Month: March 2013

than our ancestors did.  This popped into my head as I was sitting down to do my practice.

Think about life on the prairie.  All work, virtually no play after a very truncated childhood. No leisure.  No time to ponder life, the universe, and why everyone thinks 42 is funny (I have made and responded to that joke often, but as I look at it, does it not replace humor with a much deeper fear that life truly doesn’t have “meaning”?)

Oscar Wilde pointed out some time ago that most of what we call culture was for most of history created by people liberated from the need for grinding labor as a result of the use of slaves.  Now, if we look, say, at the church, their “slaves” were vassals; but the point is the same.  An elite was able to win the time to be formally creative at levels beyond folk culture (which, it must be said, may in many times and places have been superior to the dominant, “official” culture–bhakti versus brahmanism in India, as an example) because other people did the work for them.  There was a class structure, of the Marx condemned, but without any really piercing moral insights.  He was merely describing, as he saw it, structures no different in principle than a careful dissection of the gills of a fish, or the reproductive system of a flower.

Wilde pointed out that machines could be the new slaves, and used without ethical problems.  As I have described often, we would have achieved general leisure by now, and more or less complete class eradication, had the system of fractional reserve banking–and the central banks which support it–not been empowered by law to steal from the productive without creating anything itself.

What is needed for a better future is a generalized scientific understanding that we are spirits in bodies which act like machines, and that economic prosperity can and should be achieved.  Given the ethical growth that would attend a generalized rejection of atheism, the actual need to consume material goods would reduce considerably.  Given, then, an acceptable economic system, we could both easily satisfy material wants, and do so in the sustainable way that leftists want to impose by darkening the world through authoritarianism.

We can get everything we want, if we are intelligent and principled.

I have begun to practice Kum Nye more seriously, by subscribing to the linked program. I will have much more to say about it in a day or two (some posts I keep in my head for a while; I don’t know why).  I do a 45 minute or so series of exercises once a day, then sit still for 5 minutes three times a day, and simply scan my body and emotions to see what I feel (in addition to a few other things).

[First off, I am going to say, slightly off topic, that this five minute thing is really helping me relax through the day.  I set my phone alarm for 9am, 3pm, and 6pm.  When it goes off, I drop what I’m doing (usually working), and go sit in my car quietly for a timed 5 minutes.  All you do is focus on the body, what you are feeling.  You don’t try to direct it, or organize it in any way.  Just feel i

What I am seeing come up, first, is anger, latent, hidden anger.  What I am seeing come up next is how superficial my emotions have been.  This latter element is bringing into yet more clear relief how superficial our culture has become.  Left and right, agnostic, Christian, atheist, rich, poor: all of us have been infused via movies, music, the internet, and TV with emotional superficiality.

What is pornography, but an attempt to bypass the emotional intimacy that is the most interesting part of our sexual appetite?  Even Casanova said that the most interesting thing was not treating a seduced woman like any other woman, but reveling in her uniqueness, what made her special.

And is pornography–and I would include here all portrayals of sex as an act of possession and conquest– not ubiquitous?  Are we not taking a course culture and making it worse?  I have dreams–de facto nightmares, although it is revulsion, not fear, that I feel–where sex acts become a regular part of primetime programming, where children are exposed to everything virtually from birth; where the ethos of the Simpson’s manifests literally.  We are already largely there.

One sees people who try to be “deep”.  You can see them, buried in Erica Jong, or “Into the Wild”, or Dostoevsky.  They major in Liberal Arts: English, Spanish, Philosophy.  And they wind up having huge nose rings and working in bookstores or restaurants. They have little to say, but they strike a pose. 

I remembered reading some time ago, in “Meetings with Remarkable Men”, who the Turkish (roughly) writer G.I. Gurdjieff, writing in the 1920’s, roughly, thought all modern literature decadent.  The other day I was reading the liner notes for a series of compositions based on his music, and came across this:

Although artists, writers and musicians flocked to him, he was often contemptuous of the “self expression” that characterized Western creativity and sternly warned his followers against “loving art with your emotions”.  For him, most modern art was all surface activity: subjective, uncritical manifestations of the personality, egotism unchecked.

Ancient art, on the other hand, had, in his estimate, an “objective”character that transcended petty likes and dislikes.  It was concerned with the preservation and transmission of knowledge.

