Dream to Tao

[the breeze]

First of all, people collect rare coins. That has never happened before in previous ages. We highly value all ancient items and even squabble over them. That is just representative of how much more people value knowledge nowadays and how much more widespread is the desire for a connection with the past. We are more aware of ourselves maybe.

Laws are improving, and that is another big one.

How would we behave if we didn't have such a comfortable lifestyle in what we call the West? If our standard of living were threatened, or was perceived to be under threat, we'd sanction war without a blink of the eye.

 

[Avi]

How would we behave if we didn't have such a comfortable lifestyle in what we call the West? If our standard of living were threatened, or was perceived to be under threat, we'd sanction war without a blink of the eye.

Hi the breeze, aren't you painting a little with a broad brush ? In "the west" there are some pacifists who refuse to fight at all. These people are idealists who are not afraid to stand behind their beliefs.

By the way, I think you are the only poster with the word "the" in their name. That is unique. Is your avatar a mime ? I might be wrong, but I think you might also be the only Spanish poster here, that is pretty cool !!

 

[Dream]

True, Avi. In my response I was going to outline a plan to save the world and usher in eternal harmony, but there are some good plans for that already in motion. We are entrusted with the modification and execution (or oversight) of such good plans, made long ago and some more recently. We move them forward and pass them on. Trust goes two ways, back and forwards in time. Since they valued us enough to entrust us, we ought to trust ourselves. Right now the world, not just the west, is weak and slightly self-hating. I say the world loathes itself sometimes. While some introspection is good, all of this self hatred is unhealthy and gives us a lack of resolve. We should be confident, and we've come a long way, Baby. My suggestion is to make the world feel how magnificent is the confidence placed in it, how beautiful everything will be once our work is done.

 

[Tao_Equus]

No it's not an accident but my question is, does this situation persist through coercion or consent? It looks like reluctant consent to me.

And a great big whopping helping of sheer ignorance.

 

[Dream]

And a great big whopping helping of sheer ignorance.

...on its way out the door to make room for some new furniture.

 

[the breeze]

Hi the breeze, aren't you painting a little with a broad brush ? In "the west" there are some pacifists who refuse to fight at all. These people are idealists who are not afraid to stand behind their beliefs.

By the way, I think you are the only poster with the word "the" in their name. That is unique. Is your avatar a mime ? I might be wrong, but I think you might also be the only Spanish poster here, that is pretty cool !!

I agree there are some people who have real principles but they are a small minority and probably always have been, so yes I am painting with a broad brush because I don't see the good guys and gals ever having sufficient weight in society to change our moral/political/spiritual direction.

My user name comes from a JJ Cale song that seems to describe me fairly well (although I'm sure that wasn't JJ's intention ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8uk7vlk0sE

The avatar is a photo I found in a photo library and represents our tendency to wear masks almost always. Also, (I don't want to damage my coolness rating but ...) I do live in Spain but I'm not actually Spanish

 

[the breeze]

And a great big whopping helping of sheer ignorance.

Yes, but I think indifference is a big factor. It's not hard to be informed these days but you need at least basic curiosity to be so.

 

[Vajradhara]

Namaste all,

just an aside... the Soviet Union did not get rid of religion. indeed, during that time in most of the Soviet republics, religious pluralism increased especially amongst the Muslim and indigenous shaman groups in central and eastern Asia.

the failure of the Soviet religious system is not too dissimilar to the economic system which also collapsed. primarily the main change instituted into the Soviet religious system (like all communist systems which still permit religous praxis - China for example) was a change in the hierarchial structure and the source from whence this religious authority derived.

we also must be quite clear in seperating Soviet Republics from Russia itself and other Slavic countries that were primarily Eastern Orthodox rather than Catholic in orientation. for Soviet Republics that were European Catholic, the removal of the Pope from the hierarchy effectively ended Christian dominance of the society. indeed, the current Pope lamented at the apathy the people of Eastern Europe (former Catholic countries) displayed over his most recent trip.

there is a tendency to continue with a cold war mentality when considering the Soviet Union however, even during the heights of the Great Terror there was an operating Orthodox church within the KGB itself. there was a period of about 9 years when it was closed though the official records indicate that the agents continued to practice their religious tradition and eventually the church was reopened.

one of the main points with religion within the communist paradigm is that it, religion, cannot take the place of the party or party leader (depending on how far into the cult of personality the government has fallen) and thus the religious groups were reconstituted, as it were, with titular heads appointed by the Party thus ensuring, ultimately, that the religious leaders will espouse the Party line. thus in China today we find the Catholic Church still well attended to and, literally, millions of Catholic Chinese worshipping. of course, it's a Chinese Pope, one appointed by the government for the specific purpose of keeping the Catholics in line.

the same thing is happening to my religion. one of the prominent religious figures and his family were taken from their home (when he was 4 years old) and have not been seen since. this particular being is the one that designates the next Dalai Lama and thus the Chinese are trying to ensure that someone that they control will be the titular head of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. the Dalai Lama has acted against this process by dissolving the old government and reconstituting a new democractic system, it remains to be seen how this transition will take place once the current Dalai Lama is no longer arising on this world system.

metta,

~v

 

[Penelope]

Why destroy a religion? I suspect there would be some serious fallout if a religion were destroyed suddenly. That is why no one tells the whole story in one swipe, a belief that change should come slowly.

