Do We Have to Reject Reality?

I've recently been reading some interesting blogs and books regarding socio-economic trends and possible futures. What strikes me, at this moment in time, is the feeling of rising tension among people blogging, and commenting on blogs, across the Western world.

Big calls for Rothschild's blood can be heard right across America! He, apparently, "owns" most of the world's currencies. Meaning that despite us all relying heavily on local credit for houses, cars, shopping, and the like, nations are 'in hock' for their own currencies! Society as a whole is stuck in debt-slavery! Neoliberal capitalism relies on social inequality to operate. There has to be an unemployed group to keep the employed in check. But how far must this inequality go? Well, looking at some of the worst Third World examples, death through destitution and starvation seem to be the markers! Could it really happen here? Check out some of the stories doing the Facebook rounds!

Reading through the blogs and comments on the web, my first shock is the building tension in the USA (of all places) over the rise in corporate wealth and power. Weren't they expecting it then? I was always led to believe that the average American was inculcated in the belief that more was good. Ergo, their global corporate beasts were great. Have they suddenly come to realise that corporate behemoths will take food out of the mouths of babies and children to feed themselves? That nationality means nothing? That flags, constitutions and democracy are meaningless? Wasn't that supposed to be a "good thing" that America "ruled the world"? 

My fear is that most of these very angry people are heading in the most dangerous direction. They seem to be baying for blood! Revolution is in the air and that's never a good thing if not properly coordinated and planned. The problem of "exit strategy" needs to be addressed. The "End Goal" needs to be formerly devised, agreed and ratified. Revolution run purely on adrenaline would only lead to unnecessary death and carnage and lead us back into a state of confusion from which would emerge yet another "strong leader"! Yet another psychopathic despot to "bring order"! Karl Marx and Rosa Luxembourg argued that there could not be a successful revolution without a politically aware proleteriat. We need to gather, organise, plan and execute! We can't just "kick ass"!

The problem of counter-revolution needs to be addressed. No revolution, however well intended, has managed to stem the counter-revolutionary. The individual, or group, that enjoins the revolutionary group to secure their own less-than-honourable ends. Stalin was just such a counter-revolutionary. His 'interpretation' of Marx was to kill anyone who disagreed with the Bolsheviks, and anything he decreed! Mao Tse Dung was just a power-hungry "emperor-in-waiting", as far as I could tell. To overthrow a despotic, imperial class and to ensconce himself in the same role as that of the recently deposed emperor hardly represents "mature communism".  

I have come to the conclusion that capitalists are all psychopathic. The genuine realities of unchecked capitalism are the total destruction of our peoples and our planet. I'm not too sure which will come soonest, but the inevitable outcome can only be total anihilation of human life on Earth. Governed by one or two huge corporations and a tiny number of rich elites, our planet will be stripped bare of anything they deem holds any "value". The people who work the land will be starved in favour of the rich, or disease-ridden, or crushed by unnecessary wars waged using automated killing machines and global destruction due to depleted resources. All pretty psychopathic outcomes, I feel. Plus, there really doesn't seem to be any reasoning with them! Profit is god. 

A question was posed by my sociology lecturer: "We've apparently reached the 'third stage'. What do you think might be the 'fourth'?" I wonder..........

"Collective Conscoiuness"?

I keep hearing the term "collective consciouness" banded about on various sites and in comment-boxes, and have begun to give some thought to it.

In my training, I was introduced to the term "collective unconscious" in relation to Carl Jung and his ideas. But "collective conscious" is a relatively new twist on the concept.

What does it mean? I ask myself. We live in a world of such diversity of opinion, ideology, philosophy, culture, political persuation, ability, academic achievement, religion, wealth, and other demographic measures that I can't think of right now! What's "collective" about that?

There is an assumption that, at some very basic level, we're all the same! - Are we?

A meme, (that's what they call a picture with some 'profound' written soundbite on it!), on my Facebook 'newsfeed' shows a picture of the Earth coloured green and states: "The world we are experiencing today is the result of our collective consciousness, and if we want a new world, each of us must start taking responsibility for helping create it." And the quote is attributed to a Rosemary Fillmore.

What I find wrong with that quote is the assumption that the whole world falls under the banner of the (presumably) American metaphysical view of the world. I find that a strange concept. Christian fundamentalism is American - that we all know. It seems to have been born out of the early, puritan, settlers who 'conquered' the aboriginal peoples to claim the country for themselves and their offspring. There is also the question of how they conquered a (mostly) peaceful group of tribes of what became known as "indians". Using, not just sheer brutality, (guns and explosives verses bows and arrows), but dirty tricks as well. Early use of germ warfare, for example. Dowsing blankets with smallpox and giving these contaminated blankets to these tribespeople on their "reservations" which they were forced to inhabit! Giving free alcohol to "indians", who had never experienced such intoxication before in their lives. Genocide was commonplace in the early days of European (British/French/German/Dutch) settlers in the New World. So the "world" apparently consists of American values. And, as a result, the "world" is contaminated by Americans. Just as it can, apparently, be "saved" by Americans?

