From Darkness Into Light

Here's a story I started working on yesterday. It's a retelling of Plato's allegory of the cave, mixed with an element of Flatland. I have yet to finish or edit it, but I think it's worth reading still. I could use an idea or two for how to finish it. If you've got something in mind after reading it, please feel free to contribute:
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One day I woke up and my chains were loose. I'd never guessed this could be possible, let alone that it'd happen to me! Of all people. Who was I, for that matter? I was nobody; and now I have a tale to tell and the all words to make sure it gets told.

You see, my society lives chained in the dark, lined up along a wall in a cave facing the rear. In the middle of this pack lies the king, flanked by his elite imperial guard on both sides. We peasants never see the king for this reason, and nevertheless tend to trust the booming voice of the regent without question. I still identify with them. Not nostalgically, though, that's for sure.

So life is linear. They're all chained together in a line. The farther out to the extremities you go, the people appear more and more wearisome. This is because they are so. On the margins of society the basics of life are increasingly scarce. This is where I lived. You see, this is a minimally operational culture, where the basics are provided by the state. Food, standardized coveralls, of course, a few sundries, and the games. Just so long as everyone follows the rules, passing everything to its appropriate destination down the chain. The task might seem pretty simple if you've only ever lived next to two people at once. Considering you get to know them fairly well the process ought to flow really smoothly, and we all try our best to make sure it does, but surprisingly often the order is interrupted somewhere somehow! And then the shit really gets fucked 'cause everyone gets mixed up and resources are 'redistributed!'

But I'm getting flustered...those days have passed for me. I can't decide which part of the story I should tell next. These words are all still so new to me. In school we were taught about polarity, duality, and the sacred axis. The chains. This left-right world is all we could comprehend, even though the stars that make the games are clearly in front, and what I was to learn, originate from behind. A new axis. A new modality for existence. But was it really new? Had I discovered something that hadn't been discovered? Does this even mean anything?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. To backtrack a bit here, I'll explain one of the 'hit-the-fan' incidents I got all worked up about earlier. It all started when I swallowed my tongue. At least that's what I think might have happened. Just as the announcement of imminent sleep echoed left to the depths of my current hollow, I was drinking some water when Jeffrey, my neighbour, startled me with a strange comment that I can't really remember. But I choked, and choked hard, and somehow only lost consciousness momentarily. That moment is important and I'll tell you about it rest assured. Thing is, I remained mostly conscious throughout even though I wasn't able to breathe, and I saw what happens 'at night.'

Imminent sleep is the time of day that everyone thinks they all drift off at the same time for a particular mystical and sacred reason. It just so happens that when everyone goes off to la-la land, they're breathing in a quick acting sleep-inducing compound that is probably pretty effective overall, seeing as how I never once woke up before! This time around though, I got over my choking fit, and was without breath for long enough to avoid the sleeping gas. But that's not all that happened... I went somewhere else in between. I got outside by going inside, if that means anything at all.

After gasping and gagging for air, reaching out around me for something, anything, chains lashing out in all directions, seeing that William and Jeffrey were indeed asleep, one more gasp, and I thought I'd died. I suddenly felt as though I was a giant blue sphere, or at least part of it, and I am composed of more dimensions than I had previously believed. In fact, I had clear thinking enough to see that every single belief that my culture had imposed on me was a lie. The one word is even embedded in the other! Just look! Instead of imposing a belief on what I was experiencing, I let it happen. For lack of a better word I had a vision; the embedded unity and entanglement that is all of consciousness, even in it's relative states that seem independent, are beautifully interlaced in chaotic patterns of concretion and dissipation though a manifold geometric prism of direct sensory experience. These are the best words I currently have available so please bear with me.

I examined what I was experiencing and found all information. I didn't know where to begin. This intention to explore those new vistas just didn't seem quite appropriate. Was this hyper-reality only mine to behold or does it belong to my people as well? I gazed longingly through a sort of snake-rope of indescribable brilliance, and anguish beset my conscience. Then my experience snapped back into my body and I was in chains once again.

Only, they were loose. I struggled agonizingly as my body had undergone quite the shocking trauma less than a moment before, but one hand wrangled free and the other followed shortly after. Freeing my legs was a much more arduous task. I'd never used them before. With bones aching and muscles atrophied I mustered up all the might of my soul and shed my yoke of bondage.

Using all the physical and psychic energy available to me, I persevered through the task of crawling to the left-most end of the line, past hundreds of sleeping, chained, and still looking tormented individuals. I got there just as everyone was waking up, about thirty meters or so by my best estimation past the last prisoner. There I found a dark little cave and I holed up to rest. I drifted off to sleep with tremors of the terror inherent in my insubordination.

It was the next night, perhaps, that I awoke to find that the smaller cave I was in was at a bit of an oblique angle to the rest of the line. Imbued with a overflowing feeling beyond anything I can explain, I also had a disquieting inclination that something was horribly wrong. I'd been taught that all was linear and we learn from the games on the mystical wall, but now I could see down the line! I could see the chained sheeple languishing in dreamless rest, from the closest one about thirty meters away, to hundreds and hundreds more before the so-called guards. At this point I couldn't see the king, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here.

I rested observingly, eager to see what the games might reveal through my new eyes. In the morning, or at least what we called morning, I could see the light in the cave was increasing. I receded as far as I could into the smaller cave without losing my new perspective. The light was coming from 'behind' the wall, a new directional indicator I'd developed to explain what lay over the wall. This was all so interesting, scary, and magnificent. The light seemed to be coming from a single source, just over the wall, and reflected off of mirrors all around the rear, hidden, behind, part of the cave. There was smoke diffracting the light and the games were about to begin.

The light split off into many different coloured streams bouncing from mirror to mirror and through smoky mists eventually to come together forming the stars. “The Crab!” an excited player shouted. “No, you fool it's clearly Andromeda, don't go with The Crab,” retorted another. “Damn you both to Hades! Being the most obvious and dominant of all the constellations in the sky this can only be The Hunter,” added a third. The crescendo of voices rose all along the line as the players tried to outwit each other. Their fervent zeal for competition was eclipsed only by the sheer volume of this discordant cacophony.

You see, the games worked in a left against right competition reminiscent of Sissyphus' ordeal. No matter which side was winning or losing, they were all bound to continue the competition. Emotions flare when leftists talk about rightys and vice versa. The antagonism being totally unfounded, however, as I was soon to discover. The catharsis of each side during times of debate or conflict reached magnanimous proportions, voices so loud to be nearly deafening due to the cave's acoustic resonances. But it was not a creative or enriching enterprise. The game was all about conflict and competition and it created an emotionally negative space. Yet these underlying forces needed expression whether positive or not.

I could see that compared with the incomparable vistas of psychic landscapes I so briefly explored at the limits of life and death, the petty gaming of naming stars was undignified at best and couldn't be called anything less than psychic slavery. Upon this realization my inner experience asserted an indefatigable No! and along with it a Yes! No to all slavery and yes to freedom! But I was getting hungry. I'd been watching the games in awe, absorbing the same information yet again, only this time from new eyes. These eyes required sustenance.

By this point my legs were somewhat functional and I could crawl around. I hadn't even figured out walking yet, but I wanted to crawl the very end of the line. Slithering on the ground at some points, pulling myself along, even scraping my back and neck bloody, I was determined to find the limits of the line and my cave, and I did.

At first I thought it was terminal. At this point I couldn't see anything as I'd been inching my way between masses of solid rock for many hours and maybe even days. Betraying my solemn vow of silence so as to maintain discretion, I lashed out emotionally, striking what I thought to be a mound of dirt at the foot of my final barrier. It was soft. I struck it again and it moved some. Frantically, I began digging, pulling myself along with every gesture and then I was struck by the most amazing force: I broke out of the cave and into the sun!

Staggering, even though on all fours, and completely blinded by the magnitude of the light on my closed eyes, I managed my way down the slope, away from the tiny hole in the side of the mountain. Then, an uncommon noise attracted my attention. There was a rustling, whispering, even a gurgling that I just couldn't identify but had to experience. It got louder and louder and before I knew it my hands found the shallow creek. I drank from it and rejoiced aloud. Never before had I been more alive.

So I stayed there for a while, and my eyes acclimated enough for me to get a glimpse of the colour and beauty around me. There were greens and blues like I'd never seen! I was not yet fully mobile, so I explored my immediate vicinity carefully. Quick agitations were catching the corner of my eye all the time so I decided to wait patiently. Small black specks moved about sporadically, but it was the one that flew over me that made the most impression. I recognized corvus, the crow, instantly from my cultural tradition. This was one of the constellation maps of the game. Maybe it wasn't totally useless in the end. After all, had I never lived the game, I'd never have made it to experience this wider scope of life.

