Month: November 2011

Chakra, pronounced like Chuck the name, plus ru from “run”, means wheel. Cakras, as discuses, were also used as weapons, in my understanding.

For my own purposes, I deconstruct human social systems as consisting in endless little wheels, connecting to other wheels. Unlike cogs, though, these circulations are approximate, not mechanical. They are informed by the principles in the social systems being examined.

An idea, when it goes “out there”, influences the flow of activity, of thought, of motion. Ideas are very powerful. Look at all the hells Marx has enabled. Look at what the genius of our Founding Fathers has enabled.

To this notion I would juxtapose the notion of social “structures”, which subtract from the real world all motion, which is to say all reality and all humanity.

The paradigmatic example is that of class structure. What can one say about a class structure, as in the United States, in which the classes are fully permeable, and both elevation and demotion regular realities? You cannot say the inequality is “structural”, since with effort everything is possible.

Incompetence in thinking is the rule, not the exception, and most likely and common among those whose lives are supposedly dedicated to doing it well.

We get to see, through modern writers, various ways of dealing with the sensitivity of memory to circumstance and propriety. For me, I from time to time am able to pull far enough away from my own dysfunctions to get a higher level perspective.

It seems to me it is true, as depth psychologists argue, that some foundational processes in our psyches endure through sundry external life permutations. We grow in some ways, and remain exactly the same in other, more subtle ways.

Does it not seem at times it would be a species of wealth to merely repeat what came before? To have an identified and clearly articulated set of values, traditions, habits, and ways of thinking that simply exist, as it were, OUT THERE, and never need to be revisited? To feel unwilling to adapt because it is UNNECESSARY, crass, and even WRONG?

Oh, is much of the world not already in this state? Is this not a terse definition of the underpinnings of Islamic extremism? Extreme, because their acts are not contained in the Koran, and seem rather to be locally individuated elements of what I have called Nechaeveism? To be expressions of the death of circumstance, and the elevation of the eternal through pernicious acts of horror?

I cannot call the so-called Humanities useless in principle. What I can call them is useless in PRACTICE.

I pulled from my shelf today a book I have never read, but carried with me somehow wherever I have gone: Walter Mehring’s “Algier oder Die 13 Oasenwunder Westnordwest-viertelwest”. This is a Dadaist text, one with scribblings from George Grosz on the cover.

What it symbolizes for me is a different way of living, of acting, of being. Greeks, for their part, are under the thrall of not so very different fantasies. Can we not approach our modern society from a standpoint of consilience, of wondering how something much better, much more HUMAN, however we define the term, cannot emerge?

This is the faith of those who are bankrupting the EU, in my view. They are irresponsible, plainly. They spend too much. But at root their hope is that something much better, some respite, is possible.

How do we reconcile the magical with the possible? It does not do to exile the magical, but we cannot live there in this world either.

For me, I walk the line, that between hysteria and emotionlessness; between abject conformity and insanity; between hope for the future and pragmatic planning; between passion and intellect; between Jewishness and that modern illness that rejects all that smacks of eternal law.

Where, indeed, is the middle? Should we even pursue the middle? In the battle between extremism and the status quo, surely the middle still includes change of some sort?

What do you do when none of the boxes offered you fit? You must create your own, and remain unnoticed, or convince others that yours is a way forward.

Few mumblings of a man who feels both old and unformed. Do with them what you will.

I don’t repost things often–I don’t think I ever have, actually–but this does make some sense: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47570

The issue is one of trust. If we can trust Romney to undo Obamacare, then I will vote for him. At the same time, this is just a small part of our problems. Obamacare is simply going to make things much worse. They are, however, already unacceptably bad.

What is needed is cutting the Federal government roughly by a third, and either privatizing or pushing out to the States both Social Security and Medicare. Further, we need at a minimum to audit the Federal Reserve, and the IMF/World Bank. Both get our money. In the real world, any institution that gets your money gets the rights to look at your books.

So now, apparently, we have to go through the cycle of the media pushing Newt Gingrich​. This is going to be fantastic.

In addition to having an affair in the middle of Clinton’s impeachment; apologizing to Jesse Jackson​ on behalf of J.C. Watts — one of two black Republicans then in Congress –- for having criticized “poverty pimps,” and then inviting Jackson to a State of the Union address; cutting a global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi​; supporting George Soros​’ candidate Dede Scozzafava in a congressional special election; appearing in public with the Rev. Al Sharpton​ to promote nonspecific education reform; and calling Paul Ryan​’s plan to save Social Security “right-wing social engineering,” we found out this week that Gingrich was a recipient of Freddie Mac political money.

(Even I will admit, however, that Newt was great when he was chairman of GOPAC back in the ’90s with Gay Gaines at the helm.)

Although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the institutions most responsible for the nation’s current financial crisis — were almost entirely Democratic cash cows, they managed to dirty up enough Republicans to make it seem like bipartisan corruption.

Democrats sucked hundreds of millions of dollars out of these institutions: Franklin Raines​, $90 million; Jamie Gorelick​, $26.4 million; Jim Johnson, $20 million.

By contrast, Republicans came cheap. For the amazingly good price of only $300,000 apiece, Fannie and Freddie bought the good will of former Reps. Vin Weber​, R-Minn., Susan Molinari, R-N.Y., and Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.* Former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, R-N.Y., was even cheaper at $240,000.

[*Correction: After Gingrich admitted last week to receiving $300,000 from Freddie, we found out this week that it was actually closer to $1.6 million.]

So now conservatives shy away from denouncing these crooked organizations for fear of running into Vin Weber at a cocktail party.

Sorry, guys — on the plus side, you’re millionaires, but on the downside, you’ve earned the contempt of your fellow man.

The mainstream media keep pushing alternatives to Mitt Romney​ not only because they are terrified of running against him, but also because they want to keep Republicans fighting, allowing Democrats to get a four-month jump on us.

Meanwhile, everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney.

That’s not so bad if you think the most important issues in this election are defeating Obama and repealing Obamacare.

There may be better ways to stop Obamacare than Romney, but, unfortunately, they’re not available right now. (And, by the way, where were you conservative purists when Republicans were nominating Waterboarding-Is-Torture-Jerry-Falwell-Is-an-Agent-of-Intolerance-My-Good-Friend-Teddy-Kennedy-Amnesty-for-Illegals John McCain​-Feingold for president?)

Among Romney’s positives is the fact that he has a demonstrated ability to trick liberals into voting for him. He was elected governor of Massachusetts — one of the most liberal states in the union — by appealing to Democrats, independents and suburban women.

He came close to stopping the greatest calamity to befall this nation since Pearl Harbor by nearly beating Teddy Kennedy in a Senate race. (That is when he said a lot of the things about which he’s since “changed his mind.”) If he had won, we’d be carving his image on Mount Rushmore​.

He is not part of the Washington establishment, so he won’t be caught taking money from Freddie Mac or cutting commercials with Nancy Pelosi.

Also, Romney will be the first Republican presidential nominee since Ronald Reagan​ who can talk. Liberals are going to have to dust off their playbook from 30 years ago to figure out how to run against a Republican who isn’t a tongue-tied marble-mouth.

As we’ve known for years, his negatives are: Romneycare and Mormonism.

We look forward with cheery anticipation to an explosion of news stories on some of the stranger aspects of Mormonism. The articles have already been written, but they’re not scheduled for release until the day Romney wraps up the nomination.

Inasmuch as the Democrats’ only argument for the big-eared beanpole who’s nearly wrecked the country is that you must be a racist if you oppose Obama, one assumes a lot of attention will be lavished on the Mormon Church’s historical position on blacks. Church founder Joseph Smith​ said blacks had the curse of Cain on them and banned blacks from the priesthood, a directive that was not revoked until 1978.

There’s no evidence that this was a policy fiercely pushed by Mitt Romney. To the contrary, when his father, George Romney, was governor of Michigan, he was the most pro-civil rights elected official in the entire country, far ahead of any Democrat.

No one is worried Romney will double-cross us on repealing Obamacare. We worry that Romneycare will make it harder for him to get elected.

