Fear of Equal Money, Part 2. 03/24/2013

Photo: Carolyn Cole

10 years ago, I recall working in a Kinko’s in Whitehall, Ohio when the war began with the news of rockets raining down in Iraq. I heard it first on the radio that we had turned on behind the counter. For months I felt uneasy about the prospect of war with Iraq, and when there was news about an anti-war protest being held in Columbus, I went down only to find nobody had bothered to show up. Some of my work colleagues accused me of “protecting the terrorists.” When I talked with my teen-aged son about the illegality of the war, he dismissed me as “giving in to the terrorists.” I kept to myself and studied the news that confirmed my suspicions that “Bush’s War” (as I called it) was being conducted for stealing Iraq’s oil. Others were saying this at the time, and I felt it was probably true. And at the same time, I experienced a gaping disconnect from my fellow citizens who were parading their “patriotism” by slapping American flag decals on their cars and whooping and hollering as if they were cheering the OSU football team in their rival match against Michigan. I felt a disgust and even a hatred against these stupid, easily – duped people, purportedly my countrymen, and wished that there could be something that would happen that would change their collective minds.

The war dragged on. The Patriot Act. Abu Ghraib. Depleted uranium. [1] WMDs that never were found. “Freedom Fries.” Blackwater. Guantanamo. Extraordinary renditions. And what “good” came out of it? Depends on what you would call, “good.”

Saddam was deposed and the invading nations colluded with the biggest oil companies to shares the spoils of Iraq’s oil reserves, namely, BP and Shell. It certainly was a “good” outcome for them.

Looking back on it now, it seems my memories about the start of Bush’s War has cooled and hardened into a dull mass of regret and shame, and the horror of what America is accountable for is difficult to hold in the mind. Some of these memories are recollections of truly the most, absurdly existential bullshit. Some of them reflect a shocking, sinister and murderous malevolence that exists somewhere within the being of every American. Its fury was born in the perceived mass humiliation of 9/11 and was artfully misdirected and manipulated into being unleashed upon 116,000 Iraqi civilians who never asked to be “liberated,” let alone liberated from their precious resources and their lives.

Will anyone accuse the American Capitalist system of illegally “confiscating” the wealth of another sovereign nation? Will anyone question the morality or justification of a course of action that was nothing if not naked fury of greedy, blood-stained hands? Will anybody ask where the trillions of dollars that exchanged hands in the war went?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for not doing more to stop this shameful war  from happening. But I didn’t know how to deal with it. I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t realize until it was far too late that there was another way, a way that was paved within a society  that was honorable and just, not interested in doing the most good for the largest amount of people, but what is best for all.

I went through all that to set up this question: could something like the War in Iraq happen in an Equal Money System? This is going to sound “scary” to some folks, but when one realizes the decisions to invade another country almost never happens because of a purely politically interest. It’s a business. It’s a racket. The profit motive is front and center. The goal of EMS is to remove Capitalism’s profit motive, and replace it with a principle that is truly life - affirming and supportive to all beings, as this quest for profit is both  unnecessary and the single greatest cause of poverty and fear in the world.

NOTE

[1] A 2010 health study of Fallujah, Iraq reveals the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied. Residents have high rates of cancer, birth defects and sterility from U.S. bombs that used depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Other areas of Iraq face similar health problems.

Fear of Equal Money, Part 1. 03/22/2013

Would the Equal Money System confiscate personal wealth?

If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt – above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it’s the victim who’s doing something wrong.

-David Graeber

This question appeared on the Quora board and I was asked to answer it.  It was asked by “anon user,” the now – infamous paid internet troll who suffered a massive literary beatdown at the hands of Sunette Spies (see previous post). I wasn’t going to answer it at first, but upon reflection, why the hell not? Others (without an axe to grind or a paycheck to collect) probably ask the same question. So I won’t acknowledge the p.i.t. on Quora, but I will answer it here (and dare anon user to play his game in my back yard).

Pretending that this question comes from genuine curiosity, I will say that I do not know everything that will happen with the installation of an Equal Money System. I do foresee it being installed in successive stages, over a period of many years, maybe decades, I don’t know. The current system would not accept such a shock if EMS were to be delivered all at once. But I want to discuss the overarching concern embedded within the question: “what will happen to my personal wealth?”

 This is part and parcel of the fear of loss attached to a change from the current economic system. A system where the winner takes all, and is perfectly represented in the image below:

Within this equation the question must be asked, what if your personal wealth directly contributed to the suffering of countless others? I won’t even apply any rationality or morality to the question, because it’s been exploited to death. And the cheap trick about morality and rationality is that one can set up a premise based on any foundation along a causal chain of events and attach any moral or rational “cover” or significance that can prove or justify anything, no matter cruel or unjust. “MY personal wealth is to be considered the most important thing in my life because I have given it so much value that it justifies everything I had to do to get it and keep it. I’ve given so much to this that I have identified this value as myself. So the fear of my wealth being “confiscated” is really the existential fear of having my valued personality taken away from me.”