Well I didn't mention it before because it seemed immodest of me, but I was really the best player of the game at one time. It just didn't satisfy me to seek social position or succeed in a career in the game. No matter how much effort I put into the game, and how many years I spent playing, I never even saw anyone else graduate, let alone graduating myself. And now I know why. The game was a way to distract everyone's attention away from their bondage. They learned to accept that life was merely a chance to play a few games. Once I'd figured all this out for myself, I couldn't play the game any more.

My meager subsistence from minimal effort grew more scarce and I was moved toward the end of the line. No one actually graduated or ascended as the king said he did and was offering to the masses. No one questioned exactly how the so-called mystical powers managed to control their lives, or more importantly, why. With these resignations at heart did I concede defeat to the king. This was the day before I woke up for real.

I had macroscopic plans. To get there I'd need to evolve, so I did. I found food in edible greens and dug for roots too. I climbed trees and nourished myself with their fruits. I ate flowers and bugs, nettles and leaves, bulbs and legumes and whatever I could stomach.

(under)/(over) - standing

This is a demarcation that is seldom made in the foray of attitudes that constitute our cultural morass. This milieu consists of many systems of under-standing, without ever taking into consideration that I stand-over things as well. It is my individual quest to stand fast, accepting responsibility for what I stand on and what stands on me as well.

The best way to show the difference between under and over -standing is by identifying the occasion of persuasion and differentiating it from mind control. Both situations involve overstanding, individuals' experiences, and understanding; the differences revolve around the language used to comment on a common situation. When persuasion happens, individuals overstand the need to consensually enter a common linguistic understanding; whereas in a situation of mind control, conceptual structures, also understanding are built to contain or repress the individuality that is expressed in the act of overstanding.

Overstanding is an individual's experience, the self as it is, whether recognized as such or not. This is the locus of the individuated human situation.

Understanding is the common human experience, as modeled and modulated through the use of language.

The former occurs in the realms of perception and belief, the latter in the realms of dialogue and culture. Perception and dialogue are openness whereas belief and culture are limited enterprises.

In the realm of understanding, perception can be influenced by culture and compel subsequent states of overstanding. This is belief: in searching for truth, understanding (a specific model) can be confused with overstanding (perception, experience of self, and intellectual honesty).

The best example of this is how the law society and governments use legalese to confound the 'citizens of the world,' depriving individuals' overstanding of their legal status and imposing fictitious corporate identities on living souls and forcing specific limitations of language on the individuals who make up common society.
However, even in the most personal of personal realms, in the inner experience of overstanding, dialogue can be influenced by culturally imposed belief and compel subsequent states of understanding, resulting in cognitive dissonance and even so far as inauthentic perception. Some people still 'believe' that a plane hit the Pentagon. Give me a break.

Overstanding has been left at understanding's door, and everyone skips gleefully into the chapel of reason. 'It's OK, psychology and technology and medicine will take care of me just fine.' 'I don't need to think about my own well-being because there is a plan for me to follow right here.' 'The government is a natural evolution of social structures.' Those statements are all fine and good and all, if you care to accept them at face value, but for many others on the planet right now this just isn't enough.

For me, I recognize no authority but my own in determining how I overstand the world. Whatever understandings I care to utilize in this journey are at my whim, and mine alone. Remembering the call I made to any and all who would hear, it can be lucidly addressed by elucidating the over/under -standing distinction.

The first option being, you yourself authorize violence against your peers on behalf of and executed by agents of international financiers and their controllers. This is the current state of understanding that the world operates under, veiled by jingoistic narcissism that is sublimated into culture by means of education, money, television, government and other mind control means. The only other option is abolishing the state and financial system. Anything less, like reform, is a futile struggle. Einstein put it something like this; that you can't solve the problems of a situation by using the same kinds of thinking that got you there in the first place.

Having only been a few weeks since I've really comprehended this part of my trip, there have been limited few people that have suffered my rant so far. Nonetheless, of those few, maybe 20% actually got it, whether they agreed or not which is not the important part, and the rest just kind of nodded along. The only time that anyone wanted to retort was when there were six representatives from the common line of thinking and me from my uncommon approach. And, being the more intoxicated one among us, I somehow allowed myself to be talked into the corner that I was arguing against. I don't recall exactly how that discussion took place but it's not important. It just goes to show that the more common understanding is more easily rallied in its own defense because it has so many supporters. Power in numbers. Just look at the zombie archetype. They are stupid and many and will get you eventually, unless you're clever and cunning enough...

Overstanding is what humans really want, And yes, I'm willing to put in my two cents for what I think about that. None of this is definitive, it's part of my overstanding process. People want to love and be loved. Because this might not be so apparent in the world today, I refer you back to the mind control of imposed concepts being discussed throughout the blog here. I think it is only in retaliation to having individuality suppressed that people act out of fear, and instinctually focus on their self-preservation alone.

This state of mind is capitalized on by capitalism and capitalists and their controllers. Understanding only states of fear, overstanding is atrophied into nearly permanent rigor mortis. Then, the only options available when understanding comes under attack, or seems to be threatened at least, are those provided by the cultural programming. Creativity and imagination on how to solve even the simplest of life's occasions has been stifled to below mediocrity.


understanding is sorcery
overstanding is magic

sorcerers control
magicians create

tbc...

Turning Point

Well, I think this is about the time that I venture away from trying to establish my philosophical view and begin commenting on specific issues to which this perspective might lend value. In setting up the idiosyncrasies that make up my own outlook, that is, a commitment to novelty and ever-new paradigms, I think I can now comment on issues of evidence, conjecture, information, disinformation, paradigm and prejudice, without being coerced into an absolutist perspective of anything. If you think I'm mistaken, please let us engage the issue!

So, what I take to be sufficient for at least introducing my ideas is the page called Guide, as it stands for now (Aug. 19 / '10). Inevitably, the posts that have been posted before then will be edited to suit whatever fancy I so happen to entertain, yet they summarize enough of what I was trying to accomplish up to now.

The models to be put forth ought inevitably be overtaken; if and only if better models emerge should any previous ones be in the race to superiority that paradigms must necessarily engage.

As an indicative phenomenon, I'd like to present the work of Miles from The Holoplex as a very edifying approach to the subjects I'm interested in and will be articulating further on this here blog...

Terrence McKenna

One of the most influential individuals on my thinking, Terrence McKenna has a very potent repertoire of mind blowing ideas. His scientific skepticism and rational approach never closed off his mind from approaching any topic that I can think of. Being a public speaker in his day, and speaking to diverse audiences, I've been privileged to be able to listen to many of his pithy diatribes and hear all sorts of questions asked of him.

Some of my favourite quotes I can remember off the top of my head:

"If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed."

"There is a spiritual obligation, there is a task to be done. It is not, however, something as simple as following a set of somebody else's rules."

"Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego."

And from wiki-quotes:

"The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish."

"We are caged by our cultural programming. Culture is a mass hallucination, and when you step outside the mass hallucination you see it for what it's worth."

"What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief."

Community and Communication

This is a paper I began in the 2nd semester of my 4th year of university, for a course in existential philosophy. I didn't finish it the way I would've liked at the time so I've updated and finished it better this time around. Here goes:
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In reading the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Georges Bataille, one encounters alternate readings of the Western tradition that main its discourse yet depart from it in radical ways. Both authors express an esoteric secret that points to the margins of rationality. Only by reading their philosophies as one would engage in verbal discourse, that is, not limiting oneself to rational preconceptions but being open to new experiences, can we communicate with Levinas and Bataille. They can be compared by describing the conditions under which reason no longer functions to secure absolute meaning, or at all for that matter. Not in opposition to traditional philosophical discourse that Levinas and Bataille direct their criticism, but from within they seek to indicate what lies beyond. It is the conception of an individuated self as subjectivity in opposition with the other as distinctly objective that must be reinterpreted to bring forth a particular assumption made in traditional philosophy: that we can achieve an absolute meaning of human existence.

Insofar as Bataille and Levinas both aspire to achieve a significant criticism of the philosophical tradition, especially the concepts of utility and teleology, they also realize that to establish this goal as absolute is to have defeated their purpose already. “I fail, no matter what I write, in this, that I should be linking the infinite – insane – richness of 'possible' to the precision of meaning” (Bataille 69). What is important for them to communicate is that aspect of human life that cannot be adequately supplicated by philosophical knowledge in one way or another. “Man is not to be conceived in function of being and not-being, taken as ultimate references...Intentionality never makes itself simultaneous with the theme it aims at, except by losing its sense, betraying itself, appearing according to the intelligibility of a system” (Levinas 14, 69) Direct access to the experiential limits of the human condition is necessary for understanding what is beyond, and cannot be reduced to our initial, typical, and most predominant access to the world: axiomatic (logic, syllogisms, laws, etc.) and teleological (purposive activity) systems. Up is up and down is down, the sun will come up tomorrow, time goes on and we all die some day. So it goes.