But, again, Romney is the articulate Republican. He’s already explained how mandating health insurance in one particular wealthy, liberal Northeastern state is different from inflicting it on the entire country. Our Constitution establishes a federalist system that allows experimentation with different ideas in the individual states.

As governor, Romney didn’t have the ability to change federal laws requiring hospital emergency rooms to treat every illegal alien, drug dealer and vagrant who walked in the door, then sending the bill to taxpayers. (Although David Axelrod, Michelle Obama​, Eric Whitaker​ and Valerie Jarrett​ did figure out a way to throw poor blacks out of the University of Chicago Medical Center.)

The Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank, supported Romneycare at the time. The biggest warning sign should have been that Gingrich supported it, too.

Most important, Romney has said — forcefully and repeatedly — that his first day in office he will issue a 50-state waiver from Obamacare and will then seek a formal repeal.

Romney is not going to get to the White House and announce, “The first thing I’m going to do is implement that fantastic national health care plan signed by my pal, Barack!”

Unlike all other major legislation in the nation’s history, Obamacare was narrowly passed along partisan lines by an aberrationally large one-party majority in Congress. (Thanks, McCain supporters!) Not one single Republican in Congress voted for it, not even John McCain.

Obamacare is going to be repealed — provided only that a Republican wins the next presidential election.

If a Republican does not win, however, it will never be repealed. Recall that, in order to boast about the amazing revenue savings under Obamacare, Democrats had to configure the bill so that the taxes to pay for it start right away, but the goodies don’t kick in until 2014.

Once people are thrown off their insurance plans and are forced to depend on the government for “free” health care, Obamacare is here to stay. (And Newt Gingrich will be calling plans to tinker with it “right-wing social engineering.”)

Instead of sitting on our thumbs, wishing Ronald Reagan were around, or chasing the latest mechanical rabbit flashed by the media, conservatives ought to start rallying around Romney as the only Republican who has a shot at beating Obama. We’ll attack him when he’s president.

It’s fun to be a purist, but let’s put that on hold until Obama and his abominable health care plan are gone, please.

I still like Rick Perry the best. He strikes me as honest. He was an Eagle Scout who grew up on a small farm where scouting and church was all there was. This sort of UNcosmopolitan upbringing does not foster the sort of confidence in public speaking that, say, being a CEO does, but it DOES foster a tendency towards common sense and instinctual honesty. If we consider that in practical decision making, you have more than 1 minute to decide, and are allowed to consult with people you have chosen to advise you, then momentary glitches in what is after all a performance, and not anything actual substantial, can be overlooked.

Perry wants to substantially downsize the government, and I believe him. He wants to figure out what the Fed is up to, and I believe him. He will give our troops what they need to succeed. He will keep taxes low.

Border security is in my view not even remotely as important an issue as reducing, dramatically, the size of the Federal government. We borrow $125 billion a month. We borrow $125 billion a month.

I would be fine with Cain as well, and would like to see the leftist hypocrites explain his successful nomination.

Rightly or wrongly, I do not trust Gingrich or Romney. I may be wrong. This would be a great thing, especially if one of them gets the nomination.

I like Michelle Bachman, but I don’t think she can win a general election. She would be a good VP candidate, though.

Ron Paul, always the last, it seems: as I have said often, I am willing to risk what I see as his unrealistic idealism in foreign policy in exchange for his willingness to tackle the Fed directly.

It is a valid question, in any event: do we really need to be globocop? We are unappreciated most everywhere we go, and not under any conceivable threat of direct attack, at least by conventional armies, and if we are clear that there will be draconian consequences to any support for terrorist attacks on our soil, I think we might be able to stop patrolling the world, keep our men and women home more, and still live in peace.

To be clear: there is no equivalent to Nazi Germany out there, which is the counter-isolationist example so often invoked. The Muslims are stupid. They don’t create anything, and by and large just want to live in their world free from history and time. If they are not saber-rattling–which would be stupid given our profound military superiority–then we can just leave them alone. Even if they are making noise, if it is not credible, we should ignore it.

Iran might be able to develop a nuke, but if we share with them in advance the strike package that will be awaiting them–10 megatons on Tehran, 10 on Isfahan, and a dozen cruise missiles in places of our choosing, including their oil refining and production areas–if they attack ANYONE with nukes, then that should be enough to dampen their ardor. We have, in any event, no really good military options. The bases are deep underground, and I doubt we can assume we have them all.

You do always have to paradigm shift with Paul, since he is not like anyone else. He is consistently in the top four, but even Bachman gets more attention than him.

His only hope is leftwing support. It will be interesting to see if it emerges. There are no rules against switching parties for primaries.

Thus, my three, in order: Perry, Cain, Paul. I may change my mind, but that’s how I see it.

I will add, actually, that all the criticism of Romney is plainly being reserved for a time following his successful nomination. The media, which can and should be viewed as an integral element of Obama’s election team, plainly wants Romney. The Republican establishment wants Romney.

But can any serious mind doubt that they have their own strike package ready for Romney? They attack everyone BUT Romney, creating the illusion that he at least is not tainted by scandal, where everyone else is.

But can you doubt that the tenets of Mormonism will not come out into the public space, with the seemingly serious minds out there questioning, for example, the role of men versus women in that polygamous religion? Or the underwear that they wear?

And who knows what else foul smelling, even if inaccurate, stuff they have dredged up or created? Some business deal where somebody did something dishonest; Romneycare, self evidently; some associate who did something illegal. This is the coin of the realm for people who cannot think because they have abandoned their desire for personal autonomy and thus the NEED for political freedom.

No matter who the Republicans nominate, strong attacks will be waiting for them, and in a spirit of collusion that makes direct State control of the media unnecessary, they can expect nearly universal negative press, outside of the internet, and Fox.

So much misery is caused by perceptual inability, itself caused by fear, sloth, and arrogance. May we one day rise above it.

Here is what all Republicans need to be saying so obsessively that the media cannot fail to hear it and repeat it, even with softening and obfuscating commentary:

The United States borrows $125 BILLION a MONTH, and there is no plan on the table to stop, EVER. EVER.

Further, the top 1% of taxpayers already pays nearly 40% of the income taxes. That is wildly disproportionate to their size.

However, let us make the logical Communistic extrapolation of full confiscation of wealth. According to this website , that 37% constituted roughly $318 billion. The top tax rate is currently 35%. If I divide $318 billion by .35 I get $908 billion and change.

If I then divide $908 billion by $125 billion, I get 7.2 months. That is how long expropriating the ENTIRETY of the income of the 1% would allows us to NOT BORROW MONEY. This would not even touch our actual debt.

Let us say it is all Capital Gains, which of course is not the case, since most of these people are working professionals like doctors, lawyers, and executives, then we use 20%. I get 1.59 trillion dollars. Dividing that out gets us 12 months.

Keep in mind half of America pays NO taxes at all, outside of payroll and sales taxes.

THE CONCLUSION IS INESCAPABLE THAT OBAMA HAS PUT US ON THE PATH TO FINANCIAL RUIN AND THAT NO POSSIBLE INCREASE IN TAXATION CAN PUT A STOP TO IT.

Shout it loud, shout it clear, and shout it with the future of your children in mind.

I will add as a footnote, that I am not even counting in the coming failures of our Medicare and Social Security systems. The monthly deficit is going to get much, much worse.

The question is not whether or not we will be downgraded again and forced to pay higher interest rates, which will make our cash flow situation even worse, but when, and even why it hasn’t already happened.

Stupidity is a poison that works silently, until it is too late.

I was talking with someone who has worked in car manufacturing as a line worker for the last 12 years or so. He works for one of the Big Three, and so of course had to join the UAW as a condition of employment.

He said that absenteeism and sheer laziness are constant problems. He is one of the ones that works, but at least half the people working there are constantly trying to game the system–usually by getting some sort of bogus medical note that allows reduced work loads–and exerting more effort avoiding work than they would have done had they just done their jobs.

Often, he said, they have 2 people trying to do the jobs of 7 since 5 people called in “sick”, which amounts to “not wanting to work today”.