Has our questioner ever considered to what extent the personal wealth of those who have to be stripped of all worth, economic or otherwise, to line the pockets of those in command of the system? [1] I really doubt anyone has. Because if one had even first considered the inner dimensions of such a question, it would have failed to leap from one’s mind. Then again, it could be the rank ignorance of an appalling nature. In America we have wealth “confiscated” by others every day in the form of banking fees, interest and other charges and subsidies commonly known as “corporate welfare.” That last item “confiscated” the wealth of US Citizens to the tune of $100 billion dollars in 2012. [2] The questioner may not be aware of such confiscations of wealth currently at work in Capitalism, but more likely, the question was merely a cynical trap to engage in pointless troll dickholery, which I mean to say, it may be a good question, but considering the source, it is only a question presented with a dubious malice submerged within a veneer of civility.

Critics uniformly draw lazy comparisons between Equal Money  and Communism, and often with a weak command of either subject. Of course, we have already diagramed that fear of Equality will cause one to succumb to unreasonableness – and even hostility – when presented with the notion of economic egalitarianism, and at the same time, fall into silent denial over the fact that the current system has taken so much more than Equality ever could.

Fear of Equal Money is a fear that radiates from a center of unenlightened self-interest, a sense of entitlement and a perverse need to justify the unjustifiable. Remember, it was less than a century and a half ago that human slavery  - the legal, religious and economic confiscation of a colonized people’s treasure of blood, labor and tears was abolished. And it took a bloody civil war and a 150 years of lynchings and disenfranchisement since then to nearly settle the question. Nor does the question even begin to explain,  acknowledge or bemoan the attempted extermination and confiscation of land of the Indigenous Peoples in the United States. Yet, any talk of “reparations” sends these Randian Individualists into paroxysms of rage. They will archly reply that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the sins committed in past centuries, yet they will be slow – or unwilling – to forswear any wealth or advantage gained by those same sins. This is what I meant by the “cheap trick of rationality.”

So, back to the question – I simply do not know the answer, because that chapter in human affairs is still to be written. Whatever happens will be agreed upon democratically, which would be the best method to set up the EMS. There will undoubtedly be a transition phase – and many people will be surprised how relatively easy it all could be done. But any discussion about the redistribution of wealth should not be made within cynical, jaded and lazy comparisons of what has happened in the past, but with due consideration of what is best for all. Which leaves me with a question for the critics of Equal Money: What would be better for everyone than having everyone’s basic needs in the world taken care of?

NOTES

[1]  For some perspective how the US government has colluded with the US banking system in taking public money to give to the banks, please read Ellen Brown’s excellent Internet article for Global Research, “Financial Meltdown: The Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History; How to Reverse the Tide and Democratize the US Monetary System.“

[2] From the Libertarian Cato Institute report, a think tank as neoliberal as they come; Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget .

Fear of Equality, Part 6. 03/15/2013

The Natural Law Argument Against Equality

When we speak of the Fear of Equality, we notice that most opponents of Equality will use various arguments to contradict or invalidate the benefits and rewards of Equality. The most popular is the  Natural Law argument, due to its claims of representing the best features of human nature and best represents the ideals of human freedom. Above all else, Natural Law has been appealed to justify and legitimize and promote Capitalism. But does the Natural Law argument against Equality succeed in overturning the basic tenets of an egalitarian – based society?

“God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire. All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as Nature’s laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. Virtue consists in “living in agreement with Nature.” (Zeno, 4th Century, BCE).

It was the Stoics who are credited in formalizing the theory of Natural Law, where they believed that certain insights existed behind the natural order that could be ascertained through the application of reason and logic. This ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno (c. 300 BCE). According to Zeno’s teaching, the Universe is based on laws of the fiery mind of God. The Universe actually IS “God.”  It is the highest virtue (or moral good) that is based on knowledge, and that the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason that governs nature (because “God” IS Nature), and since life on Earth can cause various, detrimental episodes, to be indifferent to the reversal of fortunes that result in success and failure is “virtue.”

Principles of Natural Law have been embedded into Western philosophical thought accorded a special universal significance, since it has been viewed as a basis for ethical human interaction. Natural law is seen as a “special” branch of  the legal system, especially in the Western tradition  because of its reductive relationship to the natural world from which these universal principles were derived. In other words, it was believed that there was some kind of rational, comprehensible system that existed behind the natural world.

Darwin, Hebert Spencer and others used the Natural Law conceptual framework to build their systems of evolutionary change in biology and sociology. Over time Natural Selection came to be equated with “survival of the fittest,” the Capitalist Law of the Jungle where the only morality could be found in competition, adaptability to the environment and specialization.

During the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas, the great Christian Church theologian, appealed to Natural Law principles when he proposed that proof of the existence of God did not require faith or belief, but only through the  rational exercise of the reasoning mind.

In the 16th Century, the Dutch jurist, Hugo Grotius, asserted that nations and individuals were subject to natural law principles. Grotius wrote that laws of men should be in accordance to natural law principles. Grotius and other writers and philosophers of the period in the 16th and 17th Centuries, used natural law propositions that helped topple the feudal system in Europe by pointing out that the feudal system was in opposition to the universal principles of Nature (and by extension, “God.”) Natural Law precepts helped shape important historical events and documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Rights of Man documents of te French Revolution, and formed a major stream of thought within the philosophy of Classical Liberalism, Capitalism and religion and science.

By the time we get to Herbert Spencer’s “survival of the fittest” and Charles Darwin’s “natural selection” memes in the 19th Century, natural law had become the theological system of Capitalism. The Law of the Jungle and the law of  laissez-faire Capitalism where the winner takes all are one and the same. There was nothing “immoral” about a lion killing and eating a gazelle as it was just fulfilling its role as part of the natural world of survival within a certain environment. Same with letting the poor starve and die; no immorality there, for if the weak are unfit to survive the law will remove them from this reality. It is simply science.

It has been the theories of Natural Law that has legitimized the structure of Capitalism and helped give it shape and direction. But is this linkage of Natural Law and Natural Selection able to accurately describe a rational order in this world or is it merely a theory based on a false impression of reality? What is the argument of those who fear Equality goes against the principles of Natural Law?

Orders of Equality and the Limits Imposed by “Liberty”

For example, justice is considered to mean equality, It does mean equality, but equality for those who are equal, and not for all. (Aristotle)

Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the “unfairness” of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact—in defiance of facts. Since the Law of Identity is impervious to human manipulation, it is the Law of Causality that they struggle to abrogate. Since personal attributes or virtues cannot be “redistributed,” they seek to deprive men of their consequences—of the rewards, the benefits, the achievements created by personal attributes and virtues. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality: the establishment of an inverted social pyramid, with a new aristocracy on top—the aristocracy of non-value. (Ayn Rand, The Return of the Primitive)

The arguments against Equality are based in essentialism [1] and limitation. The first argument goes like this: people are inherently un-equal, blessed or cursed with different strengths and weaknesses that yield different results of success and failure in life. To award Equality to all is to reward failure. It is against the Law of the Jungle, Natural Selection and “survival of the fittest.” The Natural Law argument is also one that is embedded through the Classical Liberalism conceits of “Individualism,” “free will” and “Liberty,” not to mention the biggest conceit of all: competition. While the other items are vague, shapeless and subject to multiple interpretations, everyone understands competition.[2] And everyone understands that a Capitalism without competition ceases to be Capitalism. Removing competition removes motivation to participate in Capitalism (so it is believed). And what is feared is the collapse of the entire system due to non – participation. Equality in this way is seen as a subversion to the Natural Order, which leads to the next point.

The Limitation argument is also based on Classical Liberal philosophy, economics and even science. As we have seen in the previous blogs, there’s an inherent, irrational fear that (1) Equality is impossible due to the evil, selfish nature of humanity, and (2) Equality can only be imposed through Draconian, authoritarian means. It is believed that your money must be taken away from you and redistributed to others “who don’t deserve it.” In Capitalism, and this is a point Capitalists are loathe to admit on moral grounds, it is acceptable for a person or group of people to exploit others for profit. The initial economic surge of Capitalism was generated by the harnessing of slave labor and exploitation of the working class. People actually died for the right of working a 40 hour week (Less than 100 years ago, it was common for a factory worker to toil 16 hours a day in dangerous, life – threatening conditions. One can see how Capitalism would have liked to treat its workers). The Limitation of Liberty is the limitation of the liberal’s right to choose to exploit another for profit. (When speaking of “liberal” in this context, I’m referring to the classical economic dimension of the term, not the political definition. Thus, all Capitalists are ‘liberal’ in that Capitalism is a liberal economic system).

So if you mine this equation for any logic, you can only come up with this: at least within Capitalism, Liberty sets limits on equality because Liberty is inherently inequitable, the argument being, “Surely one wouldn’t allow everyone to study at Harvard, would they? It wouldn’t be fair to those who actually can afford it or have the educational level to study there.” There has to be obstacles and impediments in place (like access to money and connections) or else the value of Harvard is rendered spoiled. This value is tied to what we cherish and despise – the life and death principles of success and failure.

We are now moving into another murky territory. The value of a Harvard education is analogous to the value of Capitalism.

NEXT: The Value of Inequality

NOTES

[1] Essentialism is the philosophical belief that things have a set of characteristics that make them what they are (their essence), and that the task of science and philosophy is their discovery and expression; the doctrine that essence is prior to existence.

[2] This is why a result of a tie or draw in a soccer match infuriates American sports fans. There should always be a winner who takes all.

Fear of Equality, Part 5. 03/12/2013

THE impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious things in life.

Thus begins Freud in his book, Civilization and its Discontents. We can speculate some other time about what the “truly precious things in life” may be, since such things are wholly subjective and would prevent us from cleaving to the matter at hand. But Freud does reveal a tendency or a trait within human beings, that we are often given to measure our relationships, environment and thoughts by false standards, through manipulation, ignorance and wishful thinking.

This has been my thesis so far: people fear Equality because differing groups of people fear the domination or misuse by other Groups.

There can be no vast accumulation of wealth within a system of relationships of equal cooperation. There is no rational explanation of how massive social inequality could exist within cooperative relationships within the Group. Thus, the idea of Competition, rather than cooperation, was used  to justify and protect the wealth and property of the haves from the have-nots; a framework that makes sense only within the paradigm of Capitalism.

This fear of the Group is channeled and misdirected into elevated, metaphysical conceptions as values of competition, liberty, free will and Individualism. Of these, liberty, free will and the Classical Liberal deification of the Individual are thought experiments that can only be measured and compared through the signification of vocabulary or artful terminology. Of these, only competition can be considered an event taking place in reality, since competition has very real consequences and effects that can be measured, seen and experienced. The others are mental projections that are used to justify the means and ends of competition.

Managing the Trinity of Fears

There is a Trinity of great Fears that predominately exist within human beings, and they are:

(1) knowledge that each one of us has needs that must be met in order to survive.

(2) Nobody can be trusted, and,

(3) Survival is wholly dependant on access to money or those with money.

To deal with these fears, and more importantly, matters of survival, it is believed by social scientists that early social Groups were formed within relationships of cooperation to deal collectively with the issues of survival. As Society grew more complex and advanced, competition was introduced. How did this occur? The easiest answer has to do with man’s capacity for greed and desire for power over other groups and the environment. Wars and establishing controls over groups became the accepted standards for managing people and resources. There is even a saying about the realities of war that confirms this: to the victor goes the spoils. [1] Capitalism provides the incentive to compete, survival is the motivator, the point between life and death, as well as the attainment of value through the fulfillment of desire via “winning” (acquiring property, sex or fame).  The “loser” is accorded the loss of value, since the loser’s value must be extinguished and consumed by the winner.

It was a very neat and fiendishly clever trick to convince the Group that an existential “winner – take – all” competition for survival was the best and most efficient mode of living. Yet for over 500 years, modern Capitalism has reigned as the winner over all other economic systems. But it required a lot of help from the philosophers, economists and science to do so.

Conceptions of Society

Philosophers, scientists and churchmen have all had their own ideas about forming the perfect society; The major thinkers include Plato, Augustine, Marx, Lenin, etc.. In Plato’s Republic, the cornerstone of society would be “justice.”  Plato’s perspectives were informed by his aristocratic status in Athenian society, and he had a suspicious and disapproving view of democracy, preferring his utopia to be ruled by elite philosophers.

Augustine believed that the ideal society would be one entirely devoted to Christian principles in order to gain entrance into the City of God in the hereafter. Augustine believed that if the State followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, justice and peace would ensue.

By the 18th Century, philosophers like Jean – Jacque Rousseau and others proposed that a perfect utopian state existed before being debased by European culture. Rousseau envisioned a future community that linked political “freedom” with education, but at the same time was pessimistic that self-interest could be overcome to a point that would allow such a reality to unfold.

Karl Marx proposed that “true freedom” could not be found through individual means, but only through the community. Marx’s ideal community would be a classless one of equally shared property and resources, which would only emerge after the conflicts that will cause the collapse of Capitalism.

Amazingly, small – scaled experiments of egalitarian communities were formed in Europe and America in the 19th Century by Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet and others.

Despite the failure of these communities to survive, the common notions of economic and political equality would never completely be lost, although these principles would live on in diluted and distorted forms within the various stripes of socialism (which has never escaped the gravity of market capitalism, thus keeping the social inequalities in place).

The fear of Equality is based on a false, mental reality that has produced severe material and physical consequences for humanity and the environment. These consequences are fast approaching the line of no return that will endanger our civilization in ways that are scarcely imaginable, most likely in permanent, unpleasant ways. We need to find a way out of this date with a dystopian destiny before that line is crossed. Perhaps, if we could finally see and understand how a community based on common sense and Equality could become a workable, comprehensible reality, we can begin to fashion an alternative that will be to the benefit of all.

NEXT:The Natural Law Argument Against Equality

NOTE

[1] A peculiarly American political idiom that arose in the mid – 1800′s to describe a rewards – system that benefitted the winning candidate’s supporters with government jobs.

Fear of Equality, Part 3 03/06/2013

The Myth of Liberty

Capitalism  is not only an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, and it is not only a system based on private ownership and generating profits for the “free market” and “investors.” It is actually a functioning Religion, as well.