Both Levinas a Bataille are critical of the assumed philosophical ability to reduce human activity and the designation of signification to teleology, phenomenology, or the satisfation of subjectivity. The insufficient attitude is described by Levinas as 'bonne conscience,' a conception of being that remains entirely within an isolated economy of subjective experience. The self attempts to grasp an idea of the infinite that it encounters in the face of the other; analogously, Bataille's notion of inner experience as ecstasy also connotes the distinction between a particular economy of the restricted individuated subject like Levinas, but thematizes somewhat the free play of energy that lies beyond it as a foundation for experience.

Basically, Bataille is more confident in his ability to cursorily describe the ebb and flow of the encounter with mystery, where Levinas emphasizes the ultimate inability to characterize the face of the other when confronted. The authors recognize that the teleological character of human existence, and indeed the locus of our activities, have an intrinsic importance in themselves, but are ultimately inadequate to guarantee the possibility of anything beyond. What teleological activity in philosophical discourse can achieve, however, is the indication of a trace, which, if followed, might lead beyond the walls of the restricted economy of the subject. Levinas calls this attempt at empathetic identification “substitution, at the limit of being, ends up in saying, in the giving of signs, giving a sign of this giving of signs, expressing oneself...Responsibility goes beyond being” (Levinas B 15) In the attempt to approach the infinite as a responsible self, the project is undermined itself as teleological constructions are insufficient from the start.

The liminal phenomenon that Levinas accounts for is this 'bad' conscience that interrupts our intentional consciousness. Responsibility is the limit of the self, “a responsibility for the other to whom I was committed before committing, before being present to myself or coming back to self” (Levinas B 30-31). The task of philosophy that follows from this, I would then suggest, is to critically asses the justification of one's own actions, and employ discursive thought in a sociable manner; based on the essential passivity of the face of suffering, and my tendency to overwhelm it in concepts through purposive action, the communication falls short of sufficient. Philosophy has to have 'the transcendence of inspiration' as its motivation for communicating.

But if the task of philosophy is to communicate meaning, how meaning is communicated and what meaning might be, have too often been categorically assumed in dialectical thinking. Since the foundations of Western thought, while continuously being developed and refined, signification has been sublimated in a discourse of purposive action; the conceptual structures of teleological and phenomenological reality are generally assumed to be the fundamental consistencies of the dynamic human situation. The dialectical oppositions of subject and object, self and other, or same and different, are presumed to have a significant anchor point by which they can be comparatively assessed and hierarchically categorized. These are the everyday operations of modern human life: tacitly accepted phenomenological categories called knowledge. “My effort consists in showing that knowledge is in reality an imminence, and that there is not rupture of the isolation of being in knowledge” (Levinas A, 57). Knowledge is what is it is in itself and needs nothing further.

Knowledge, thus considered the conceptual structures of immanent experience, is generally identified with the experience itself rather that what it is more fundamentally; a description of the experience and not it's direct content. The subject Communication, then, must be thought in a radically ulterior way, as undermining the goals of purposive activity, yet indicating the foundation of signification beyond the immediate grasp of self-reflective consciousness. For Levinas and Bataille both, subjectivitiy needs to be re-considered in its ecstatic character that evades characterization. There is a paradoxical motion that both authors point to as a rupture; a divestiture of being is a necessary point to notice in their writings, and ultimately, their task as a whole.

Bataille and Levinas both recognize a necessary aspect of human life to be acting within the constraints of limited systems of knowledge, but also specify that there are limitations to philosophical reasoning in securing itself as the only knowledgeable aspect. “I do not deny that philosophy is a knowledge, insofar as it names even what is not nameable, and thematizes what is not thematizable...Ethical testimony is a revelation which is not a knowledge” (Levinas A 107). What he seeks to communicate is a obligation to communication, whereby the limited poietic aspect of human existence be interpreted by an infinite praxical activity beyond it, that maintains it. In rather different ways, Bataille and Levinas both indicate a fundamental freedom that is beyond the capacity of rational formulation, and thus a secret inspiration for the origin of intelligibility. This secret is discursively employed through their descriptions of communication; the self-defeating principle of inner-experience, and the responsibility to respond to the face of the other, for Bataille and Levinas, respectively, indicate how communication leads to a cursory and necessary understanding of community.

Bataille envisions a progressive quality to projective teleology, insofar as it leads to its own breaking down. The conceptual structures we maintain can be pushed to their limits internally, showing the evanescence of their content rather than the expected cohesion. “Inner experience is led by discursive reason. Reason alone has the power to undo its work, to hurl down what it has built up...Without the support of reason, we don't reach 'dark-incandescence'” (Bataille 77). Levinas, on the other hand, puts forth a regressive view of project-oriented activity, where the subject cannot provide itself with the necessary experience for its dissolution. “Consciousness is certain it is going to the ultimate – all that in interrupted before the face of the other man” (Levinas B, 27). This difference, that consciousness can or cannot undo itself, is perhaps the most divergent aspect of their thinking as it applies to this paper: Bataille can encounter the beyond within, whereas Levinas encounters the ineffable other as the boundary toward otherwise than being. This discrepancy lies in how the subject is compelled toward the liminal: for Levinas it's the interruption of self-consciousness by the face of the other that calls my very existence into question; as the originary locus of meaning at the very margin of phenomenal description, the ethical ramifications of my inability to provide for the suffering of all the Other, and my responsibility to do so for having been given the opportunity, compels the response of language. For Bataille, the subject of inner experience can be pushed to the limits of horror by its own purposive activity, only to realize the subsequent loss of purpose when the subject annihilates itself. The return journey of poetry and heterology constitute the origin of the futile project of language.

What I had initially thought was a significant difference between the two authors is summed up well by Bataille: 'The Inner Experience' says the opposite of what it seems to say: it is a movement of contestation, that, coming from the subject, devastates it, but has a deeper relation to the other which is community itself, a community that would be nothing if it did not open the one who exposed himself to the infiniteness of alterity, while at the same time deciding its inexorable finitude. (Bataille, 11) Our confounded efforts to subjugate alterity with benevolent models are based on flimsy language that has only a slight degree of proficiency given the task it assumes to be able to perform.

Nietzsche echoes the commentary on consciousness and subjectivity in many ways similarly to Levinas and Bataille. In The Gay Science, he asserts, “Believing that they possess consciousness, men have not exerted themselves very much to acquire it; and things haven't changed much in this respect. To this day the task of incorporating knowledge and making in instinctive is only beginning to dawn on the human eye and is not yet clearly discernible; it is a task that is only by those who have comprehended that so far we have incorporated only our errors and that all our consciousness relates to errors.” (Nietsche 85)

From Bataille's perspective, that people have identified only with the sub-liminal aspects of the inner experience and not ventured to the potential depths and breadths of our human experiential spectrum, the instincts of relating to conceptual structures that allow for everyday life to occur are not the essential foundations thereof. This level of experience is satiated by its identification with and complacency for the erroneous consciousness. Some, as Nietzsche points out, are starting to become aware of the errors of consciousness, and hence more clearly perceiving consciousness itself. People getting together to cultivate their inner-experience develop relationships with new forms of energy expenditure, communication. However, the supra-liminal realm of self-consciousness is only appreciable in the context of expenditure of inner experience, that is, using the resources available to grow consciousness, pushing the envelope, living on the edge, until the ultimate expenditure takes place and the nutrients that previously constituted the vessel of consciousness return to source.

From Levinas' perspective, Nietzsche is apt in identifying the human condition insofar as self-satisfied 'bonne conscience' does not recognize the face of the Other and therefore lives erroneously. That some do, however, take up the task of ethics as first philosophy, and lose the self-identified notion of consciousness in recognizing that the source of self is indeed Otherwise, constitutes the essence of communication and the parameters of the human situation. “All my inwardness is invested in the form of a despite-me, for-another. Despite-me, for-another, is signification par excellence. And it is the sense of the 'oneself,' that accusative that derives from no nominative; it is the very fact of finding oneself while losing oneself.” (Levinas A, 8) Here, communication is the occasion for an attempt to reconcile the obligation oneself has for the Other, insofar as the self is responsible to the Other for its' own foundation, even though this task ultimately lies beyond the seeking.

Bataille's notion of expenditure can only be understood as a distinction between fictitious projects generated as a function of a particular economy, that is, under the guise of an erroneous consciousness committed to a closed system of interpretation. “Humanity recognizes the right to acquire, to conserve and to consume rationally, but it excludes in principle non-productive expenditure.” (Bataille 168) Rationally speaking, consciousness will always and only depend on the concepts that in one way or another assume to have provided significant enough interpretation of particular phenomena, even though the general concept of the phenomenon of consciousness has been so weakly explicated. Just as productive expenditure, that is, getting food and whatnot, has propelled the species to its current juncture, so too has the non-productive expenditures which cannot be comprehended in terms of syllogisms or dialectics, such as art, communication, dancing, music, aesthetics, fucking, sucking, shitting, and dying, that is, the sacred. Philosophical conventions have efficiently marginalized this distinction, according to Bataille, and focus only on the reciprocal exchanges in a utilitarian calculus. Scientific materialism and post-Christian morality dominate the cultural flow. These all-encompassing addictive beliefs are closing off the wonder of inner-experience.