But on an individual level I think people could cope with just the facts if it were not that they are lied to with design from birth. It is that indoctrination that is endemic, insidious, throughout every society that really annoys me. I firmly believe it will, if not beaten, destroy us.

Been thinking about this dilemma for several days, without resolution.

& & &

Before high school, I think it is the 'gang we grow up with' (in the 'hood) which is the gang we run with. It is not a conscious choice. But by high school, we choose what snobbish little rat-pack we want to run with.
(If we are lucky, by college we leave behind both worlds - leave behind the need for a band of 'running buddies' to validate our existence.)

Hollywood makes high school look like a battlefield between the 'cool kids' and the 'weirdos.' Or the 'jocks' (athletes) versus the 'heads' (drug-heads).
In my high school, I was an athlete as well as both cool and weird - none of which mattered. The two cliques which mattered were both highly political. Both groups were convinced President Reagan was going to start nuclear WWIII with the Soviet Union, and destroy the planet.
(Reagan's notion that rebuilding the American military would put so much pressure on the Soviet's fragile economy that Soviet communism would crumble ... we all laughed at this as pie-in-the-sky policy-making. The Soviet Union would be around forever, we confidently knew ... I still bump into old high school friends who do not know how to deal with the Fall of the Berlin Wall. They still cannot admit that we were wrong and Reagan, by luck or by wisdom, was right.)

Both political cliques in my high school liked Punk Rock music.
- Group A liked a good drumbeat - 'The Clash' and New Wave pop-music and direct agit-prop politics.
- Group B liked their backbeat off-tempo - 'Joy Division' and Noise-Fusion music and Situationist/anarchist politics.

I floated between both groups for awhile, but landed securely in Group B. We were the 'intellectuals.' We even dared to hang-out with likeminded kids from other high schools. Guy Debord (Society of the Spectacle) was one of our prophets.

& & &

We expertly tore Habermas limb from limb, shot large holes thru Deleuze & Guattari though we employed many of this pair's concepts. Some new thinker would appear on our horizon, and we'd frame our arguments utilizing this thinker's concepts or shooting them down ... This would last a month, then someone new would cross our horizon.

One such thinker was Regis Debray.
A French 'man of action' (like Andre Malraux), Debray writes journalism in Cuba and Bolivia in the 1960s. Debray is arrested and jailed in Bolivia for being sympathetic to Che Guevara's revolutionaries (which he was).
For prison reading matter, leftist political literature was forbidden. But general historical writings were generally available to Debray during his captivity.

Particularly ... the histories of Religions.

He quickly began to realize that there is no inherent difference between a religious movement and a political movement, between religious institutions and political institutions. They both operate by the same rules.

The 'group dynamic' operating within a religious sect is virtually identical to the 'group dynamic' operating within a political cell.

Two decades later (now free and living in France), Debray wrote a very smart book delineating these ideas. Critique de la raison politique (1981). I read the abridged translation by David Macey, Critique of Political Reason, shortly after it was published in 1983.

My friends read Debray, too, then quickly moved on to other thinkers. I've never been quite able to forget this book.

& & &

Regis Debray's major new work is an exploration of the foundations and limits of political discourse and action. Focusing, with his familiar verve and fluency, on the mechanisms through which ideologies mobilize historical subjects, Debray argues that there is a common pattern in all great political and religious movements. Each possesses an apparatus that releases affective charges of belonging and closure; each is tended by bodies of functionaries who maintain its continuity and transmit its doctrines. The great mobilizing ideologies - Christianity, Islam, Marxism - deploy corps of priests, teachers, cadres. The real foundation of 'political reason,' for Debray, lies in the human need to participate in closed groups, denying or mitigating the harshness of the external world and the fact of death.- Critique of Political Reason, 1983, dustjacket.

& & &

An individual experiences a sense of freedom only when he or she has a physical frontier to conquer or new technology to exploit. When the entire palpable frontier becomes homesteaded and the new technology becomes old hat, the individual's craving for freedom needs to find a substitute. An idea to conquer. A new artform (new format of discourse) to exploit. Thus ...
Faith and scripture.

But faith and scripture are social creations, and obey social laws.
(You need other people.)
And, to Debray, these social laws are hardwired into human beings.

Group dynamic is a staged process. If an individual wants to effect change, via this group ... what he or she can actually accomplish is extremely limited.
(Even if he or she becomes a prophet or a priest within this group ... Rules dictate.)

Groups often detour off their original course. Groups often end up doing what they can do rather than what they want to do. And much of what they do, in fact, do ... is more about the survival of the group than about its original goal.

& & &

So, Dream ...
I am dubious about a religion's (any religion's) ability to slowly change over time. Change ('progress') is almost accidental and arbitrary. Caused more by the appearance from time to time of new frontiers or new technologies. Groups, invariably, lose sight of 99% of the original goals they had. And renewal of the faith (Mao's 'continuing revolution') typically breeds monsters - a monstrous version of the faith's original core principle.