Now, this “knowledge” was not how to treat man as a machine, and life as accidental and meaningless.  Modern art–and modern life more generally–is driven by the victory of the “man as machine” story.  How can one but be emotionally superficial, when the cost of depth is despair?  Have we not all seen the effects of modern “liberal” education?  It breeds brooding, angry, self absorbed creatures, whose moral engagement with life is through radically destructive politics.  They are driven to hate, and their politics justifies the hate.  They are not driven to love.

My oldest is currently reading Wuthering Heights.  Where in that novel is what Gurdjieff would call “knowledge” transmitted?  It isn’t.  It is entertainment, not altogether different in principle or effect from “Fifty Shades of Grey”. It is meaningless.  It is just a story.

And that sort of thing qualifies as deep.  I posted some time ago about speaking with someone who thought “life is a joke”, who was very consciously trying to read all the important literary works of the last 200 years or so.  I would argue that most of the work in that period is decadent.  The triumph of Scientism as a CULTURAL phenomenon has led to the mechanisation of the rest.  Modern artists are fish out of water, gasping for air.

And as I say relentlessly, NONE OF THIS IS NECESSARY.  ATHEISM DOES NOT WORK AS THE BEST EXPLANATION OF HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS.  Materialism has been falsified outright, but nobody wants to admit it, within the hallowed halls of our actual churches: the science departments of our major universities.

Spirituality is nothing more or less than becoming more aware, which means being able to first relax, then go deep into places unsuspected on the roller coaster of most lives.

It  has perhaps always been largely so, but countless lives are being wasted even now, due to pervasive stupidity of our cultural and political elites.  So much more is possible.

I counted books that seemed to have sadomasochistic themes by no less than 7 authors at Target the other day, many of whom had 3-4 books.  To be clear, as I understand the matter, these books deal with men who like to tie their women up and stick butt plugs in them, who are emotionally both dangerous and shallow.  The success of 50 Shades of Grey has inspired many imitators, or driven up sales of similar work.

It is difficult sometimes to be sanguine about the future of our culture.  Still, one never knows what may make a difference, and our field of endeavor is our lifespan.

Roughly six months ago, I was driving down the road, and saw a dog weaving in the traffic.  It was dark, and it seemed obvious to me that it was going to get hit.  I stopped in the middle of my lane, put my blinkers on, got out and grabbed it.  Some people across the street saw me, said it was theirs–they had a leash with them–and I handed it over.  I then went on my way, after realizing the dog had been covered in shit, and now so were my arms and shirt.  About 4 blocks later, a girl rear-ended my car.  There was no damage, I got out, yelled at her to pay attention–rightly or wrongly, I accused her of texting–and then went on my way.

Today, I rescued another dog in exactly the same spot, a beagle with a very pleasant disposition.  Later in the day, I saw another rear end collision, ALSO in the same spot I was rear ended.  The driver got out, and yelled at whoever hit him. There did not appear to be any damage.

I have never seen a rear end collision anywhere else I can think of–at least for many years–and certainly not on that road.  I have rescued other dogs, but not from a road.

As I share often indirectly, and occasionally more directly, I do believe there is a structure and order to events that is much deeper than we can conceive, and certainly than we consciously realize.  These are small things, but most of what makes life interesting is small.

And I will add that it is not necessary to understand things to record them.  A common flaw, I think, among many scientists is to nearly consciously avoid all measurements and data points which do not readily fit into a preexisting paradigm.  Information which does not fit the Procrustean bed of their biases is not tortured into submission, usually (although in some cases, like the ClimateGate scandal, it clearly is): it is simply ignored.  Much cleaner that way.  You don’t refute the heretics, you lock them up or out.

I can’t recall if I have mentioned this here, but I get an email every week from an Australian lawyer named Victor Zammit, in which he assembles together various interesting stories and facts to do with the evidence that our minds and bodies are quite severable, and that in fact it is most appropriate to view our bodies as extensions of our spirits, and not the converse, as is commonly believed.

Here he talks about materialization mediums: http://www.victorzammit.com/book/4thedition/chapter10.html

Few people realize that there are mediums active today, and have been since the golden age of Spiritualism perhaps a 100 years ago, who can literally bring spirits into bodily form of such substance that they can speak in their own voices, and touch people.  People reunite in physical form with their loved ones, and this happens many times a year around the world (or so it seems credible for me to believe).

At what university are they researching this? None that I know of.  Why would they, when it “can’t” be true?  Why? Because they have curiosity, a concern with a better understanding of the actual human condition, and integrity.  Such people are regrettably rare, nearly absent.