Traditional self-contained teleological philosophy can generally be reduced to a principle of utility, like activity directed to progress, strategies for maintaining particular economies; for Bataille, completely insufficient to describe the more general experience of life, which as a whole contains all the innumerable particular economies as an ineffable general economy. “There, where you would like to grasp your timeless substance, you encounter only a slipping, only the poorly coordinated play of your perishable elements.” (Bataille 94) The passing of energy from one point to another, expenditure, applies to everything from biological organisms to philosophical concepts. In a word: communication. “Thus we are nothing, neither you nor I, besides burning words which could pass from me to you, imprinted on a page” (Bataille 94). The only constancy to be construed from the flux of general economy occurs in eddies of communication, particular economies as locations of energy transfers. “What you are stems from the activity which links the innumerable elements which constitute you to the intense communication of those elements among themselves. These are contagions of energy, movement, of warmth, or transfers of elements, which constitute inevitable the life of your organized being” (Bataille 94) Each particular economy engages other particular economies and this is the flow of the general economy. To remain in a single-minded relation to the operation of economics in general is to stagnate and fester. By challenging the notion of communication as only discursive reason, is to communicate the development of consciousness alternatively through novel aspects of the general economy.

These writers stand out to my eye because of their marginal and supra-liminal perspectives, of inner experience as ecstatic rupture and the trace of God in the face of the Other, put the individuated self-satisfaction of any 'relatively independent sub-totality' called an organism, ideology, or whatever into question. This questioning is what constitutes the human condition, to my mind, and the answers can come from the individual deciding how to decode the overabundant mystery that is life. There are many answers available and many ways to integrate or encode them into the self-conscious life. Ought they be chosen according to a sovereign choice or pre-fabricated consensus reality? Where I see the most important difference between Levinas as Bataille is at this limit, the separation of self and other beheld as direct experience. Levinas holds the responsibility of self for other as insurmountable, the infinite questioning of the questioner, whereas Bataille indicates that the distinction falls apart and communication happens.

Either way, here is where communication occurs and the beginning of community can take shape. “For those who laugh, together become like the waves of the sea – there no longer exists between them any partition as long as the laughter lasts.” (Bataille 93) When communication occurs even beyond the words used to communicate, as individuals committed to the development of consciousness as responsibility for the general economy can, the immediate sense of community can happen. “It is with subjectivity understood as self[-consciousness]...in which the ego does not disappear, but immolates itself, that the relationship with the other can be communication and transcendence, and not always another way of seeking certainty, or the coincidence with oneself.” (Levinas B 118) Despite the difference in their approach to the fate of the self in communication, for Levinas its immolation as self-consciousness while retaining the individual ego and for Bataille where even the individual ego is sacrificed to the infinitesimal interchange of energetic impulses, both seem to indicate that this relationship between self and other is the locus of communication. Being responsible to divest oneself of preordained ideologies is the only approach that appropriate for authentic communication, and the start of authentic community.

That Bataille sees a limitless sense of experience through the dissimulation of the self by self-immolation, and Levinas sees a limitless sense of experience through the dissimulation of the self by self-immolation in response to other, a dynamically thematizable sort of relationship can be entertained. Self and other can be in constant communication through the development of new language to describe their experience. This is what I'm calling community, the balance between self-actualization and interpersonal relationships. When common and uncommon perspectives can be put aside for a moment, letting the communication between authentic individuals occur, new forms of language can take root for community to take place. Without a self-involved commitment to the care and development of the other the world will remain obscure and hostile. By communicating authentically a more modest community is possible.

Consider This

O.K.,

You've been expecting a party that you've been paying for, for 50 years. Your sweat and toil has earned you the opportunity of having an all-expenses paid party for you and your hundred closest friends. You've been told that everything has been taken care of by the organizers and that no worries are permissible because they are trustworthy service providers with your best interests at heart. The caterers promise that they will most certainly provide for the party you anticipate and you trust the established relationship.

Then comes the day; it turns out that the caterer has disappeared without trace and party is most certainly still expected of you. In the kitchen you find a barren fridge and many dried cupboards, with no significant nutrition to be be found, let alone enough to provide for the mouths in line to be fed. You are indeed responsible for having invited everyone, and are now at a loss as to how you're going to do it. There are people that will necessarily have to be fed or else you'll be faced with unfortunate disappointment. Your party has failed.

Now let's use the same scenario with slightly altered parameters. The party discussed previously is now considered your life. The invited guests are children you've brought into the world and your extended family that you love dearly. The caterers are the state and its representatives to whom individuals have relegated their personal and societal obligations. These are the parameters that have changed for the second scenario in consideration:

So the expected party that you've been trusting will be provided for is closer to home now that it's not just a party but your life and the well-being of everyone around you. Are you still going to trust this caterer, now that the party has a more significant personal impact? With the caterer in question not only being the provider of food, but the ideological foundation for the society around you, including energy sources, policy setters and enforcers, health-care, etc., the bottom dollar of most people's lives is entirely dependent on a monopolized system of commerce and consumerism. Most individuals would find empty cupboards and barren fridges if and when the shit hits the fan.

I call out to anyone and everyone who wishes to laden our pantries with self-sufficiently produced food and quality of life. This can be achieved relatively easily, compared with the alternative of giving in to tyrants who in the end won't provide anyways. Fuck the caterers, 'cause their promises ain't shit. This is patently obvious by any honest track record of dishonest politics, of which the former are few and the latter are endemic throughout thousands of years of human 'culture.'

The party we've been promised is slipping away from each and every one of us. The system is failing and they've told us to just hold on, 'cause if we wait a little longer, the party is going to be sooooo awesome. Then comes the day. Maybe today is September 11th in New York, August 6th in Hiroshima, or maybe July 7th in London. In any case, the caterers didn't show and your party was ruined. The Big Brother that was trusted to provide sustenance seems to be unable to provide the stability necessary for the life you were expecting. So you thought you were paying something of value called taxes in return for something also of value called security even though those previously mentioned cases are far from solved. Let alone being solved, many questions are still in the air about whether or not those events were not indeed controlled to happen as false-flag terrorist operations. The caterers not only didn't show up, they're crashing whatever party you're thinking you might get. Not only have they run away with your life's efforts and toils, but you realize that it was their intention from the start to use you as a slave for their own benefit. They've done this to the whole world, no less! And then they crash whatever party you've got left.

With so many party crashers crashing parties, whether they be bankrupt banksters looting the public with fees and bailouts and scams, media monopolies exercising mind-control elite agendas, govern(ed)-mental 'representation' by petty bureaucrats like Harper and Obama et. al, my individual party is in jeopardy for certain! All I want to do is to sustain my own life by my own efforts, and am not able to without suffering violence or contributing to the systemic violence that is our so called culture. Tell me I have to work to make money!? Tell me it's how to get ahead or what we have to do to get by! Preposterous! By what measure are we determining what must or must not be? Who gets to say who runs everyone's life.

Just because you think this is best system doesn't mean I agree. Are you then willing to personally inflict violence on me? Most people would ignore the question outright, validating that they authorize others to inflict that violence on their behalf, and also on the themselves. By adhering to the system, understanding and abiding its rules and regulations, you necessarily are responsible for its actions whether you like it or not. Without trying to alienate any readers, it is not my intention to convince anyone of anything. Please feel free to disagree as I insist that is a necessary function of getting beyond where we are. I might be convinced by your perspective as well.

What it comes down to is that the system that is being perpetuated whether we like it or not, is a domination of humanity by humans, an institutionalized violence that is seemingly legitimized by a high standard of living for 'civilized' middle-class populations. Although no individual can be separated from the masses and identified as the architect of this system, it has been developed for at least centuries and I think longer. Nonetheless, that we all perpetuate it by going to work, paying our taxes, wishing for our party down the road when our masterfully beneficent Big Brother is going to solve all the problems at hand by manipulating the money game in favour of the elites who will let it trickle down their legs for the masses to battle to death over...and be more than happy to do it. This false security in a so-called high-standard of living is very true if you're living it. I was brought up in it and currently live through it. I am as responsible as anyone else. But at least I'm doing something about it. Even if these ideas I articulate never reach another individual (perhaps a receptive one?) I've articulated them for myself. This is my contribution to life, my individual anarchy. What are you doing?