He said the Union bureaucracy is enormous. There are a great many people employed by the UAW who produce literally NOTHING, but whose salaries are paid by those who do, which is to say, ultimately, by Ford, and even more ultimately, by those consumers who still choose to buy Ford vehicles, despite the patently better quality at similar prices of Japanese vehicles assembled here by American workers who are NON-unionized.

This system is idiotic. It indulges the worthless, and punishes the productive. It leads to massive, regular layoffs, since Ford is constantly having to retool to compete.

Here is my net conclusion, studying most unions: unions lead to increased levels of unemployment, since by increasing costs for job-creators, they lower the overall demand for labor. Less buildings are built. Less people are employed, in the United States, by the Big Three.

Now, I work alongside union members on job sites all the time. They are noticeably more professional than non-union members, and in particular it has long seemed to me that where electricians in particular are concerned, there is clear benefit to buying union; but this is, and should be, a process of free markets. Where a given product–here, labor–makes sense even at a higher price because of higher quality, then no coercion is necessary.

As things stand, though, there is no difference in what the UAW does–in having negotiated a collective bargaining agreement across three large corporations, and having gotten government protection for this patent collusion and labor monopoly–and what would be the case if Ford, Chrysler, and GM got together to force wages DOWN, through lockouts and similar methods. The first just happens to be legal, and the second illegal. Further, unions are tax exempt, yet still allowed to contribute to political campaigns, whereas corporations have to pay taxes.

I have repeated Goldwater/Bozell’s ideas in “Conscience of a Conservative” often, but here they are:

1) One union, one company. Let each union work out its own deal with its own company. No more labor monopolies.

2) Union membership needs to be voluntary. If it is a good deal, then it will be a no-brainer. However, take the guy I was talking about at the beginning: if you told him that he could make what he’s making, put it into a FORD backed pension plan (versus Ford-funded UAW administered plan), and do away with all the malingers and whiners, he would jump on that in a heartbeat.

3) If you don’t pay taxes, then you don’t get to lobby or contribute to political campaigns. If you think about it, what unions do, in using union dues for political campaigns, is force people to contribute to political causes they may not believe in. Since union membership is compulsory, then there is no way out of this, if you want to work, and can’t find another, better job. This is ludicrous.

To this I would add that it is logical that all tax payers should have a voice in the political process. Corporations pay taxes, and therefore are entitled to make contributions. However, the same logic applies: it is a violation of the principle of individual sovereignty in the political process. You may work somewhere, but not approve of the use to which the income you help generate for that entity is being put.

My conclusion is that corporations should not pay ANY taxes. Zero. And their ability to make political contributions should likewise be ended.

Most Ivy Leagueish intellectuals will never have tried to form a corporation. They don’t really understand how business works. It is all crass to them. Money grows on Ivy League trees, as far as their practical knowledge goes.

Some years ago, though, I investigated the advantages of various forms of incorporation, which mainly act as legal barriers in law suits. There are two principle types of standard corporations: S Corps and C Corps (I’ll leave aside LLC’s and other forms of organization). In an S corporation, intended for very small businesses, the net profit/loss flows to an individual, who pays taxes on the profits, if any, of the corporation as ordinary income. That is the way I recall it.

In a C corporation, on the other hand, which is what most large corporations are, the corporation pays taxes on its own profit, but every individual in that corporation ALSO pays taxes on their income.

Let us take as an example a C corp consisting of one person. Let us say that I invent a new mousetrap, and go out to market it. First year I have $200,000 in sales, and $100,000 in costs. My corporation has made $100,000. The corporate tax rate is something like 30%. I don’t know if it is progressive, but let us use that number. That means that I pay $30,000 to the government. If I then distribute the entirety of that $70,000 to myself–which is probably a bad idea, since reinvestment is generally need for growth–then I get taxes AGAIN at something like 30%, so my $100,000 in apparent profit is reduced by another $21,000, so that out of $100,000 in apparent income, I have only made $49,000. This is very discouraging.

What people forget is that no business is destined for success. For every Bill Gates there are a number of John Smiths, who nobody remembers because he FAILED. Now, success would be much more likely if you only paid the 30% on your income, and not both your corporate AND individual income, no? The more cash you have in ANY business, the more likely you are to endure the vicissitudes of business cycles.