If you want to get the email–which nearly always has something of interest, at least to me–you can enter your email at the top of this link: http://www.victorzammit.com/week20laugh/

He has also assembled a book of evidence. It is free, and contains many, many links to further resources for data gathering.

I have mentioned this before, but I have often had my comments censored, not just on left wing websites like the HuffPo or Daily Cause, but also on allegedly conservative sites like frontpagemag.com (where I have had innocuous, posted remarks removed), Breitbart, and others.  This one was posted on Breitbart, in response to an article praising someone who attacked a “birther”.  It went into moderation, which is normally a bad sign for me, so I’m reposting just to make sure it winds up somewhere.  Here is the link:  http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/03/16/Pollak-Takes-On-MMfA-Birther-Lie-The-Next-Words-Out-Of-Your-Mouth-Should-Be-Im-Sorry?utm_source=BreitbartNews&utm_medium=facebook#comments

This issue is extraordinarily simple, and twofold:  first, the
Constitution requires that Presidents be “natural born”, which was
intended to mean both parents born in the United States.  This means
that Obama, who claims a Kenyan father, was likely not eligible on that
ground alone, and that the Supreme Court or Congress should have
rendered a decision.

Secondly, what he has provided as evidence
for his birth in Hawaii would not stand in a court of law anywhere in
this country.  He couldn’t use it to get a driver’s license, much less
use it for anything more serious.

Members of the military who
enlist, without any special clearance at all, have to provide more
evidence than he has.  We KNOW he was listed as an Indonesian citizen
when he lived there.  What seems clear is that he cannot plausibly
account for a Connecticut Social Security Number.

You people who
claim to value truth do not speak for it, or for me, when you denigrate
those still possessing the courage to describe plain truths in front of
all of our eyes.

On the contrary: you betray a frankly nauseating lack of integrity, and clear signs that leftist propaganda works on you.

Just because watching baby seals get clubbed to death (or, incongruently, polar bears who eat baby seals drowning) makes you cry does not make you a good person.  Emotions, per se, are not positive goods.  They are nothing.  They are of no more intrinsic significance than breathing.  We need them. They serve many positive functions.  But you are not what you feel. You are what you DO.

What is important is action, and quite often the most important action is perception, thinking, seeing.

Consider for just a moment how much productive energy is locked up in dark cages in our world by bad ideas: by “defunct” economists like Keynes; by ideologies like socialism, which decry wealth accumulation, but rely on it for power. 

Just imagine how liberating it would be if we could get accurate information dispersed and understood by the entire world.  The world would bloom instantly.  But we can’t: too many powerful forces of habit, evil. sloth, arrogance, and simple stupidity oppose us.

In large measure, much of our difficulty lies in the emotionally immature position that feelings are perceptions.  They are not, or at least not necessarily.  Virtually all great errors have been accompanied by strong positive feelings. And this can include, of course, an excessive reliance on what you call reason and/or science.

I have a specific, personal reason for posting this, which I am not going to share, per my own habit.  It’s incomplete, but I feel better.

Two data points:

One, a prominent advocate of gun control buys an AR-15 for himself, with high capacity magazines he publicly opposes, and only reverses himself when news gets to the media: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/09/Gabby-Giffords-Husband-Buys-AR-15-Announces-He-s-Not-Keeping-It-After-News-Leaks-Out

[Note: if anyone has any doubt CNN is a propaganda front for the Left, read their treatment of the same story here: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/11/gabby-giffords-husband-buys-assault-weapon/ ]

What clearly happened here is that Mr. Kelly got to thinking: Hmmm.  The AR-15 really IS a good personal defense weapon, and if I’m successful, I won’t be able to get one later, so best get one now.  Now, I KNOW I”M a good person, so this isn’t an issue.  It’s those OTHER people we need to worry about.

Fuck Mark Kelly.  He clearly, literally, beyond any reasonable doubt thinks he is BETTER than most Americans, and thus deserves a different standard of treatment and privilege.

As Christopher Lasch put it, modern “liberals” (his word, which I would not grant) have all the vices of aristocrats and none of the virtues.  Remember, in feudal England, aristocrats had a monopoly on effective weapons as private citizens.  This meant that the ruling elite, and the army they controlled, was always better armed than any private group which might seek to oppose them.  There were no “well regulated” militias that were not the house army of some aristocrat, and when conflict happened, it was invariably between groups of aristocrats, and not between anything like “the people” and their government.