The Nomad Taxonomist

This is a title I might as well have given myself in the creation of this blog. As much as I like the title, it does not retain the potency of my current self-applied title, yet applies to an important aspect of my task here on 'planet 3.' To paraphrase Nietzsche, as I often do even if unknowingly, it is more important to know what things are called, rather than what things are. This applies directly to how I look at the world; something to be beheld as experience is never fully communicable. Even though my full intention is to communicate my ideas as best as can be, the perspectives at hand can never be fully elucidated and approximations are necessarily in order. Here goes:

I am the center of the universe insofar as my experience thereof is centered right here. I wander around in my experience , learning what things are commonly called by uncommon perspectives, most of which are unfamiliar to the uninformed and unquestioning kinds of minds. If you think you might be of this sort, that is able to entertain multifarious and seemingly incongruous ideas at once no matter what the effect might be, the results may be perhaps more potent than previously anticipated.

I've wandered around countless ideas and perspectives that need to be enumerated and categorized accordingly if they're going to be of any use to me. Along this journey I've found some ideas more useful than others in developing the way that I can interpret the world around me. When it so happens, as often it does, that seemingly unusual explanations offer more valid and extensive stories to describe an experience of mine, the words used therein are of more potent value for my further usage. The taxonomist at work is acquiring new wares for use toward infinite distribution.

Viewing my interpretation of how others see things, gives me varying levels of perspective on how to call certain occasions. Lets call things as they are. The only way that status quo reality allows one to operate in the world that 'is,' is by their diction. We, however, are able to use language as to how it suits our needs and pleasures, therefore circumventing the mind control subjugated upon us by the powers that be. We can reclaim our own mental sovereignty by embarking on the journey into the wasteland of culture, find the nourishing bits and giving them their appropriate names and veneration. Only by finding the morsels of sustenance does any living body, like our souls, grow in healthy accord with its ultimate intention, which is to replicate and nourish further sustenance of the species. Passing down novel and integrated traditions that include all levels of perspective available leaves later generations with much more amply provided foundation for whatever successes they might feel appropriate to their dignified existences.

Food Pics

Some pics of the food I made for a wedding party at my Pa's place:

Technology and Authority

(This is a term paper I wrote for a course on the philosophy of technology. The professor was pretty mundane and the topics just lightly brushed over. Here's my effort to shake things up a little bit in that class.)

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Technology and Authority:

Criticism and Complacency in the Scientific Attitude

In the burgeoning world, fewer and fewer ways of understanding are at the disposition of the general masses. As science and technology broaden to for an ever more encompassing view of reality, traditional ways of thinking become marginalized by an underlying ideological commitment to the scientific attitude. This way of thinking uses increasingly reductionist categorizations of phenomena, and the resulting world-view is fragmented into the understanding of a reality explicable only by the specialized experts, mostly inaccessible by meager minds. The prevailing paradigm enshrines the capacity for science to regulate the human experience by means of tacitly assumed authority. The scientific attitude implicitly compels the 'uninitiated many' to accept the authority of the 'expert few,' as intimate knowledge of all possible areas of expertise is impossible. We live in a technocratic regime whereby authority is determined by appeal to expertise and knowledge is dominated by the perspectives of that hierarchy alone. This is a serious problem for the wider body politic because when authority commands expertise and the expertise cannot control the authority is established, the technocracy is out of control. Perhaps we ought mark more clearly the margin where authority no longer holds claim over expertise, where our commitment to the reliability of the technocratic regime can no longer claim its legitimacy contrary to established objective results.

The scientific method is primarily espoused as a methodological naturalism; that is, what have previously asserted and real and true, if verifiable by observation, can be legitimately treated as knowledge. As the empirical knowledge about the world increases, more verifiable predictions and accurate testimony can be expected from our experiences. 'The goal of natural science is to explain contingent natural phenomena, that is...explanations refer only to natural objects and events and not to the personal choices and actions of human or divine agents' (Moreland 46). Insofar as the scientific method has reproduced consistently objective results through the application of technology, it does unquestioningly as the explanatory power par excellence to engender positively verifiable analysis of observable phenomena; and perhaps rightly so. For the more complicated and exacting disciplines like nuclear physics, organic chemistry, or space travel, this segregation is perhaps the better of potential scenarios; insofar as specialization contributes further to our general understanding of the world and ourselves as a species.

The consistency of the scientific attitude is confirmed by the increasing specialization and development of more radically isolated and defined expertises. "Modernity prides itself on the fragmentation of the world as its foremost achievement. Fragmentation is the prime source of it's strength. The world that falls apart into plethora of problems is a manageable world...Autonomy is the right to decide when to keep the eyes and when to close them down; the right to separate, to discriminate, to peel off, and to trim" (Bauman 12). Modernity, roughly speaking the scientific attitude, is a tool available to every individual; but as we delegate that responsibility for consistency to experts without our own critical analysis, we abdicate autonomous judgment based on that authority. We call this systematization, "technocracy [which], in political terms, refers to a system of governance in which technically trained experts rule by virtue of their specialized knowledge and position in dominant political and economic institutions" (Fischer 17). Authority and expertise are here conjoined, without perhaps the honest intentions required for individuals to maintain their living sovereignty, and become mutually reinforced as mechanisms of control. Expertise legitimates authority, and authority can delegate resources to develop further specialization.

The predominant mode of thought that has been inculcated throughout the past few generations of 'civilized' people has been scientific and rational; but even more profoundly, directed against critically important ways of thinking, that are non-rational, transcendental, mystical, etc., insofar as they challenge the status quo ways of thinking. Consistency in science is of utmost importance, however, when those human experiences that don't quite fit in are rejected, it seems we are inevitably losing an important part of our lives. Commitment to the scientific ideal has legitimized the segregation of other modes of thought. From an economist's perspective, "the belief that the correct technical solutions can only be found by the experts becomes a powerful legitimation of expert power, both within the technocratic workplaces and in the overall technocratic system" (Burris 153). And this attitude is paradigmatic of current governmental, educational, and social systems. As it stands, any claim of legitimacy must first be passed through the rigorous scrutiny of the technocratic institutional miasma.

We are weakened in our interpretation of the world as we rely on the technological paradigm to mediate our experiences; we have given up unmitigated experiential access to the world in favour of fragmented and specialized expertise. By participating in the technocracy, we abdicate out authority to those more knowledgeable than us. The fact remains that people are people, and if we put aside some time to look at what sort of implications out ideological commitments might entail, it may become obvious that something is awry. (ex, BP oil disaster)

tbc...

The Call

"What level of violence are you personally willing to inflict on someone to force them to follow your beliefs?"

Yesterday I listened to a podcast by Marc Stevens of the No State Project, a round-table discussion about voluntary society and the legitimation of force. What all the panelists were able to agree on is that there are two choices:

a) either admit that you authorize violence against your peers,

b) or admit that it is high-time to dissolve the state.

I wholeheartedly agree with this dichotomy, and am calling out to all who might be persuaded as well. If this idea is too far out, bear with me a minute and we'll bring it around. Consider these premises:

1. The only form of government recognized as lawful is a representative one.

2. Representation requires mutual consent

3. Consent must be freely given and not a result of coercion, duress, violence, or undue influence from misinformed agents, representatives, or officers.

4. The right to elect a government necessarily implies the right to elect to not have a government. If we only have the option to choose our master, we are nothing more than slaves with a limited choice of masters.

5. Free humans have no masters. I am a free man and seek no master.

6. Anyone seeking to master me will have to use coercion, duress, undue influence, and eventually violence.

If you think, still, that this is too far out there, consider this: by voting, paying taxes, living in uninformed complacency, everyone who does so is authorizing violence against those who don't want to, for example, pay taxes, vote, or be bludgeoned and caged for growing and smoking plants, etc.

The old adage, 'if you don't vote you can't complain' is antithetical to the more correct statement that 'if you vote you are legitimizing violence against me.'

Some will retort, oh, but, hey-now, what about reforming the system? "We do indeed already have a representational system," "Surely we can achieve some minimal level of government that is agreeable to all," "I'm not personally inflicting violence on you," etc...

The system cannot be reformed as it is not representational, never has been, and has no potential to ever be so. Even if 98 percent of a population is represented, generally, the marginalized minority will be oppressed. Even if there were such little government, taxation and statute enforcement, etc., to satisfy that majority, rule by majority is a sanction of violence against the minority; and yes, to identify with the majority is to be personally involved in inflicting that violence.

Here is the call: to all who wish to live an unruly life, neither ruling or ruled, say yea!

Mind Control

Psyops: 'Psychological Operations'

Any form of communication in support of objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behaviour of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.

- U.S. Department of Defense

U.S. Army Field Manual 33-I



As mind control occurs in multifarious fashions, I'm compelled to elucidate a general definition of its' parameters. It is nothing more than an unwarranted imposition upon or intrusion into a sovereign mind-scape. A fun approach that I really like is to analyze the etymology of the word government, as it is most demonstrably a form of mind control:

From the roots of govern- and -mente, we get control of the mental.