As a Religion, Capitalism provides many of the same features and benefits any metaphysical system could conceive. It deals entirely in matters of Faith, worship and beliefs in a Supreme Being (of sorts). There are Narratives that are passed down from written books written centuries ago by Priests and Prophets, who created expansive systems of economic theologies which believers take as proof of their God’s existence and Truth of the nature of Reality. There are several main beliefs that have been given a metaphysical status within Capitalism, although we’ll only touch upon a few. It is the enduring, totalizing and ubiquitous presence of these beliefs systems that have made Capitalism so entrenched and almost impossible - to – dislodge for what it is; a pious and deadly superstition. If we look at some of the main myths of Capitalism, it will be revealed that what actually is offered as the truth are distorted and destructive definitions that has been surreptitiously uprooted and erased from their original meanings. The amazing thing is that these transformed, innovated and falsified distortions have caused these definitions to drift away and disappear from their supposedly definite significations, and nobody has seemed to notice. It is much like donkey meat being sold as 100% ground beef at the supermarket, and people not knowing or caring about the difference.

1. Liberty

Capitalism claims to promote liberty, voluntary exchange, integrity, political freedom, private property and wealth. Of these, private ownership of property and personal liberty are touted as the main benefits of Capitalism, and with it, a moralistic presumption that these things are what everyone naturally desires and are entitled to by their own self-reliance and the Grace of God. This idea, among others from classical Liberalism from intellectuals like Hobbes,  and slave – traders such as John Locke and proslavery advocate Hugo Grotius [1]. “Sovereignty,” “natural law,” and the “pursuit of happiness,” were all the rage with these philosophers, although the question of slavery was still far from settled for these purveyors of liberty. With the rise of Capitalism, there was a growing realization that realities of slavery and the ideas of liberty were causing friction and discord among the European intelligentsia. Logic, reason and common sense failed to dislodge the institution of slavery from the institution of Christianity (which tacitly supported it) and the newly – formed investor class that was beginning to amass astounding, if risky profits from the slave trade.  It took centuries and the bloody American Civil War to help settle the question for good. The definition of Liberty, always as metaphysical and philosophical term of “freedom” which never existence in palpable  physical terms on Earth, was slowly transformed within the evolution of the Capitalistic system. Although slavery was abolished, with the idea that man could not have his labor sold without his consent or payment, what now “free” to rent his labor to another for a wage, instead. This bastardization of “liberty” is today’s “freedom” to libertarians and neoliberals, who have no problem in checking their avowed respect for “voluntary exchange” and “personal integrity” at the door, or change their meanings into a gross distortion, as long as it boosts profits.

Capitalism does not promote “liberty,” but in reality, produces a crypto-authoritarian state of enslavement, alienation, endless consumption, poverty, waste and war. Why do I say “crypto-authoritarian?” Because there is no “voluntary exchange” within Capitalism. There is only voluntary servitude. If one doesn’t “voluntarily” hand over one’s body, effort, mind and time to another, that person will not have a bed to sleep or food on their table. Yet Liberty is raised to religious heights, like an invisible Supreme Being that lives in the sky that has no shape or form other than that molded by inference, wishful thinking and ignorance born from the narratives of Capitalist propaganda. Nobody wants to live without a bed or food, because there is no life outside this  system, where only the hell and gnashing of teeth of  begging, destitution and death awaits. Quite an inescapable bubble we’ve managed to create for ourselves, and yet, the belief has solidified into a substance far heavier than Mount Everest: that this is the best of all possible worlds and that Capitalism is the best of all possible systems created by Man. Well, with half of the world’s population living on less than $2 a day, you couldn’t prove this to me.

2. The Individual and the Fear of the Group

Also known as God, the Übermensch or the Exceptional Man. Here as well Capitalism elevates the Individual into metaphysical terms as a perfect expression of humanity, the idealized being that conquers and subdues all in his path. Like the petulant, disgruntled John Galt, but this Individual does not exist, much like John Galt, does not exist, but is a story of the frustrated expression of enlightened self-interest. “Men of the mind” [2], as Ayn Rand would put it, whose genius and acumen creates the gifts of the Gods for the swarming masses of humanity.

Within the Capitalist  (and especially the Libertarian and anarcholibertarian) mythos, the Individual is granted an unassailable sovereignty that is unconcerned with anything that might dampen the fires of “enlightened” self – interest. This dimension of the Individual is meant to convey a political reality where the rights of the Individual is claimed to supersede the rights of the Group. When we speak of Fear of Equality we are in essence speaking about fear of the Group.  In Western Civilization, this fear has a deep philosophical undercurrent. The great Holy Trinity of Classical thought, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, were all disdainful and fearful of democracy and majority rule. They thought, and many others as well, thought that the common man was a bit too dense to allow social groups to act as a politically cohesive unit. [3]

The Individual, according the Capitalist religion, is endowed with “rights,” “free choice” and “responsibilities” that must not be thwarted by any outside agency, for the Individual must be given ”personal liberty,” free from the restraints of the leeches of society.  Individual must be granted total sovereignty over their body and more importantly, over the ability to form networks, agreements and relationships. This Individual seems to have no real connection or relationships with other Individuals, and seems to exist in and as an island unto themselves, unless one enters into a “voluntary association.”  Yet, even though this Individual must enter systems of social and financial relationships which forms a “Group” that he naturally fears and despises, according to the Capitalist mythos, the Individual must be allowed the liberty to dictate what kind of relationship he wants to enter with another, as long as it does not involve stealing or forcibly harming another’s body or property.