Does anybody else get a say? How far has the world been corrupted by American culture? Ask a bushman in the Amazon. Or a herdsman on the African savana. Or maybe a horseman on the Russian steppes. Or a goat herder on the Peruvian mountains. Or an Inuit on the edge of the Arctic. Or a Bhuddist monk on the foothills of the Himalyas. Did they make the "world" the place that it is? Do they inform our "collective consciousness"? Or is it just the monied few who determine the way the Earth should be "experienced"?

We in the West are stuck with an under-developed sense of self. That's my firm opinion. And I'm sure many would disagree. But that's diversity for you!

We are full of our own sense of importance. We lie a lot. Not only to tribespeoples of different cultures, but to each other. On a grand scale! Early explorers, who encountered peoples from different cultures, would offer them shiny beads and trinkets in exchange for their lands, resources, cultures and identities. We would be the ones "teaching" them about our gods and mores. And if they didn't accept our cultural 'superiority', we'd kill them! It is our, Western European "collective consciousness" that needs to be addressed.

So what do I mean by "under-developed sense of self"? Our psychological and emotional development depends on experience. Our brains make connections based on learning. All of our learning becomes experiential. Referring back to a previous post, I posited the idea that in our foetal, prenatal stage of development, as our brains develop we have no conscious awareness, nor previous experience in our memories from which to make sense of our experiences in the womb. These earliest memories get "forgotten" following the trauma of our entry into this world. However, the experiences are still recorded in the connections between neurons. Now, because we had no symbols (language, imagery, ideal types, etcetera,) those memories might get reinterpreted in the light of 'future' experiences. In my earlier post I suggested that these experiences could become the basis for religious experiences. 

Growing up demands an awful lot of 'life' experiences which, hopefully, teach us 'wisdom'. Were we to continue to rely on subsistance levels of existence we would have to mature quickly and pay more attention to our life-saving instincts. As it is now, we don't have the same pressures. Our hunting skills have been reduced to shopping! We are all consumers. Our biggest threat comes in the shape of our own kind. Predation comes in the form of salesmen and women. Administrators whom we call "bosses" and "politicians"! Legal-rational social control over the majority of innocent, genuinely hard-working people, who have done no harm to the (so-called) leaders of our groups. These are the real threats to our survival, unlike our ancestors who had to outsmart marauding hungry animals. 

We have an innate instinct to merge with the tribe. Together, throughout our existence on this planet, we've learned to adapt to our surroundings in very subtle ways. (This may sound a little controversial given that most anthropologists might argue that our ability to change the environment to suit our needs has been the main contributor to our success! However, it's my belief that our ability to learn through observation is the greatest weapon in our survival arsenal.) We adapt to the environmental pressures by 'herding' and learning from the mistakes and successes of our group members and  from other spieces.

I read many years ago about an experiment in Japan on macaque monkeys who were intelligent enough to learn to wash their food before eating it, following an accident in which an elderly matriarch dropped one into the water. After (I believe) two generations of teaching younger group members to do the same, it appeared to become a standard behaviour among the group. This phenomenon spawned a vague theory known as "the hundredth monkey syndrome". (Another variant on this theme is the "5 Monkeys Experiment" - which I've yet to find a reliable source for!) Essentially, we learn from each other. As a result, we seem to have learned that we need to be "governed" by people who have a vested interest in "governing" us for profit. As our culture (Western) has infested the world, we've imposed our behavious onto other cultures in a very petulant, adolescent way. Using guns and bombs! The more "success" we feel we have achieved, the less reason there is to question its "rightness". 

If we are to mature, we need to question more. Our sense of 'self' needs to be freed from the ease it has experienced in spending money and buying everything it can ever want! For that to happen, we need to break away from our 'hundredth monkey' acceptance of the 'norm'. If we make mistakes, so be it! We can learn from mistakes. To continue assuming that we've "got it right" whilst the planet, and all it's biological diversity, is being destroyed for the sake of short-term profit, is truly self-destructive. 

Maybe our "collective consciouness" should turn its attention to the damage caused by infantile greed and self-interest and look towards a more collective and inclusive mode of existence whereby we could all benefit?

The Growth Of Monopoly Power

The Growth Of Monopoly Power

 Number and Percentage of U.S. Manufacturing Industries in which Largest Four Companies Accounted for at Least 50 Percent of Shipment Value in Their Industries, 1947-2007: