colored glasses. No pie-in-the-sky delusions. No safety nets. Just you and the eternal darkness. Just you and the rawness of nihilism. Just you and the existential angst.

You’re faced with the bleeding-meat realness of reality, a snarling darkness puking up all things. It forces you into a vital confrontation, demanding you think rather than believe. Full-frontal, no punches pulled, it grabs you by the throat and asks you, point blank, “Are you ready to accept that everything you believed was a lie?”

Self-inflicted philosophy forces you to perceive reality with a clean slate. It gets down to brass tacks. It’s philosophy in action. It digs down to the roots of the human condition. It cuts deep into the pulsing blister of the mortal wound. It reveals the lodestone. It’s your ticket to staying ahead of the curve because it exposes how everything is on the curve. No exceptions.

As Marcus Aurelius said, “All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the ones that make plants or children? Go deeper.”

2.) See the world from the shoulders of multiple giants:

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” ~Isaac Newton

Don’t be afraid of becoming an autodidact. Read a lot. Connect the dots. Stay curious. Seek the shoulders of giants. Seek help, expertise, guidance, and wisdom from others. Become a sponge for higher knowledge. Soak it up. Ring it out. Repeat. Learn; unlearn; relearn.

Don’t cling. Never settle. Putting down roots on a giant’s shoulder is a death knell for your uniqueness. Jump! Take a leap of courage out of faith. Stay loose. Stay flexible. Create a scaffolding between giants. Keep your curiosity ahead of your certainty.

Don’t get caught up in the hype. Don’t allow their destiny to prevent your own. Rather, use their destiny to invigorate your own hero’s journey.

What does this mean? It means staying out of your own way. It means allowing for guideposts, other points of view, and a healthy sense of detachment. It means sojourning, not standing, on the shoulders of multiple giants to see further than they did. It means employing self-interrogation strategies as pivot points in order to better navigate the labyrinth of life.

When you sojourn on the shoulders of giants, you are effectively building a bridge to the Overman. You rise above the outdated past to embrace the updated future.

3.) Interrogate the knowledge:

“As anywhere else in the world, the unwritten law defeated the written one.” ~Herman Hesse

The flipside of sojourning on the shoulders of giants is the ability to be circumspect with the knowledge gained. To truly be original one must be able to “entertain a thought without accepting it (Plato).” This means you must take the knowledge gained and interrogate your perception of it lest you become stuck in a belief.

Human ingenuity, like human evolution, is a flowing process of change and mutation. The key to maintaining the process is to allow reimagination despite past imaginings.

The stale and outdated past must give way to a fresh and updated future. Otherwise, there is only stagnation, devaluation, and de-evolution. Therefore, you must have the wherewithal to question everything you’ve learned to the nth degree.

The best way to do this is to honor what validates Universal Law and discard what doesn’t. A deep enough interrogation of the knowledge you gained from sojourning on the shoulders of giants should reveal its validity in relation to the benchmark of health.

When you use health as a benchmark, you realize that health is not a matter of opinion. Rather, it is dictated by an indifferent universe with universal laws that apply to everyone, despite our interests, biases, opinions, or beliefs. And this applies to everyone not only physically, but mentally and spiritually as well.

But health will only get you so far. It can teach you moderation and temperance. But it won’t get you outside the box, the comfort zone, the domesticated bliss, the indoctrination, the cultural conditioning, or the dogmatic mental paradigm. Only audacity and courage can do that.

It doesn’t take courage to blindly follow the dictates of the giants who came before you (manmade laws), but it does take courage to question them (using universal laws). Be audacious. Be courageous. Interrogate your knowledge.

4.) Blend it all together with your unique soul-signature imagination:

“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” ~Steve Jobs

If given a choice between the path most travelled and the path least travelled, choose neither. Choose your own path instead.

Don’t fall into the trap of following someone else’s plan. Deconstruct, analyze, and scrutinize their plan, then improvise it. Infuse it with your own essence. Take the knowledge gained from standing on the shoulders of giants and run it through the sieve of your imagination. Customize your life to your own fitting.

Take this piece from this ideology and that piece from that ideology, but then connect it all to your own unique perspective. Be creative. Think outside the box. Push your culturally prescribed comfort zone as far as it will go. It’s all yours for the making.

You are a pivot with a point of view. You are a wave crashing onto the shores of eternity. You are a unique emergence from the universal interdependent spirit molecule. You are the cosmos becoming aware of itself. And you are vital for the progressive evolution of the interconnectedness of all things, whether you realize it or not.

Don’t let anything else lay your uniqueness low, whether spiritually or psychologically. This is your life. This is your story to tell. As Nietzsche said, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

Indeed. No price is too high to pay for the privilege of discovering yourself through your own philosophy. No price is too high to pay for the privilege of self-mastery.

5.) Recycle the mastery:

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” ~Lao Tzu

When it’s all said and done, mastery is just as illusory is it is useful. Don’t allow it to kill your quest for truth. Let the life-death-rebirth process come alive inside you. Resurrect Beginner’s Mind. Keep the flow state flowing. Keep the fountainhead resonating. Keep the Truth Quest always ahead of the “truth.”

As Scott Adams said, “Awareness is about unlearning. It is the recognition that you don’t know as much as you thought you knew.”

For a true seeker there is no settled state, there is no final stage. There is always something more to learn. There is always an answer to question. Mastery is always recyclable. The journey is always the thing, or it is nothing. The sword is always sharpened dullness. The diamond is always pressurized coal. As James Hillman said, “the pearl is also always grit, an irritation as well as a luster.”

Mastery must be discarded on the funeral pyre of muscle memory lest it become the dogma that kills your journey. Feel the mastery, love it, relish being in awe and overwhelmed with gratitude for it. Then let it go. Surrender “mastery” to Cosmos. Practice detachment. When you’re attached to nothing, you’re connected to everything.

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After the Crash

Dispatches From a Long Recovery (Est. 10/2024)