What is interesting here is that the current system steals and harms the largest portion of human beings (Individuals as a Group) on Earth. Of course the Individual lives in fear over that the Group will some day, out of sheer, overwhelming numbers and vengeance, take his property and wealth away. Ayn Rand went so far to even deny that society (as a Group) did not exist, since it is made up by Individuals, and did not enjoy any moral claims to have rights – “rights”  could only be enjoyed by the Individual. The grafting of a moral component to the capitalist concern of self – interest was a cheap trick (who isn’t for morality?), but many have bought it. And few have questioned how is it that Capitalism (composed of one group of Individuals), as a “moral” system, holds no responsibility for the incredibly damaging effects it produces for this planet and the larger group of Individuals living on it.  ”Rights,” “liberty” and “morality” are imaginary, metaphysical concepts used to justify the trap that exists as the jaws of a nightmare from which there is no escape.

Only the fear of the Group is real.

NEXT: The Survival of the Fittest

NOTES

[1] Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) was immensely influential in developing the “natural law” idea that would be borrowed and expanded upon by such thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jaques Rousseau and Locke. Among his ideas was that is permissible for a being to enter into voluntary servitude in exchange for a stable society. Compare this with the modern libertarianism of  Robert Nozick’s notorious statement from his book, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” (1974):  “The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery.  I believe that it would.” While Libertarians wonder why they aren’t taken more seriously, this is precisely the reality we all find ourselves in.

[2] Ayn Rand’s hero, John Galt, who is meant to be a Capitalist “hero” in Rand’s novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” is a rather poor example of the flower of Capitalism Rand’s followers make him out to be, because the question must be asked; what self – respecting Capitalist worth his salt goes on strike against… his customers?

In a lengthy speech that drags on for dozens of pages, Galt crows, ““All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don’t. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.”

[3] Aristotle:  ”A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.” and “Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.” Plato was just as scornful: ”Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.” According to research by I. F. Stone in his book, The Trial of Socrates, Socrates was put to death because of his teaching of anti-democratic views to his pupils in Athens.

 

2012 Mayan Endtimes Prophecy. Day 16 and Counting…

 

 

16 more days until the end of the world. I’m sure that everyone is excited and awaiting the Endtimes with expectant enthusiasm, although I’m sure there exists doubtful minds that consider the Mayan 2012 Endtimes prophecy as a farce and a deception.

Which of course it is. Think of the Mayan 2012 Endtimes Prophecy as the New Age’s version of the Christian Rapture. The rapture in turn was another metaphysical speculation based on passages of the Book of Revelations.

3/28/2012- 2012: Spirituality as Energetic Mind Enslavement

Freedom of Belief: Narratives of Mental Enslavement

The ancient Greek philosophers that lived before Socrates (d. 399 BCE) tried to devise cosmologies that offered a more naturalistic explanation of how the world worked, as they found the religious and mystical explanations lacking. They sought a unifying principle which they believed to consist of a singular substance from whence all things were made. Thales believed that water was the principle. Others believed it was fire or air.  To the modern mind, such theories, in light of what we believe we now today,  are laughable and quaint, but these speculations actually formed the beginning of the scientific process. We are intrigued at how the element of spinning stories to explain the visible world is essentially all philosophy and religion has ever done. Buddha found “enlightenment” under the bodhi tree. Adam and Eve at the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Jesus as the Son of God, died and came back to life. The earth is flat.  I think, therefore I am. Human beings are inherently good. Man is born with Free Will. There are supernatural powers that control reality and human destiny. And so on. But it is important to realize that these narratives, while they are quite handy in providing cover for our fears, when it comes to religious beliefs, they can never escape what they are: constructions of human consciousness in response to fear of the unknown.

Have you ever wondered why there are so many expressions of supernatural belief? How about that first person who convinced another that they saw a “god” or some spiritual event actually happened? What has to happen to someone for them to believe in something that they don’t understand? Let me give you an example of what I mean.

A colleague of mine was explaining to me why he was a Christian. The story he shared centered on this point; that there was a person he knew that had some sort of medical problem and he prayed about and was miraculously healed. “What else could it be,” he asked me. The unspoken answer that obviously formed in his mind was that it had to be “God.”

“Can’t you see,” I replied, “that all you did was create a story to explain something you don’t understand?”

“You must be a free-thinker.” (I’ve been called this many times in my life). He continued,” I respect your beliefs, why don’t you respect mine?”

