That word can sound kind of ominous now that I think of it. I prefer, "riding off into the sunset." But, when I made my decision to retire from teaching philosophy after 30 years I felt a freedom from the world like I have not felt in a long time.
My sense of spiritual freedom has not wavered and has allowed me to feel the pain of moving on from my life of 30 years of teaching.
It is wonderful scary, like being born again into a new life in the world.
See you all on the other side of the sunset.
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Friday, June 12, 2020
THE HOPE OF THE PEOPLE
THE ENEMY OF
THE PEOPLE is techno-bureaucratic centralism. It has yielded a Ruling Class
empowered by incalculable financial wealth. This social class in turn exploits
the force of technology, bureaucratic yes-men and a virtually hermetically
sealed, bought and paid for, pseudo-Federalist government. It’s mechanisms of threat and control of the
People-- that is, those who are the locus of the living social force of love,
truth and justice-- are courts of law and expensive lawyers; the unconscionable
prisons; the intelligence agencies; the military; police forces; and training/propaganda
institutions called ‘schools.’
George
Orwell represented this centralism in the symbolism of “Big Brother.” But it is realized today in a
de-subjectivized mass of alienated individuals who in moments of doubt, decision
and especially crisis turn toward the “leader,” the professionals, the experts,
the specialists, the loudest and richest voice in the ethos.
Long since
have we lost the “sensus communis,” the felt sense of the greatest good and
purpose of the whole, the community, the ethos.
Long since have we lost the intellectual capacity and honesty of the
Socratic spirit. We turn to the
authority, often authoritarian, demagogic, amoral, indifferent, narcissistic,
but presenting a face of comfort, trustworthiness and strength.
The ethos,
consequently, devolves into one of fear, that is, of paranoia, hysteria and
perversion of all sorts. The illusion of
knowing is propagated from all corners of media, institutions, religions; yet
the vehicle of truth in the ongoing process of inquiry, of question and answer,
comment and response, listening and speaking, studying and reflecting is lost. It is not annihilated but distorted,
deflected, disseminated, distracted in the spectacular side-show of
entertainment, addictive consumption and conformity that passes as sociality.
As President
George H.W. Bush so aptly put it, ‘there are a thousand points of light’
always. Yet it cannot go unnoticed that
the social body can so easily be coalesced around a central focus that is
universalized and becomes the only game in town, according to the official
story. We see this in the “shutdowns” of
many countries. We see it in American
history when hundreds of thousands of young people are dragged cluelessly into
meaningless and hopeless wars such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We see it in the ideology and successful mass
propagandizing of vaccination, a harmful and mostly ineffective practice that
has taken on religious proportions. Yet
those who are truly religious cannot use their religious beliefs to oppose
being forcibly vaxxed.
The true “virus”
is ignorance, anger, self-righteousness and paralyzing fear—maladies that we
have all fallen prey to. The true “virus”
is our own foregoing of authentic courage in the face of doubt, decision,
crisis and violent force. The true “virus”
is allowing our minds and creativity, our autonomy and ethical responsibility
to be expropriated and co-opted by forces tantamount to evil.
The cure is
the natural immunity of health, love, joyfulness, peace, play and happiness
without reason. Have fun, work hard and
support one another. I hope I can listen
to myself.
Sunday, June 07, 2020
NEITHER FOR NOT AGAINST THE PROTESTS
There is a third way in understanding the recent protests against police brutality in general and the killing of George Floyd in particular. One way is to be for the protest; and, for various reasons, the second way is to oppose the protests. The latter reasoning is taking the form of protesting the protests anti-American or anarchistic flavor; also, there are those who see the back protesters as belly-achers who ought to "go get a job" rather that complain or simply have no reason to complain. Such protests seem to claim that the police are just doing their job, a job that most of us wouldn't do. But this second form of opposition to the protest undoubtedly haas racist overtones.
Of course, the killing of George Floyd was wrong in so many ways. Even if it were the only killing of a black man in America it would be egregiously unjustified and, to say the least, reprehensible. So this was clearly barbaric brutality.
Moreover we should be concerned about this obviously. But to be concerned with the trees and lose sight of the forest would be an equally tragic error. The 'trees' in this analogy is the recurrence of police brutality against blacks on the streets of America and sometimes in the homes of America. But the forest is neither the quantity of brutality nor the racist implications nor the beatings themselves.
The 'forest' being missed is the invisible context of distraction, distraction from the strategy of the ruling class to divide and conquer the people. The People all have more in common with one another, even in the context of mutual distrust and/or hatred, than we have with the 1%er's the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Minuchin, or any of the other billionaires in the U.S. Senate and in the Presidential Cabinet, etc,etc.
The innumerable abstract divisions that the Ruling Class pit against one another are unnecessary and self-defeating. But the divisions are many: black vs white; male vs female; straight vs gay; religious vs non-religious; all the religions against one another; educated vs uneducated; workers vs professionals; city vs country; heartland vs the coastal regions; young vs old; republican vs democrat; conservative vs liberal; capitalist vs anti-capitalist; blue state vs red state; patriots vs traitors, workers vs welfare cheats, rich vs poor, socialist vs capitalist, etc., etc. But most recently the division is between those favoring the "Shutdown" and those favoring opening up the society to work and play and socializing. Between those who presumably have compassion for those dying from "the Virus" and those callous son-of-a-bitches who don't care about other people. Nevertheless another false distinction, abstract, misleading and further stoking the heat and passion of our false conflicts and dividing the People from the themselves, only to miss who the Real Opposition is and who the real conflict is really with. These false oppositions are, in short, illusions. They are not real. They are apparitions of control, domination, disinformation, ideology and dependency.
These supposed oppositions do not thrive necessarily on their own. They are exacerbated by the elitist and liberal press and often by the conservative media like Fox News. The passions are heated; the pseudo-conflicts sharpened and the urgency to oppose the Other and identify with "one's own" is hastened. Thus we arrive at a time such as now when we supposedly have devolved into a "tribalist" society. This, however, is a plainly false and opportunistic diagnosis, sociologically shallow, serving only the purposes of spectacle, catchy tag lines for the press and magazine writers and all too facile 'theory' for the amateur sociologists.
The big context, the big picture, the "forest" beyond the trees is the difference between, the conflict between and the irresolvable antagonism between the miniscule but infinitely powerful Ruling Class and the People, the people divided, atomized, alienated; the people turned into a mass, a crowd, the great uneducated and unwashed who must be controlled, (mis)-led, propagandized and not educated, used and if "required" intimidated and abused just to keep them in line.
The People against the Ruling Class: this is the primary, fundamental and finally determinative framework that shapes all conflicts, difficulties and dilemmas in America. But we don't fight this fight. We, the People, who simply want life, liberty and happiness, are manipuated into fighting one another in endless, unresolvable, skirmishes of ultimate futility, frustration and finally cynicism and indifference. We resign ourselves to being led, "taken care of," and exploited, but in the end only to the benefit and interest of the Ruling Class.
The people are being, on a daily basis, lulled and wooed into myopically focusing on the outrage of the day; obsessing on the immediate spectacle in front of their face; succumbing to the shallow but provocative News reports, streaming constantly without proper context, without any meaningful analysis and without any foresight with respect to strategic solutions to the decadent and dystopian backslide of our "culture." We the People are being entertained, incited to purposeless passions and finally addicted to beliefs and prejudices that allows to believe that our ignorance, illusions and self-righteousness are really knowledge, truth and righteousness. We lose sight of our history; we lose the capacity to think historically, thus we keep repeating it.
Consequently, the organic, harmonious and human possiblities of community, autonomy and responsibility are lost. True social individuality is destroyed and the abilities of "sensus communis," of having a felt sense of the good of the whole that enables us to think, speak and act with a vision and compassion for the good of the "whole."
Consequently, that is, as a consequence of not seeing the true big picture of the conflict, the war, between the Ruling Class and the People, we lose the ability, will and desire to truly think. That is, we lose the capacity for truth, for the guidance of the purposefulness that truth guides us toward and aligns us with. "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." The Ruling Class wants us to believe that we are all right. They nurture, promote and elevate the virtue of relativistic annhilation of truth a truth that we all share, the People with themselves and Humanity with a future possiblity of peace, freedom and mutual prosperity.
But this truth of peace and prosperity for all will not arise in the consciousness of the People by itself. It must be fought for intellectually but also practically in organizing for autonomy and responsiblity at the local a regional level. The principle of subsidiarity must prevail: that is, what can be done at home should be done at home. Regional communities must be rebuilt relatively independently of the state and "federal governments. All politics is local politics and democracy is to be one also at home. How we want to live our lives must be established and realized at home. Our values are not to be determined by corporations, centralized state governments, mass media, artificial culture created by "youth cultures," professionalization of sports and entertainment.
We the People must awaken to the truth of life here, now in the community. But this new community, new social individuality and de-consructed state is one that thinks globally but acts and organizes organically at the local level. The new regionalism and central-servant state is not isolationist but open to others as immigrants, cultures, ideas and commerce. The new populist communites and regions must grow toward a new multi-cultural melding of the gifts and flavorings of the differences among us in order at some level and in some way to make them our own.
