Author: White Whale

I think one could sum up much of Western Philosophy–certainly modern philosophy–as a search for a “Final Thought”, as if life could be contained in thinking.  What I FEEL people have tried to do is submit philosophy to science, and create a thought system as strong as F=MA.  They have failed miserably, and have resorted to trying to reframe–reduce–humanity to a fundamentally mechanical system that can be “decoded” by means of biology.  We are surrounded by anti-humanists, who in their brutality are not fundamentally different from the Nazis who executed and decapitated Jews in what they “harvesting of samples”.  It is that bad.

That subtracts poetry from the human experience. It subtracts the ecstatic.  It subtracts, in other words, human EXPERIENCE outright, which is to say both all the joys and the sufferings to which we are prey.  Thoughts are not experiences.  They are machines, little crawling machines like spiders that, when well formed, will build for you, and when poorly formed, tear you apart.  Since thoughts are machines, and since people want to reduce human experience to thought, we are becoming increasingly mechanical, rude, infamous, plain, detestable, thoughtless, dismissive, idiotic.

A descent into the poetic seemed appropriate there; or perhaps, properly, an ASCENT, back from the dank basement of an UNNECESSARY project conducted by fools for other fools, to our collective detriment.

The science of the afterlife–which might be called the science of human qualitative supremacy–is solid.  As long as we seek a final, glorious, idolatrous machine–an UEBERmachine–a Golden Calf, something we can see, weight and scientifically evaluate as to its qualitative aspects, we will remain blind to this fact in large segments of our intellectual sphere.

When you look at reforming Medicare, one thing that will clearly be needed are reductions in End of Life care. They are enormously expensive, and do not do much to lengthen lives.

This may seem callous, but it is my hope that at some point scientists generally start acting like scientists, instead of the Fundamentalist Materialists they are in most all cases today.  If they do so, they will start evaluating the actual evidence that our spirits survive physical death, and conclude that it is overwhelming.  If they do that, then the idea will become generalized through the very effective conduits currently provided to the ideologically approved, and fear of death will wane. 

Such a reduction in fear has, of course, absolute value, in facilitating both personal growth and increased happiness. It also has economic value. 

Being the sort of “I don’t see any fucking box at all” thinker that I am, I would like to propose that MEDICARE invest in afterlife investigations, scientific investigations, of the sort that they otherwise no doubt do all the time. 

I was in a daycare today, and saw that the toddlers had to wear bicycle helmets to ride Big Wheels.  I just find that wrong.  I never wore a bike helmet, and yes I got into multiple accidents, but without injury.  I think when you overprotect kids you disempower them.  You make them mistrust their own instincts and abilities.  You make them timid in the face of life’s challenges, which makes them weaker, which makes them more easily overwhelmed and prone to depression and despair.

As I have said several times, it is in my view incontestable that part of the appeal of Harry Potter was the openness with which risk was tolerated.  Such openness runs contrary to our Nanny culture, which seeks to turn all our children into Bubble Boys and Girls, protected from every last hazard from cradle to grave.

This is pernicious and in my view, perhaps seemingly paradoxically, cruel.

I was reading an article by someone the other day that in effect was trying to figure out how to mobilize sympathy for the poor (by particularizing, which by the way is a tactic I have also found effective).  I read it, and thought “she’s answering the wrong question”. 

What the world is most short of, in most places right now, is not wealth, but meaning. In our own nation, for example, our POOR live better than kings of old.  If you have ever been in a true castle, you will see this easily.  That king had no access to spices on shelves in every market now.  He had no access to sugar.  He had no access to porcelain.  He had no access to coffee or tea.

I can see a world where all of us live much more poorly, much more modestly, than we do today; but in which we are HAPPIER.  My principle gripe with socialism is not that it impoverishes people, or encourages equality, but that it DESTROYS culture, which is the very thing which no government can provide in a way which matches the needs of the people it supposedly is helping.  It is the MEANS, and in particular the involuntary nature of those means, coupled with attacks on all notions of qualitative difference between people–which is necessarily an attack on the idea of personal moral growth–that I most object to.