And, Tao ...
The individual, however inspired, has little ability to effect genuine social change ... if attempting to operate outside of an organized social group. But within a group, you cannot make this group work fast ... regardless of how imminent the danger seems. Debray says something like (I have lost the quote) ...
An individual has as much chance of changing the laws of group-dynamics as an astronomer has of changing the configuration of the stars.

& & &

(I have a more positive spin on all this ... which I will get around to sharing, eventually. But, for now, I will let you both stew in the pessimism of it all) ...

 

[Dream]

(Reagan's notion that rebuilding the American military would put so much pressure on the Soviet's fragile economy that Soviet communism would crumble ... we all laughed at this as pie-in-the-sky policy-making. The Soviet Union would be around forever, we confidently knew ... I still bump into old high school friends who do not know how to deal with the Fall of the Berlin Wall. They still cannot admit that we were wrong and Reagan, by luck or by wisdom, was right.)

Our class decided that Reagan was better, because we had heard that Carter spanked his kids harder than Reagan. Strange how that one little myth made so much difference to us at the time.

He quickly began to realize that there is no inherent difference between a religious movement and a political movement, between religious institutions and political institutions. They both operate by the same rules.

I have not read Critique of Political Reason. Does he go into history of various movements such as communism?

If we think about movements as languages, then there are lots of ways to contrast them. Movements can partly be described with linguistic semantics, because each religion or political movement is really a language. I am not saying they are all the same, but that studying a religion or philosophy is mostly a language problem. Each hopefully has its own 'Metalanguage'. Metalanguage is that part of a language which tells you how to speak the language -- the parts of speech, etc. How good is the religion or political movement's metalanguage if it has one? Then you can ask whether the language is racist, facilitates communication, is flexible, can handle complex ideas, is specialized, etc. If there is no metalanguage, then there is no rational basis to contrast.

Group dynamic is a staged process. If an individual wants to effect change, via this group ... what he or she can actually accomplish is extremely limited.

Tell me about it!

Dream,

I am dubious about a religion's (any religion's) ability to slowly change over time. Change ('progress') is almost accidental and arbitrary. Caused more by the appearance from time to time of new frontiers or new technologies. Groups, invariably, lose sight of 99% of the original goals they had. And renewal of the faith (Mao's 'continuing revolution') typically breeds monsters - a monstrous version of the faith's original core principle.

I think what matters is the illusion of having no-change. If a movement accepts that change is inevitable, then it can strive to change for the better. Trouble comes because a movement sometimes cannot accept that there is change. Similar to what you said above about 'Monstrous versions': if a religion perceives change as negative then it will be self hating, since change is inevitable. Personal self hatred underlies hating others, and probably this applies to movements. Now you have your something monstrous.

I'm curious what your positive spin is?

 

[shawn]

Before high school, I think it is the 'gang we grow up with' (in the 'hood) which is the gang we run with. It is not a conscious choice. But by high school, we choose what snobbish little rat-pack we want to run with.

But this is preceded by who all these young ones have been raised by as all babies are chameleons and form their personalities based on the dominant personalities they were exposed to from birth and even to some extent in the womb. So it is bred in the bone, set in stone, and that is truly hard to change.
How many of us can even see these little signature personality quirks?
Most of the time someone else has to point out how closely we resemble someone as it is truly an unconscious act to be that way.

Many biases and prejudices are formed this way and thusly are the faults and successes of the parents and dominant influences of ones youth perpetuated.

Religion and politics are just extensions of this.

 

[Penelope]

Dream

Yes.
(Debray is French.)
He talks about culture as 'language.'
(And vice-versa. Whole chapters. But he describes culture/language pretty much as you do, Dream.)

Political groups and religious groups promote their belief ... thru the (sanctified) topography of the discourse they employ.

& & &

Two Debray examples:

"Tools allows man to progress, language makes him stagnate ...
the stationary equilibrium of the symbolic brings every era face to face with itself by confronting it with every other era in the spiral time of culture."
(Debray, page 40.)

"Existing religions are the fossil morphology of a timeless ideal syntax."
(Debray, page 191.)

 

[Penelope]

Shawn

In my pre-teen years ...
Yes. I, as an individual, am defined mostly in terms of my membership in my family. Political and religious biases choose me (via my parents and their community of belief).

But in my teens ...
I harbor the illusion of freedom (in my rebellion against familial authority - and its extensions: against my parents' and my community's belief structures).
I use my group of friends as a wedge against the pressure of authority. And some of that independence lasts throughout my life.

But my 'group of friends' is the real trap. I harbor the illusion of freedom to choose my belief. But the group dynamic - of the band I run with - has already chosen my belief-structure (political and religious) for me. The more tightly so ... the more tightly I cling to this particular group.

Evolution has fashioned for the human animal ... a gate freeing us from one trap ... only to capture us in a larger trap. Being large, with more room to maneuver, this does not look like a trap, at first. Light eventually dawns.
And then when we locate the exit from this trap, and are finally free ...