In other words, he is asking me to believe that what he believes in is actually true. But I wasn’t claiming that he made the story up. “Your mind just created an answer. You can’t prove God healed your friend.” [1]

“You can’t prove God didn’t,” he replied.

“Then explain why God healed your friend and not the thousands who died today?” Because, wait for it… it was God’s will. See how wonderfully the different narratives dovetail into each other to form a perfect circle of logic of theology? Unless this person can find it within himself to break out of this mental fun house of crucified gods and miracles, he will be trapped within this for the rest of his life.

I bet some are asking, “But what’s the harm in believing in religion and its stories? Isn’t it a basic human right to freely express one’s religious belief?”

Take a look at the wars that are occurring now in this world. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict (which is part of the larger Arab – Israeli conflict) which has its roots in the desperate religious competition between Muslims and Jews. In Nigeria there are murders galore being committed by religious fanatics representing Christianity and Islam. The Lord’s Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony has been running religious war in the central Africa for over 20 years, killing, torturing, raping all in the name of Kony’s twisted Christian theology. In Yemen a civil war is being fought between Islamic Sunni and Shi’a sects and both sides are not above recruiting child soldiers to fight each other.

I could go on and on. These religious atrocities are occurring in modern times, never mind the voluminous catalog of vaguely ignorant fears the Unexplained conjured up in centuries past. Needless to say, humanity has not benefited from the religious narratives in any way.

Sai Baba is quoted to have said, “ The mind carries the divine principle (the light of love) and conveys it to all who contacts it.” From what I’ve seen in this world, the mind is a repository of unimaginable cruelty where the “light of love” only exists as a denial of the horrors that befall most people on this planet on a daily basis, almost of it committed by competing economic, political and religious systems.  Sai Baba may have actually believed his slogan of the light and love principle of the mind, but the fact remains  that all he could do was provide a nice-sounding story for his followers.

Isn’t religion the most subtle form of brainwashing? Isn’t spirituality the most subtle form of Mind Enslavement?

Now, what does this have to do with the notion that people have the “right” to choose and express their religious beliefs?

Note

[1] Reminds me of the story of Diagoras of Melos, the notorious Greek atheist who allegedly threw a wooden statue of Hercules into a fire and commanded it to either miraculously save itself or perform his 13th Labor and boil his pot of turnips. For this, a price was laid upon his head by the city fathers of Athens, causing Diagoras to skip town. But the story I want to tell comes from the Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero:  Diagoras was being lectured by a friend who tried to convince him of the existence of the gods by showing him the many votive pictures lovingly rendered by those who were saved from storms at sea by “dint of vows to the gods.” Diagoras replied, “Where are the pictures of those who had been shipwrecked and drowned at sea?”

2012/03/07 – 2012 & My Reply to a Buddhist

Buddha taught to achieve inner peace. But at what cost?

I received this comment from a reader and I want to place this as a new blog post because it reflects an argument that I’ve seen many times before from various religious devotees. In my earlier post a reader claimed that I was picking on Buddha for and his followers for no good reason.

Reply from esantipapa

““Enlightenment” is a fraud. It is a deception that assumes to know and understand more than it can. Enlightenment doesn’t fail because you’ve applied it incorrectly, or because you are not worthy of it. People throughout the ages have sought it and it and only a few have dared to claim that they have attained it. It would be one thing if Enlightenment actually changed the world for the better for all of us. We can easily see that is not the case.”

Enlightenment is a personal journey. No two people have the same path to it. And as far as it not changing the world, that’s beyond ridiculous. Those who strive for deeper compassion and kindness (to their fellow humans), as a path to Enlightenment, do great things because of their compassion and kindness. Sneering at individuals who aim for deeper understanding of their fellow human, deeper compassion for all peoples, and greater personal-outward kindness is not praiseworthy or intellectual by any measure. It makes me sad to know you do not see how you are right on the core issue, but wrong on the examples, as you demonstrate here:

“The solutions are all here on Earth, not locked away in some inaccessible region of consciousness but within understanding who we are and choosing how we are going to relate with ourselves and each other.”

That IS essentially the concept expressed by the whole of the Dharma (and it is put so eloquently by you). Why are you arguing against Buddha when you express ideas that are virtually identical to the Dharma? You may want to read more about the current Dalai Lama’s life story, he’s had a much better set of translators than those of antiquity, and uses almost the same language you use here. That our compassion is derived from our sameness, and how we see each other. That we have all the tools we need here in this life to further understand one another if we choose to use them.

 

My reply:

 

You say enlightenment is a “personal journey.” I have to challenge that assertion. Have you gained enlightenment? Do you know someone who has? How would one even verify that someone, or anybody, including Buddha achieved it? All we have are stories of individuals gaining it, but as they say, the proof is in the pudding, and there’s no proof that anything like “enlightenment” or “karma” or “the wheel of reincarnation” exists the way the Buddhists say it does.