Data Point: Cass Sunstein, who carried the ballot in my head as to who in this world I would most enjoy kicking in the groin.

Here is his review of a book advocating what I am going to call “Soft Nazism”  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/mar/07/its-your-own-good/?pagination=false

I’m not going to take the time to address all his errors and conceits, but will address his three principle arguments: 

1) people are sometimes stupid.  Measurably, they make cognitive errors.  This is true. But why does he assume that the same does not apply to him?  Why does he assume that the patina of science conveys, necessarily, a greater understanding?  Marxism purports to be “scientific”.  Freud considered his work “scientific.”  And in the modern world it is easy to trace very large errors, such as the generalized recommendation of a low fat diet, which has made America fat, because it is bad science and has always been bad science; and the conjecture of global warming.  All of the models have plainly been falsified multiple times by actual events.

2) People are short-sighted.  Again, this amounts to the claim that people who think they are superior actually ARE.  He worries about the environment–which is doing quite well–but says NOTHING about the trillion dollar annual budget deficits we are running, how they will bankrupt our nation, and put not just grandma on dog food, but the grand kids too.  HE IS SHORT SIGHTED.  Again, patent stupidity is not a good argument in favor of greater control in the hands of he and his.

3) Finally, when you get to things like smoking, you get to the highest level of idiocy.  People like him want to put everyone on the public dole.  Smoking is bad because the government has to pay for the health costs related to smokers illnesses.  They insist on taking care of people who are not asking them to, then insist on regulating their behavior because now that they control them, their behavior is expensive.  Just a couple weeks ago some Japanese PM was telling old people to “just die”.  Their crime?  Existing at public expense.

If assholes like Cass Sunstein were not trying to “save” smokers, then it would not matter how long they lived.  How is it any of his fucking business, if these people are paying for their own insurance?  It only becomes his business when he takes over the insurance business.

And do we really want to equate the value of lives with economic productivity?  There is, again, no reason to to that if all expenses are being carried in the private sector.  People make their own determinations as to what their lives are worth, and those of those they love. 

But assholes like Sunstein quite literally PUT VALUES ON LIFE.  They’ve done it all across Europe.  If the cost of keeping someone alive is more than their economic value, they are denied life saving, or at least prolonging, treatments. 

This is treating people like cattle.  If economic utility is the principle value, then we ought to cut the poor off from food, because they cost more than they earn for the State. 

But of course, if they did not pretend to be “compassionate”, people like Sunstein would never get to the power positions they yearn so desperately to abuse.

In that order.

It is astonishing to me how so few questions are seemingly being asked about the first Pope to abdicate voluntarily in something like 1,000 years.  He’s not the first to get old in the office.  He’s not the first to see declining health: on the contrary, this is the RULE.

This article by Christopher Hitchens is a must read for anyone claiming to be genuinely curious about how the world works: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/03/the_great_catholic_coverup.html

I was once socially retarded.  I am better now, much better, but I still make mistakes.  Recently I inconvenienced someone as a result of some inaccurate assumptions I had made, and felt bad about it.  Actually, there are two errors I have in mind, the details of which are irrelevant.  Sorry doesn’t really rectify the “imbalance”, but at the same time beating yourself up doesn’t, either.

Psychologically normal people feel guilt when they screw up, but I would argue there are two ways to feel guilt.  The first is to exaggerate it, to really beat yourself up, but not address the underlying psychological cause of the error.  I would suspect that the people most riddled with guilt are the ones most unwilling to delve deeper into how their psyches ACTUALLY work.  Woody Allen?  Likely a sociopath, whose obsession with guilt masks a lack of actual conscience.  He obsessed for a period of time over guilt for the very simple reason that he didn’t actually feel it.

The second approach is to recognize that it is good that our unconscious incents us to do the right thing by providing negative feedback, but the more important task is to grow out of our ways.  In the case I mentioned initially, my default assumption was that I could hitch a ride with someone who was already going my way, and thus might not need a rental car.  This was an invalid assumption, and one based on the idea that I might not need to be self sufficient.

Because I DID need to be self sufficient to avoid inconveniencing someone, what I see now is that self sufficiency in many respects is an act of generosity.  To the extent you do not NEED others, you are in a better position simply to enjoy their company, and value the experiences as it unfolds.

I will have more to say on this topic, but this was on my mind today, and I wanted to let it go.  I have found that processing things makes them go away.  That leaves room for more insights.