Govern: control, -mente: mind; government = mind control.

Anarchy

"Anarchism...may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of [human beings] should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the state should be abolished."

- Benjamin Tucker, 1880

"The anarchist is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of all mankind, and his is a deeper degree of criminality than any other."

- Theodore Roosevelt, 1901

Anarchy: an idea misunderstood by most, especially me.

If manifest in the human situation of today, hypotheses of potential outcomes range from utopia to catastrophe, mostly because the exact outcome eludes any possible conception. The scope of human experience spans more vastly than we can currently imagine. It's my take that consciousness is unity, and in order to experience itself more intimately divides itself infinitely. This infinity can, if chosen, be considered in its many totalities, the relatively independent sub-totalities (to use the language of David Bohm); like an ant, a nugget of gold, a really good song, or a span of human evolution called civilization, like we tend to imagine is really all there is. I choose to leave it open ended, postpone judgment as much as possible, and see where life gets me.

What anarchy means to me is that the free play of ideas won't be encumbered by silly 'adult' ideas. Play can be taken in all seriousness and that's what anarchy is to me. If and only if the conditions are in place whereby each sovereign individual can espouse whatever way of life that unique entity wishes, can life be said to live to its fullest. It is my full belief that life happens better in cooperation than in conflict. Consciousness supporting itself is stronger than consciousness battling itself. In the beginning and the end (and in between, of course) everything that is not itself, that is, other, is merely a relatively independent sub-totality of itself. My anarchy embraces no structure and all structures.

Anarchy is a commitment to helping out as best as possible for living organisms to form harmonious ecological niches where evolution can happen consciously, intentionally, and consensually, among respectfully diverse forms of life; well, at least it is for me. Anarchy means a commitment to not initiating any form of violence, save for philosophizing, and to grow new ideas from the rubble of tyranny's wake and looming doom:

"I philosophize with a hammer. I smash old tables of values."

-Nietzsche

Anarchy is a commitment to abolishing non-functional ideas. I've come across various etymological explanations of the words, some more preferable than others. The more common one stating: an- a negative prefix, and, -arkhos for leader; and, an- negative prefix, and, -arche, for structure, giving us words like arch, architecture, archer. I prefer the latter, even though they're very similar. Since ancient arches were held together at the apex by the cornerstone, I'm always intrigued by uses of the word. The title of the first book I started working on is The Stone that the Builder Refused, and it has much to do with the development of my own personal intellectual anarchy.

A Fork in the Road

This is the term paper I submitted for the course on The Rebel, by Albert Camus. It was my second semester and probably overall the most compelling course I took throughout my university career. Hopefully my writing doesn't offend me and I'll be able to copy it here without too much editing.

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A Fork in the Road:

Tension in Camus' Rebel

Some people will create their own system of values while others will blindly accept the ideologies impressed upon them. The articulation of dissent from presupposed norms is the initiating agent of change in the structure of society. For Albert Camus, rebellion is the central issue facing all humans. It is reflected in every aspect of life; from birth to death each person is faced with the opportunity to accept of deny the conditions of their existence. The rebel is therefore in constant tension because of a paradox inherent in rebellion itself: in order to prevent suffering, one must inadvertently cause suffering to others. Initially, the rebel's intention was to communicate the limitations of suffering to an oppressor who ignored the agony of humanity. Instead, the rebel's codification of equality and solidarity asserts a particular conceptual structure that inevitably leads to the marginalization of all opposed people and ideas.

A rebel decides to confront an oppressor when no further offense of justice can be tolerated. 'Camus has located the origins of rebellion in the feeling of outrage' (Sprintzen 124). If people experience or witness excruciating pain and misery, either they will endure it till death or risk their lives to make it stop by challenging the perpetrators of harm. This renunciation of the oppressor's ideology acknowledges that suffering and oppression can be tolerated to a limit, and not beyond. Here, Camus shows the progression of rebellion from the 'No' that the slave declares to the master, to the 'Yes' in the recognition of a value 'that somewhere, and somehow, one is right' (Camus 13). The rebel sees a positive value in humanity when he refuses any further humiliation of himself or others. 'Injustice creates unhappiness, to which Camus' answer was rebellion and the freedom to pursue happiness. It was in this action that people developed solidarity with their fellows' (Tarrow 148).

As the rebel identifies a value common to all people, he recognizes the need to enact a code by which the goal of attaining that ideal becomes possible. 'The affirmation of a limit, a dignity, and a beauty common to all men only entails the necessity of extending this value to embrace everything and everyone and of advancing toward unity' (Camus 251). The assertion of the owrth of human life and the commitment to uphold it is the true spirit of rebellion. The sufferer questions the oppressor's motives and searches himself for guilt. He has not, however, committed any crime worthy of such intolerable punishment, and therefore finds himself innocent. Repulsed by the way he or others have been treated, it is presumably logical that he would not want anyone to be treated the same way. He is a rebel; he has identified the existence of a common bond between all people insofar as they are innocent of their condition, and is willing to risk his life to uphold the dignity of the human race. This commitment requires the solidarity and sense of unity found in the values that rebellion represents. The rebel will try to find a new, promising idea that will enable him to achieve the institution of a universally acceptable ideology based on justice, truth, and reason. 'The freedom he claims, he claims for all; the freedom he refuses, he forbids everyone to enjoy' (Camus 284). In making the distinction of what is best for all humanity, the rebel claims to understand an interpretation of the appropriate style of life to which society ought conform.

In order to protect the New Utopia he has created, the unfaithful rebel will need to eliminate all opposition. He believes this will achieve unity, but will only create a new and limited totality, much in the same way that the ideology rebelled against previously had been. When the rebel places 'an abstract idea above human life...at the ultimate limit, it is no longer worth anything at all' (Camus 170). Naturally, as the rebel deviates from the original spirit of rebellion by expressing an absolute truth, there will be disapproval from those who do not agree with the new tyrant. A new revolution is on short order to dispose of the now unfaithful rebel.

If the rebel expresses an ideology that absolute truth, no dialogue or disputation is possible. If others do not agree with his ideas, they will be enslaved, murdered, or otherwise marginalized to that the unfaithful rebel's perfect ideal is not lost. The 'Truth' expressed by the ideology is comparative to the initial act of rebellion only in that it was an effort to assert the validity of all humanity; it has now changed to include parameters that categorize people according to their complacency with the new truths. Seeking unity, the rebel creates totality. The slave has become the master.

"Totality for Camus is simply the ontological need for unity transformed into a destructive-oppressive metaphysical demand for a transexperiential salvation...We are then embarked upon the destructive path of the logical elaboration of an ideology and the practical imposition of that ideology, no doubt personally experienced as the necessary condition of meaningfulness and sincerely believed to be legitimately imposed upon others as essential to their salvation. (Sprintzen 243)

The unfaithful rebel will kill all those who are opposed to their eventual prospective transcendence in the name of a political ideology that undermines the success of the initial campaign for unity. Rebellion against this seemingly new ideal, the violent face of revolution that leads to injustice and oppression, is as inevitable as the original rebellion that brought it about. 'Man's solidarity is founded upon rebellion, and rebellion can find its only justification in solidarity. We have then the right to say that any rebellion which claims the right to deny or destroy this solidarity simultaneously its right to be called rebellion and becomes in reality, the acquiescence to murder" (Camus 22).

Now, if we know that rebellion can ultimately lead to injustice, revitalized by new idealistic fury, then it is most important to understand why: for exactly the same reason that rebellion initially occurred: lack of practical communication forced one human dogma on other humans with no hope of compromise. The rebel originally needed only to plead his case to the dominator, but after seizing control in the struggle for power turns a deaf ear to any criticism of his 'truth' and dominates in his own turn. "The contradiction is, in reality, considerably more restricted. The revolutionary is simultaneously a rebel or he is not a revolutionary, but a policeman and a bureaucrat who turns against rebellion...Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic" (Camus 249) The rebel must, in order to remain true to the spirit of rebellion, respect the solidarity between humans and realize that no person has any monopoly on truth.

Dialogue is the event that characterizes rebellion. The original rebel pleads for the sanctity of human life to those who perpetuate injustice. He is confronted, however, with a stone wall. The oppressor either does not hear or does not care about his ideas. The unfaithful rebel claims to have special access to an authoritative and undeniable truth, and will not consider the opinion of anyone who disagrees. He creates a new fortress of ideology and is prepared to use violence and terror to enforce his control.