If people as a whole strove to gain a “deeper understanding of their fellow human, deeper compassion for all peoples, and greater personal-outward kindness” through the application of Buddhist principles and that resulted in a far more sane and rational world, then that would be an entirely different thing. But the Buddha attached a spurious metaphysical component that ended up creating a void where self and the material world is negated. I understand that in principle the Buddhist is to follow the Middle Path, but metaphysical fence-sitting has not brought about a better world for everyone.

Buddha’s starting point within attaining enlightenment has been so ineffective in dealing with the world because the criterion, the foundation, is suspect. Instead of establishing a world based on egalitarian terms, the focus was placed on eliminating anguish and suffering, which are not causes, but the effects or symptoms of the poisonous relationships between people. Did Buddha, as a member of the royalty, denounce or taught that such a social order was beneficial or detrimental to proper relationships within the world? I doubt that he did. Instead, the Buddha focused on meditation and mental stratagems in removing self from the world, which he considered an illusion, anyway. Look at India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand; all the countries that have followed Buddhism to one extent or another. The people who live there have caught hell for a long time. Karma must be something that is defective, because it allegedly is supposed to equalize the human experience towards good and proper ethical relationships. Yet unspeakable poverty, injustice and exploitation exists in conditions that are worse than ever. How would the Buddha explain that?

I do not “sneer” at people who are interested in making this world a better place for everyone – such a goal is what I’ve always been about. People like myself have been diverted and mislead by religious, spiritual and metaphysical principles that have proven to be ineffective, dubious and actually harmful to our cause. Following religious principles and chasing after gurus and special Ascended Masters has made us into dumbasses that has allowed the elites to be able to run slipshod over us for so long. You don’t see them worrying about samsara or dharma, do you? Their lineage continues and continues as if karma only rewarded their efforts to dominate, exploit and destroy.

It takes action to change the world, not sitting on your ass under a bodhi tree until you are an ass-ending master so you can teach others how to ass-end.into their minds. I mean, it just hasn’t worked. Achieving inner peace at the cost of separating one’s self from the world is only separation. This practice has obviously been a defective, impractical and self-interested approach to the problems it alleges to “solve.” And don’t bring the Dalai Lama into this. He is completely irrelevant in the affairs of the world while he sits in a saffron robe placing guru-seekers’ heads in the clouds all day. I mean, don’t equate what I am saying as a personal attack on your belief system. Take it for what it is, facing the truth, as I have faced – that all religious systems lead to one point: deception. We don’t need God, Buddha or the Dalai Lama to tell us the proper way to relate to people. We don’t need meditative states or following gurus or attaining an enlightened state to realize that suffering in this world can be stopped. We only need to release our desire to chase after things we can’t verify and embrace the common sense of universal equality. If the Buddha had spoken about that, I’d be all over it As it is, we have to let it go, because what Buddha represents has not been worthy of following, as the world has entertained the Buddhist perspective for centuries and it has failed completely.

2012 R.I.P. God

2012 R.I.P. God. Marlen Vargas Del Razo’s meditations on the Death of God.

2012/01/05 – 2012 and the New Age Eschatology

Just where in the heck did all this 2012 Mayan Prophecy talk begin? Well, the late Jose Arguelles, who was the chief architect for 1987′s  Harmonic Convergence ,  argued in his 1987 book,  the Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, that,

“the primary intention of the Mayan calendar system was not to measure time but to record the harmonic calibrations of a galactic synchronization beam, 5,125-years or 5200-tun (360-day cycles) in duration. According to the time science of the ancient Maya, a great moment of transformation awaits us at 2012, when we pass out of that beam. “[1]

Yes. According to Arguelles, the galaxy and our Earth are going to converge in such an alignment that will produce a beam (yes, a beam) that will somehow either cause an evolutionary step-up in the consciousness of humanity, or bring about a final cataclysm. While  this interpretation of the Mayan Calendar could be seen as one man’s syncretization of an almost-dead religion updated to a modern New Age mythology, Arguelles’ book was the first attempt to set up a link between the Mayan 2012 calendar prophecy with a kind of New Age Spirituality eschatology. It certainly was an attempt to justify and explain a life experience of Argurelles who was allegedly stricken with a vision at the age of 14 atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico in 1953.

 

Outside of Mexico City, on top of the Pyramid of the Sun, when I had this experience like a vision or an inner knowing that it was my life mission to learn or remember again the cosmic knowledge that had been used to build Teotihuacan in the first place. And that was my life mission and journey — from that moment in 1953 when I was fourteen, my life became increasingly devoted to decoding the Mayan mathematics and prophecies. – Arguelles.  Interview. Magical Blend Magazine (2002)

Was it a “vision” or an “inner knowing?” Maybe it was a desire or something less profound? In any case, there has been a cottage industry of books, seminars and movies touting the End of the Age according to the Mayan Prophecy as interpreted by Arguelles. During this year-long investigation we will see how such things came to lodge itself into the minds of human beings and whether anything of substance will come out of this “prophecy” other than inevitable crushing of the true believers’ wishful thinking.

[1]