Would be humanitarians would do well to ask themselves what is ACTUALLY necessary for human felicity, and above providing the basics, it is community, love, and purpose.

It is very important not to make the mistake that because you understand something intellectually, that you UNDERSTAND it.  Always hold some part of your confidence in yourself in reserve, even AFTER you have walked ten miles in a man’s moccasins (as some Indian tribe had it).

To take one obvious example, Obama wanted all of us to “feel his pain” when he talked about how, as President, he had to receive the bodies of men killed by his incompetence.  He didn’t feel that pain, but he felt he understood intellectually how someone who HAD felt that pain would act and react.  He was acting, in other words, and that fact became clear when he callously called their unnecessary deaths “not optimal”. 

Not optimal is Sales talk.  It is executive talk, when you want to deemphasize something negative.  It is bureaucratic talk. It is not HUMAN when you are talking about the violent murders of men who looked to you for protection, who you failed, and who even now you feel ZERO actual sympathy for.

Like all ideologues, Obama is plainly someone who has put his intelligence in the service of a philosophy that facilitates the murder of unwanted negative feelings, which for their part find expression in the violence and venom of his outlook, his desire to punish and hurt those he has framed as enemies, which is to say those who create virtually all the jobs in this country.

You can’t think well when your emotions are out of whack, and, again, you cannot UNDERSTAND the experience of others, except by comparison with your own; and if you have never experienced, say, war, then you are simply guessing.

As is likely obvious, I like to think of myself as a general, commanding ideas instead of troops, even though I identify emotionally much more closely with NCO’s.  In the real world, even though it would likely be a waste of talent, I would emotionally rather be an excellent Sergeant Major than an excellent General.  The NCO is the conduit through which idea is made manifest.  He is where the rubber meets the road. He is the source of order.  He is what enables an Army to be a self organizing system, particularly in the face of the chaos of the battlefield.

Be that as it may, I would like to make some predictions, and suggest some tactics and strategy.

Obama is going to lose badly, really badly.  He is trending badly now, and as he gets hammered on Benghazi (not optimal?  What do you think Romney is going to do with that, combined with his patent lie at the last debate, and his decision to fly to Las Vegas rather than actually act like he cared)), and the expansion of the Welfare State, and the enormity of his increase in our national debt, etc, etc., even many Democrats are going to turn on him.

Here is where it gets interesting.  The lunatic radicals that have taken over the Democrat Party, and who thought they had found the winning combination by putting suits and congenial smiles on some of their members (pretty much the whole inner circle, certainly including Obama and Holder) and talking in generic platitudes, are going to get unmasked.  They only constitute perhaps 10% of Americans, and the really nutty ones are only perhaps 1% (the Bill Ayers, the Jeremiah Wrights, the Saul Alinskys, the Frank Marshall Davises, the Anita Dunns), but through the sheer force of will and tenacity that lunacy gets you, they have achieved much broader power.  That is, in my view, about to end.  I think this will be their Gettysburg, where their insurgency, and invasion of normal, non-lunatic America will end.

What did Candy Crowley do?  She tipped her hand.  She openly supported Obama.  She supported his lie.  She interrupted Romney more often, and gave him fewer turns at bat.  Moderates noticed this.  The hard core Obama partisans of course didn’t care, since they are increasingly a maddened shrieking mob.  And this is important: when Obama loses, they are going to take to the streets and internet in droves, screaming bloody murder, and I think large segments of the middle will notice this, and realize that their support for Obama was never rational in the first place. This will be sobering for them.

And this creates an opportunity for conservatives (or as I like to say, genuine Liberals) to educate.  I was talking last night with someone in bar about talking points.  I have said this before, but talking points are propaganda, and propaganda damages our public dialogue, our capacity for rational thought, completely.  Even if your side wins the election, the cause of truth has lost.  The cause of GENUINE national debate about anything has lost. The willingness to study issues and reach emotionally unbiased conclusions atrophies.  That is how we elected Barack Obama in the first place.

But in my view there is NO OTHER WAY to get our nation back on track but by recreating–or more likely creating for the first time–an actually educated electorate.  The elitism among our Founding Fathers was based on deep historical knowledge.  They knew most people are driven by vanity and self interest, and that such people, granted access to other peoples money, would take it, even though in the long run it would plainly hurt them as well, and probably most of all.

But everyone has the vote now–and I am not saying this is intrinsically  bad thing, merely that it HAS been a bad thing.  Our task is to make voting an expression of social coherence based upon factually accurate information.  We need to generalize economic knowledge.  We need to generalize political knowledge.  That is why I spend so much time writing my pieces.  I don’t know who if anyone reads them, but I have increased MY OWN knowledge, my own internal qualitative richness, and prepared myself for a time when such material may be useful.

I think the Left is right in its argument that George W. Bush was elected on talking points.  Karl Rove appropriated the Alinsky method by channeling widespread conservative hatred of Clinton to get Bush elected.  And conservatives were happy, for a very long time, even though Bush acted like anything but a conservative.  He didn’t just start two wars: he expanded social spending as well.  And people forgave him because he wasn’t Bill Clinton.

Mitt Romney is not George Bush.  He is much smarter, and I think more capable, at least potentially.  What our task will be on the first day he takes office is to begin putting steady pressure on him to stick behaviorally behind all the excellent rhetoric we have been hearing in debates.  The Mitt Romney of the debates is who the people will be voting for, and so there is NO REASON to back down once he gets there.  We need to keep him honest.

OF COURSE the attacks from the Left will be relentless, but we have been learning over the last four years how to refute their arguments in depth.  Grandma’s Medicare is ALREADY insolvent.  Adults understand that you can’t get everything you want for nothing.  Social Security is ALREADY insolvent.  Between the two of them, our actual increase in national indebtedness is something on the order of $5 trillion a YEAR.  The most important stuff they keep off the books. Neither the private sector nor State and Local governments are allowed, by law, to do accounting the way the Federal government does.  To actually pay for the bills coming due, we would have to hand over ALL of our income, today, and IT’S GETTING WORSE.  Unaddressed, Medicare alone may soak up the entirety of our tax base within 10-15 years.  Annual interest on our national debt will be more than the current Dept. of Defense budget within ten years, assuming no more debt downgrades.

Put accurate facts in people’s hands, coherent arguments.  There is no need for stentorian yelling.  There is no need for fighting.

Our decline has been gradual, and our ascent back up into usefulness will be gradual as well.  But we can all thank Barack Obama and his fellow radicals for enabling the organization of a long term and vital conservative resurgence.

I believe an effective psychotherapy will consist in four elements: holotropic breathwork conducted in multiple sessions with the same people; mastery of autogenic and progressive relaxation; Kum Nye; the capacity for intense physical exertion, of which CrossFit is in my view the paradigmatic example; and a simple cognitive strategy, of which for me personally the best example has been my own triad of 1) never feel sorry for yourself; 2) Keep moving, internally and as needed externally 3) a commitment to lifelong learning and growth in all aspects of my life.

The most important element is the Holotropic Breathwork–and I think a long term supportive group should be a part of this–but I would submit that it would benefit hugely with a partnership with CrossFit, since CrossFit builds courage and pain tolerance, and both are needed for optimal outcomes with the breathwork.

I was driving down the highway yesterday, listening to that Midnight Oil song about giving the land back to the Abo’s, looking at the size and pace of our modern civilization, pondering both the ridiculousness of the idea, and also what was lost in the destruction of their culture, and it hit me: we can build a spiritualized tomorrow.  There is hope.  We can make all these walls and towers and highways talk in ways which are meaningful.  What was lost can be built again.  I see how.  It can be done.

I want to go on record as saying that I do not support the proposals of the Positive Money movement in Britain, which I feel are being reported on and supported by some of their local press ONLY because they serve Fabian/Keynesian goals of complete government control of the monetary system.