All of these things–everything I just stated–is to my mind blindingly obvious. I am left to wonder once again just how such stupidity as we see daily in our media became such an endemic parasite on the quality of our shared lives.

I get stuck in my dreams sometimes in history. Once, I was Roman, defending a building full of old statues that were gradually being covered with water. The burden of the past was immense. The Romans used to keep their family crest outside their homes, as a constant reminder of who they were.

Last night, I dreamed of both Sweden and Japan. Sweden felt like a congenial, comfortable place, well insulated from most of the pains of life felt in places like the United States. But it was gradually emptying. I saw a very nice mansion, that had held a zoo and many very interesting buildings, that had been abandoned. There was no one to live there.

Japan was being inundated with water. This of course echoes the very real tsunami most seem to have forgotten now outside Japan, but also echoes, I think, a cultural decline. The Japanese are disappearing. Their very rich and interesting culture is slowly vanishing into the undifferentiated mists of time now gone.

We always live in a burning moment of time, if we are living. The Present is eternal. It never tires or wears out. But WE do, as we attach ourselves to given forms/times.

As I see it, we are more or less condemned to dual identities in this world. We are spiritual beings, temporarily slowed down by the molasses in which we live, yet we feel the need to belong somewhere, in a society, in a family, in a place, in a time. But that form always passes; it must pass.

As I see it, we should now be thinking about the next ten thousand years. In my own detached, likely impersonal way, I see myself as existing in this moment, in this ephemeral world, tasked with figuring out how to create what good I can, where I am.

Hitler dreamed of a 1,000 year Reich. He spent his last days dreaming of the cities he wanted to build on the Soviet steppe, after killing most of the Slavs (root word of slave, remember) and enslaving the rest.

This dream was fantastically effecive, was it not? It was a coercion of history, a twisting of histories arm behind its back until it cried out in submission, where before there has only been chaos and fear. It answered the longing for order, for purpose. Hitler could predict the future because he intended to CREATE the future. He wanted a New Rome, which of course endured far more than a thousand years, if we count the Byzantine Empire, and the ROMAN Universal Church.

You cannot live more than a moment at a time, and this applies if you are a mayfly, condemned to hours of life; and if you are an eternal being, destined to live forever. Beyond this life, beyond time, perhaps that moment swells to occupy every possibility of awareness, of sensation, but here the task at hand is all we have.

We need to connect the worlds, in my view. As comfortable as Sweden is, it lacks a reason to continue living. This is the real underpinning of Conservatism, in my view: it does not look to politics for meaning, but rather looks to politics to PROTECT what meaning systems already exist. This is a crucial distinction.

But we can blend science and meaning. Where we need to start is by bringing the study of the after-life into the realm of mainstream university research. We further need to bring field conceptions of life back–they have been there before, and abandoned for not very good reasons–into the study of biology. We need to understand how we are all interconnected, and work on building what I suppose might be termed a social “moment”, an agreed upon place of rest and contemplation, into our shared dialogue.

As long as our thought leaders view death as a final extinction, they will continue to view the only source of continuing life to be a social arrangement that is permanent because coerced, by them.

Make no mistake: people like Al Gore and George Soros have abandoned traditional sources of metaphysical consolation. What they want is an enduring legacy imprinted on the foreheads of every living man, woman and child, that tells them who they MUST be. This is evil, and it must be fought. We have alternatives, and the fight will consist in vigorously pursuing them.

Freud said these were the secret to happiness, and I agree with him.

I work hard, but I have never felt like I come close to working WELL. I am spasmodic, all too often. I work hard, then rest, then work hard. Proper work is an interaction devoid of friction, of fear, of resentment, of worry. It is teasing out a long line, steadily. It is not relentless–you can rest–but it is in a condition of attached awareness, of connection, of affection.

Love, it seems to me, is over the long haul the same thing. Relationships, all relationships, are work. This is not a bad thing. Work is life. But how we do that work makes a huge difference.