"The equation seems to be between the forces of terror and the commitment to a definitive metaphysical truth. Ideology, as we have seen, involves just such a commitment...If we insist upon the right of that truth t prevail politically, we are then compelled to deny the values of any 'erring,' contrary opinion insofar as it seeks to assert itself. Ultimately, we are led to the denial of value of the bearer of such an opinion. The destruction of dialogue becomes complete in the destruction of the person." (Sprintzen 253, my italics)

In order to recognize the solidarity of all humans, it is necessary for everyone to hear, appreciate, and value the opinions of others. It is not Camus' intention to de-value the importance of believing in one's own conceptions of truth, but rather engage in open dialogue with other people. This is an attempt to achieve the mutual understanding that in our ultimately absurd human condition, no one can claim to have the correct and exact directions to the fantastical realm of absolute truth.

What Camus is saying about rebellion is that in search of unity, it will find itself expressing totality, thus defeating the purpose of having rebelled at all. What Camus does not provide explicitly in The Rebel is a feasible solution to the paradox, although he does present his opinion on what might be done. Camus' ultimate goal, as developed and presented by David Sprintzen, is 'the achievement of an integral meaningfulness, however partial, which is an essential constituent of happiness for a reflective animal' (Sprintzen 243). This integral meaningfulness must reside within the experience of cohesion among people with similar values. The path Camus saw leading to unity began with respect for human life; it must necessarily be continued into the future by the development and growth of dialogue through persuasion. So many rebels were misguided because they ignored their option to esteem the value of other people's ideas in addition to their own. 'The skill [of persuasion] is in identifying what matters to the people being persuaded, shaping one's argument to guide the thinking of those persons, presenting oneself in a credible manner, and encouraging people to see one's perspective without setting them up as in manipulation or backing then into a corner as in coercion' (Reardon 2) In order for this operation to function, both parties must have equal consideration for each other based on a feeling of solidarity with fellow humans, and independent but open trade of thoughts. 'Persuasion requires curiosity. It demands a willingness to explore the mind-sets of other...In interpersonal persuasion [there is] something done 'with' rather than 'to' people' (Reardon 209) Therefore, rebellion is also something done 'with' others who understand that camaraderie and harmony originate with respect. 'The mutual understanding and communication discovered by rebellion can survive only in the free exchange of conversation' (Camus 283). If this practical application of rebellion was cultivated, that is, recognizing the importance of persuasion, only positive results would ensue.

For a practical example of culture developed and developing from the spirit of rebellion, Rastafarianism shows some very positive and very negative aspects. Although the official history of the Rastafarian movement begins around 1930 with the birth of Hallie Selassie I, King of Ethiopia, its roots in Jamaica date back to the time of colonialism and slavery. The Africans were originally introduced to the island by the Spanish as slaves, but not on the plantation size scale that the English established later. The only option that the slaves had for independence, under Spanish rule, was to escape and brave life among the unwelcoming Natives and inhospitable terrain of the dense jungle in the Blue Mountains. These deserters, called maroons at the time, eventually merged with the waning Native population, reinforcing their interdependences. 'The rebel slave communities, the longer they survived, the common Afro-Amerindian features subsumed initial differences. But in general, as all maroon communities developed, they melded militarily, politically, socially, and culturally' (Craton 62). In order to protect what they felt most valuable to themselves and each other, the runaway slaves and Natives compromised their values to stay alive.

Once the British institutionalized the slave trade in plantations, organized resistance became possible. With some slaves in positions of leadership and cooperation with the plantation owners, certain liberties were given to those who would control and direct the actions of the other slaves. 'Accordingly, the key figure on each plantation was the black slave driver, chosen by the planters as policeman and mediator, but, being himself the quintessential slave, potentially and ultimately a rebel leader too' (Craton 54). Since there were 'reliable' slave drivers to control the general population, they were in positions to communicate between different plantations; coordinated uprisings and information networks became possible. The increasing momentum of the emancipation movement all over the world instilled further feelings of injustice in volatile and oppressed human communities. Many rebellions throughout the West Indies occurred, sometimes simultaneously or sporadically, but the general attitude was that the time of slavery was nearing its end. 'The slave resistance, not only rising to a crescendo but increasingly publicized, gradually drove home the realization of the falsity of the assertion that the slaves were contented,' (Hayward 125) which was previously assumed. Emancipation of slavery led to the next form of oppression to be forced upon the newly 'freed' slaves, economic exploitation.

The purpose of abolishing slavery was seen by some as an effective political move rather than a morally motivated action. 'The response of British liberals was to ameliorate the slaves' condition and to guide them towards the Christian more of 'civilization,' perhaps thereby fitting them to become effective wage labourers rather than slaves' (Hayward 125). Although the slaves were against the authoritative rule of the plantation model, they appreciated the sense of community developed by shared toil in work and suffering in bondage. They identified the benefit of living in a group with common goals, interests, and beliefs. 'In Marxian terms, they wanted to relate to the larger market as small commodity producers. In their special context, they did not aim to destroy the plantations; they were even prepared to work for them, as long as they themselves could determine when, for how long, and for what returns in the way of wages' (Hayward 127). What they wanted, ultimately,was to live with dignity and the freedom to develop their own lifestyle.

After the Emancipation Act of 1834, a soceity of ex-slaves, free to do what they please within the confined parameters of capitalism and Christianity, find themselves in a similar type of oppression that their ancestors had experienced. This time social and economic inequality rather than slavery was the proposed form of exploitation. A provisional feudal system was established, the ex-slaves working for four days of the week on the plantation and three on their provisional grounds. 'The response of the blacks was to leave the sugar and coffee estates and go to the hills...The movement of the slaves to the hills to form free villages was a clear example of the quest to have some control over labour' (Campbell 31-4). This is one form of social rebellion which will later characterize Rastafarians, withdrawal from the conventional method of life that the colonizers had in mind for the rural poor of Jamaica.

The Rastas have developed a style of living that embraces the values they share as well as the issues where they disagree. Albert Camus' ideas on rebellion and the ideal Rastafarian model of society are similar in their expression of the ommon interest in the solidarity of human kind and the importance of open dialogue with mutual understanding that respect needs to be shared among all. 'Rastas withdrew from the dominant society, sqatted on land they called their own, named their homesteads in 'Zion' and became self-sufficient' (Lewis 128). Faced with the option of living a life of economic, cultural, political, and legal inequalities, the Rastafarians set out to create their own communitarian system in which everyone actively participates and cares one another's needs and beliefs. [Later addition: the previous sentence does not apply if you're a woman or a 'batty-man,' one pernicious side of Rastafarianism.]

The Rastas recognize that people coming from different circumstances will have dissimilar opinions and outlooks, so the desired goal in the perspective of economic and social progress of humanity,

'must be at least the following: development of a popular culture and of all positive indigenous cultural values; development of a national culture based on the history and achievements of the struggle itself; constant promotion of the political and moral awareness of the people, of the spirit of sacrifice and devotion to the cause of independence, of justice and progress; development (on the basis of a critical assimilation of man's achievements in the domains of art, science, literature, etc.) of a universal culture for perfect integration into the contemporary world, in the perspectives of its revolution; constant and generalized promotion of feelings of humanism, of solidarity, of respect and disinterested devotion to human beings' (Campbell 243).

This interpretation of culture suggests that our shared experience, based on individual contributions to society, will be constantly revitalized by the communication, education, and edification of the human race.

In terms of Camus' ideas of rebellion, this notion of shared experience and development is eloquently expressed by David Sprintzen; referring to the dynamic of rebellion, 'Camus is echoing the most profound need of a culture that has lost its roots in the eternal and not yet found them in the finite...In facing the absurdity of the situation he has insisted that only integrity is the possibility of any viable 'solution'...Only in communal experience can isolated individuals at grips with an inescapable destiny come together in common activities in view of shared meaning and goals by which to overcome the anguish and loneliness which is the legacy of an impenetrable eternity' (Sprintzen 270-271). The possibility of living a life where the significance is created rather than imposed is recognizable [to a degree] in the Rastafarian culture.

In searching for the viable 'solution' to a social or economic situation, new ideas will always emerge if the people involved, that is providers, dependents, and beneficiaries, have their voices heard. The is evident in a typical Rasta rasoning session, 'a communal undertaking in which one shares beliefs about liberation and justice and relates them to the black experience of slavery, colonialism, and racism' (Lewis 25). The rural Rastas gather at each others' compounds, the urban Rastas in the street. When together they share ideas to educate and enlighten one another, such as those in William Lewis' book Soul Rebels: The Rastafari. 'All are brothers, black, white, yellow...The earth is for us, our home...A man is what he is...Our wisdom breaks the chains of white slavery. Here in Zion we are free of Babylon's evils...We are not like the churches. These are the people who define God and life from written laws. Here there are no laws. Be and say what you like' (Lewis 28-29) In a culture that has necessitated rebellion and even revolution in order to affirm their inherent value as well as their oppressor's, there has developed exactly the idea of constructive dialogue and persuasion that Camus thought to be integral to maintaining the original rebellious spirit.