Their proposal for gradual deflation will cause widespread economic harm, since the actual costs of all extant loans will go up steadily, which was more or less the mechanism that initiated our own Great Depression.

Their idea that ANY amount of money printing, particularly by the government, is desirable, flies in the face of my often-repeated contention that all inflation is theft, which I dealt with extensively in my financial treatise.

They are of course correct that banks steal when they print money, and I do support that educational work; but I feel strongly that their proposals, if accepted, would only further undermine a nation that once had the largest Empire the world has ever seen, but which has been in steady decline for nearly a century.

I think the essence of healing is emotional openness and motion.  You have to get, somehow, to places where you are hurt, then add motion.

As we move through life, many of us have our flow of action blocked, or constricted, or redirected, as an unconscious means of going around and avoiding emotional knots tied to traumas, large and small, which forced at some point a reaction of avoidance and forgetting (what I have called forgession, which is a more or less intentional forgetting).  The image I would use is a flow of water constricted by many partial dams and turns in the river.  Action is tied to emotion, which you will note has the word motion in it.  Less blocks, fewer bends, and you get more effective expressions of energy, of emotion, of action.

As an example, I would submit that anxiety is simple a very small dose of anger, directed at people who hurt us long ago.  It is both precautionary–a mild, highly diluted fight or flight response–and reactive to certain eternal moments that exist in us, certain places which NEVER CHANGE, certain situations that you can’t get over, not least because you can’t remember them, or remember them in a way which subtracts the honest emotions you felt.

The task is to feel those feelings, which we have done many times, but to add motion.  What Holotropic breathwork does, as an example, is first induce a state in which suppressed emotions are allowed to come up, but then through gradual changes in the music, adds motion.  You don’t know where the music is going, what is next, and you have to accept this.  This adds motion.

Or another example would be Barry McDonough’s 20 second response for panic attacks.  First, you accept the anxiety.  Second, you ask for MORE.  Finally, you add a 20 second countdown.  You ask it to do its worst, but in 20 seconds, no more.  The countdown, I realize, adds motion.  Where a panic attack is more or less falling into what feels like a never-ending spasm of terror and sense of incipient insanity, you break that spasm by adding motion, by adding time, by putting in on a line which you move along, one which has an end.  It’s a very clever system.

I think I’m getting close to figuring these things out.  One of my goals is to create an actually, consistently effective psychotherapy.  The Holotropic Breathwork is already invented, and already effective. What I feel, rightly or wrongly, is that I may be able to better systematize it, and better able to frame it cognitively such that it sees much wider use, which I feel could only benefit our society in pervasive and desirable ways.

I did actually watch the debate.  I like to deal, here, with deeper issues, but will allow myself a short break into the very temporal.  The following I posted on Yahoo, in response to this very partisan and in my view disingenuous editorial.

Obama is worth $10 million. He has NEVER been an average American. He
went to a high end prep school, and was educated at two elite
universities. He doesn’t care about ordinary Americans. His Energy
Secretary wants gas prices to be $10 a gallon. His pension fund invests
in the same companies Romney’s does.

The salient fact of the debate was that Obama has kept NONE of his major
promises. He did not get unemployment down. He did not cut the
deficit. He did not enact or even propose an immigration solution,
despite having majorities in both houses of Congress.

Obama is an empty suit. He is a windbag. He is an unprincipled
charlatan whose reelection will cause massive layoffs, skyrocketing
energy costs, a complete breakdown in our healthcare system, continued
foreign policy failures, and an unnecessarily diminished America.

Since I’m on the topic, I think it worth posting as well a quite remarkable quote from a former aide and supporter who knew him well, and who was caught in an unguarded moment, defending the President, but in such a way as to be very revealing:

“People say the reason Obama wouldn’t call Clinton is because he doesn’t like him,” observes Tanden. “The truth is, Obama doesn’t call anyone, and he’s not close to almost anyone. It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people. My analogy is that it’s like becoming Bill Gates without liking computers.”