To my mind, the acme of both love and work is reaching a point where you are so relaxed AND focused that you constantly have an overabundance of emotional and physical energy that more or less just flows out of you. Everyone you meet, you are building them. Every task you meet, you feel affection for.

This is an ideal, of course, but a good one.

I listened to a lecture on Wagner the other day. In it, he played a selection from “Tristan and Isolde”. The core dramatic element of the play is that Isolde, the female, wanted to give Tristan, the male, a death potion. She wanted to die, and for his part he did as well, due to a rightfully guilty conscience. But instead of a death potion, they get a love potion. They fall deeply, madly in love, but can never requite that love due to the social context within which they live. Both of course finally die, as they must in a tragedy, and presumably meet again in another life.

The theme is longing, unscratchable, unquenchable longing. Longing was the core element of Romanticism. Wherever you were, you dreamed of distant shores, or long ago times. The pedestrian present was never enough.

I remember lectures on the German author Novalis, and his theme of “Sehnsucht nach dem (der?) Tod”. Sehnsucht is untranslatable fully, but amounts to a vigorous lust for something absent. It has always felt like there was a gap, a hole in you, that sought desperately and to no avail to be filled. Tod is death. Novalis had loved a young girl, who died. Ever after, he longed to die and be with her again.

Death and longing are connected. If you can never be fully who and where you are, restfully, then you can never be anyone at all. If there is a gap in you, can your form, your self, be said to be whole? Can you be said to be fully alive, and not existing simultaneously in some other imaginary moment?

Longing is like sand eroding under your feet at the beach. It undermines everything.

Wagner’s music made me feel weak. It was the same feeling I used to get when listening to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”. It is the same feeling, I suspect, that fans of Avatar and the Titanic felt. It is simultaneously sickening and addicting. It’s like sugar, and has the same effect emotionally that actual sugar does physically: it give you an energy rush, then a down, and over a long period of time it pulls you slowly into a host of preventable ailments.

Let me connect this with politics. Wagner, as I understand it, was held in very high regard by the Nazis, who saw in the quasi-religious ceremonies of his music dramas the potential of a new form of society, one based upon spectacle and shared emotions. Nazism was not just a political movement, but a lifestyle, a “Weltanschauung”–worldview–as Hitler often said.

Are people who long for more more or less susceptible to the snake oil salesmen that have plied their trade as long as societies have had kings? They are MORE vulnerable, of course.

People forget that Nazism was organic. It was about getting back to nature, caring for the “Heimat” (home, but stronger, and related to the nation as a whole), being physically fit, enthusiastic, and overall having a can-do spirit. Being recklessly alone, this is what Heidegger found so enduringly appealing about it. It made sense.

Or consider this quote from Obama’s ideological godfather:

A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.

“The political paradise of communism”: does this not seem to imply that, in the end, he has a simple minded longing for a world which does not exist? Do not most revolutionaries and radicals long for a different world, one that does not have all the limitations which our does? Do they not want the world of Avatar and not the one where their milk is pasteurized by law, and they have to live by clocks?

What does the word “Hope” connote? The satisfactory resolution of a longing.

Bottom line: the more empty people are, the more amenable they are to crazy ideas. Many more or less want to be lobotomized, to surrender their autonomy, goodwill, hope, and character, and just be told what to do. This is something aspiring tyrants are only too happy to do.

This is my place where I just let words pour out, which doesn’t take much effort on my part. I just watch the screen, think “oh what a clever fellow” from time to time (as I have said before, I find I agree strongly with nearly everything I write), and hit Post.

When I want to tackle something, though, that is large and important, I make it hurt. I focus my attention so intently that it becomes a physical effort. Your mind wants to wander; you can’t let it. You push and push and push, until this energy builds up in you where you feel like you have x-ray vision and can see everything. It is like rolling a rock up a hill: you can’t let up, at least until the necessary insight appears. It is not Sisyphean, in that you can reach the top . It IS Sisyphean in that after that, you take up another rock, and then another.

This is not futility, though: it is the energy of life.

I say this as an apology in advance for the following post, which I have been wanting to make for several days, and just can’t find the energy and time to make it hurt properly, to hammer it into a better form.