'Thus the rebel can never find peace,' (Camus 285) and does not finish the saga. 'He knows what is good,' (ibid.) because he located it in rebellion, the necessity of persuasion. However, the rebel is adamant in maintaining his convictions, and this is where the possibility that 'despite himself, does evil.' (ibid.) He will never have solely his own beliefs held as correct, and must moderate his impulse to dominate. As long as everyone respects that others' ideas are of equal value to their own, the impetus to command others to accept 'Truth' diminishes significantly. It is the responsibility of all people to uphold the defense of egalitarianism.

The tension of rebellion bade clear, the aspiring rebel has two paths to choose from. One is necessarily evil, as it leads to a finite end in destruction by ever effacing ideologies. The other route, implied but not explicit in The Rebel, is neither good or evil; the absurd man recognizes the need for compromise and cooperation with fellow human as they construct the path to unity with respect for each other, into eternity.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the opposite of intellectual honesty. To define it succinctly, it is when incompatible ideas are entertained as synchronous. This most often occurs when people commit themselves to a particular belief for too long. When examined, the legitimacy of the belief is obvious to the believer, and everything else is mere coincidence or triviality. The evidence presented by the belief is more often than not valid in and of itself. It is instead, from my perspective, the belief that is what needs to be questioned. Just keeping an open mind at all times lets us change beliefs as we live, instead of letting beliefs change the way we live.

"If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief."

- Terrence McKenna

Beliefs are all fine and good and all that, only, that when one commits too wholeheartedly to a particular belief, that outlook gets rendered askew. It boils down to a simple dichotomy; in facing the mystery that is the human condition, one can entertain the perspective that the mystery has not yet sufficiently been elucidated, or that the mystery is explainable enough by the current dominant paradigm. I consider myself a member of the former party over the latter, yet, there are particular mysteries that I assume to be explainable enough. My beliefs might just as well be false, same as all other beliefs. There is too much mystery for me to adhere to any specific perspective.

To be able to entertain an idea like statist based capitalism and consider that some idea of justice can coincide, as in both capitalism (or any other tyrannical system for that matter) and justice can exist simultaneously is called cognitive dissonance. Holding and apple and an orange while thinking you're holding two apples is cognitive dissonance. The experience and conceptual structure to explain the experience are inharmonious. As far as statism and authentic freedom can be compared, they are incompatible in my view, and I call to anyone who wishes to comment to see my post written on the matter, here.

If you believe in something called statism, you're automatically precluded from believing in its opposite, that is, a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in this act.

This paraphrasing can be demonstrated very quickly and easily: if you approve of statism you authorize a system of domination in one form or another that will eventually lead to violence against sovereign individuals. By complying with the status quo everyone is abdicating that inherent sovereign freedom which all individuals possess in favour of being coerced into hierarchically regimented systems of violence. The people in question here are not even aware of the situation. The relationship of individuals with the world has largely been programmed into our behaviour by social models and other factors to be developed further under the topic of mind control. Nonetheless, to be subjected to these states of mind control is to be satisfied with a state of cognitive dissonance. That's the point I wanted to make here.

Persuasion

You can lead a horse to water...but you can't make it drink... That was my original perspective, and I still hold it in particular esteem, however, the following quote better summarizes my optimism inherent in what persuasion can do:


"If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed."

- Terrence McKenna


In trying to find people with whom I can communicate, that is, share ideas in common, I tend to be quite blunt and forthwith as to my current perspective. Many times this turns people off as they don't want to hear what I have to say and especially how I say it. Behind it all, I think, I am always considering every conversation as a learning experience where the person I'm speaking with might teach me a valuable new perspective or approach to unique experiences. And, who knows, maybe I'll have a worthwhile contribution to the dialogue as well. The first real philosophy class that I attended in the second semester of my first year of university dealt with this exact issue: honest effort to engage in every conversation with the fundamentals of persuasion always in play.

It was in reading Albert Camus' The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, and the ensuing discussions, papers, exams, etc., that made up the one course in my university experience that could be said to be anything close to transformative.


tbc...

The Stone That The Builder Refused

So, what are we going to call our culture? What is it made of? Where does it come from and who put it together? How does it maintain its structure and why is it like it is? With an intense sense of wonder I approach these questions, intending to find answers that feel right to me, and finding so much apathetic excrement that stands in stead of quality modes of thought. Why is it that I've come across so many interesting experiences and bits of information that are uniquely irreplaceable, yet are benign coincidences or old wives tales to the general public? Why have these encounters of mine, as real as stones to me, been for the most part rejected from our common cultural dialogue?

Right now, as I write this and you read it, our prevailing world-view is incapable of coping with the full spectrum of human experience. But, we are capable of extending the limitations of our paradigms and accessing a wider range of experiences on this human spectrum. Have you ever experienced something that cannot be explained in terms of our current cultural understandings? I most certainly have. Did you put in the effort to try and figure out what these things mean to you and others? I most certainly am. Do the perspectives match or are there inconsistencies between your view and the common way of seeing?

Many interpretations of the bible and each of its verses are available by request, and sometimes even without asking, and by this fact give myself full license in making my own interpretations whenever and however I like. If they don't make sense, so be it, they won't last. This one makes sense to me, Psalms 118, verse 22 and from the gospel of Mark, chapter 12, verse 10, Jesus says, 'And have ye not read this scripture; the stone that the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.' Even though the story in the context of Mark and the prayer of thanks in the context of Psalms, doesn't quite apply directly, I take it to mean that we must read into the unexplained for ourselves, and make up our own minds as to what ought be the symbolic cornerstone of our paradigm. That which the builders of culture have refused is still a part of this human experience.

But what is it really that the builders of our culture have so thoroughly rejected that would compel me to write this? What is missing from our cultural milieu that I would have included in our dialogue? In terms of events, situations, and ideas that have been overlooked or underestimated, the list is insurmountable. But this is not my main concern. In elucidating the particularities of paranormal phenomena, I leave investigative research to those better suited who wish to share with the world. My task is putting ideas together in a palatable and persuasive perspective, whereby an all-inclusive feeling of wonder, openness, and play in the realm of imagination, and we can get to the nitty-gritty details of what is going on in this human situation. By joining forces in disagreement, standing eye-to-eye with respect, we can grow a cultural perspective.

The builders of our culture have constructed the edifice without the use of certain aspects of the human experience. Our culture has rejected the individual's sovereignty and societies' decency; by purporting systems of domination that restrict individuals' ability to express their uniqueness, whatever cultural development results will be in turn restricted. Not to say that this rejected experience hasn't contributed quite significantly, even, it's perhaps the more important aspect of people's lives; only that the culture built up around these people, 'western' ones, was not exactly the 'demo'-cratic process that is generally assumed. Whereas cultural history was once perhaps a development of the people directly involved, it seems self-evident that the cultural milieu of post world was two has been more predominantly dictated than integrated as a natural ecological process. And it has spread.

The overall status quo reality that is enforced as a legitimate paradigm, perhaps even the lesser of other potential evils, has willfully disregarded several key ingredients that the recipe for a sustainable cultural enterprise requires. Firstly, that millenia of authentically developed indigenous perspectives have been systematically obliterated, never to be found by the generations that followed. Secondly, that the traditions which have by miracle been preserved, if only fragmented at best, are marginalized to a tolerable degree of superstitious hob-knobbery or shunned for outright quackery. Thirdly, that the over-arching world-view allows for no dissent taking place outside of the designated protest zones, unless that challenge can be co-opted into a profit making venture for those who control the capital interests over the status quo in the first place. Fourthly, and there are so many more that I don't care to think of right now, is that this nonsense is being fed to children before they've been able to developed their own bullshit detectors. The mindset of culture is usually established before any opportunity to choose otherwise has been realized.

That every individual inherently possesses the potential to achieve whatever the hell they want to is the capstone to the pyramid that we're not supposed to reach. The all-seeing eye on top of the Freemason's great seal on the American one dollar bill is truncated, illuminated, and far-removed from the base, symbolic of the capstone I'm talking about. The Powers That Be consider themselves at this stage, and I forgive them of it. Truth is, that we are all sovereign creatures; falsity is, those in control pyramidal matrix whose sole intention is divest human beings of their innate self-hood, consider themselves better than the rest. No more, no less. By abiding the matrix handed down generation to generation, this oppression is subconsciously perpetuated. The status quo, as it stands, has effectively restricted the individual's ability to intentionally complexify the unfolding of their own reality and the common human experience suffers in its revelation.

No one is committed to play the game we're 'birthed' into. In a physical and material sort of way, the hum-drum everyday way to interpret the human experience might as well be dictated by a cultural tradition, even a strictly regimented one, without negative repercussions. What we really need to ask ourselves, a la Terrence Mckenna, is whether or not culture is our friend.

When culture impinges on my ability to express myself, however, retaliation is appropriate.

tbc...