We can have unity and harmony through difference, differences that are not trivial, abstract and meaningless. We need not be homogenized into a manipulable mass nor atomized and alienated into a herd of wage slaves selfishly looking out for "our own interests" as if this will actually work out. We can have 'difference' without fear, hatred, rage and prejudice. We can have differences to learn from grow from, be nurtured by. In fact it is only through difference, friendly opposition and the experience of the other that life lives and prospers, learns, laughs and ultimately loves.
Of course, the killing of George Floyd was wrong in so many ways. Even if it were the only killing of a black man in America it would be egregiously unjustified and, to say the least, reprehensible. So this was clearly barbaric brutality.
Moreover we should be concerned about this obviously. But to be concerned with the trees and lose sight of the forest would be an equally tragic error. The 'trees' in this analogy is the recurrence of police brutality against blacks on the streets of America and sometimes in the homes of America. But the forest is neither the quantity of brutality nor the racist implications nor the beatings themselves.
The 'forest' being missed is the invisible context of distraction, distraction from the strategy of the ruling class to divide and conquer the people. The People all have more in common with one another, even in the context of mutual distrust and/or hatred, than we have with the 1%er's the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Minuchin, or any of the other billionaires in the U.S. Senate and in the Presidential Cabinet, etc,etc.
The innumerable abstract divisions that the Ruling Class pit against one another are unnecessary and self-defeating. But the divisions are many: black vs white; male vs female; straight vs gay; religious vs non-religious; all the religions against one another; educated vs uneducated; workers vs professionals; city vs country; heartland vs the coastal regions; young vs old; republican vs democrat; conservative vs liberal; capitalist vs anti-capitalist; blue state vs red state; patriots vs traitors, workers vs welfare cheats, rich vs poor, socialist vs capitalist, etc., etc. But most recently the division is between those favoring the "Shutdown" and those favoring opening up the society to work and play and socializing. Between those who presumably have compassion for those dying from "the Virus" and those callous son-of-a-bitches who don't care about other people. Nevertheless another false distinction, abstract, misleading and further stoking the heat and passion of our false conflicts and dividing the People from the themselves, only to miss who the Real Opposition is and who the real conflict is really with. These false oppositions are, in short, illusions. They are not real. They are apparitions of control, domination, disinformation, ideology and dependency.
These supposed oppositions do not thrive necessarily on their own. They are exacerbated by the elitist and liberal press and often by the conservative media like Fox News. The passions are heated; the pseudo-conflicts sharpened and the urgency to oppose the Other and identify with "one's own" is hastened. Thus we arrive at a time such as now when we supposedly have devolved into a "tribalist" society. This, however, is a plainly false and opportunistic diagnosis, sociologically shallow, serving only the purposes of spectacle, catchy tag lines for the press and magazine writers and all too facile 'theory' for the amateur sociologists.
The big context, the big picture, the "forest" beyond the trees is the difference between, the conflict between and the irresolvable antagonism between the miniscule but infinitely powerful Ruling Class and the People, the people divided, atomized, alienated; the people turned into a mass, a crowd, the great uneducated and unwashed who must be controlled, (mis)-led, propagandized and not educated, used and if "required" intimidated and abused just to keep them in line.
The People against the Ruling Class: this is the primary, fundamental and finally determinative framework that shapes all conflicts, difficulties and dilemmas in America. But we don't fight this fight. We, the People, who simply want life, liberty and happiness, are manipuated into fighting one another in endless, unresolvable, skirmishes of ultimate futility, frustration and finally cynicism and indifference. We resign ourselves to being led, "taken care of," and exploited, but in the end only to the benefit and interest of the Ruling Class.
The people are being, on a daily basis, lulled and wooed into myopically focusing on the outrage of the day; obsessing on the immediate spectacle in front of their face; succumbing to the shallow but provocative News reports, streaming constantly without proper context, without any meaningful analysis and without any foresight with respect to strategic solutions to the decadent and dystopian backslide of our "culture." We the People are being entertained, incited to purposeless passions and finally addicted to beliefs and prejudices that allows to believe that our ignorance, illusions and self-righteousness are really knowledge, truth and righteousness. We lose sight of our history; we lose the capacity to think historically, thus we keep repeating it.
Consequently, the organic, harmonious and human possiblities of community, autonomy and responsibility are lost. True social individuality is destroyed and the abilities of "sensus communis," of having a felt sense of the good of the whole that enables us to think, speak and act with a vision and compassion for the good of the "whole."
Consequently, that is, as a consequence of not seeing the true big picture of the conflict, the war, between the Ruling Class and the People, we lose the ability, will and desire to truly think. That is, we lose the capacity for truth, for the guidance of the purposefulness that truth guides us toward and aligns us with. "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." The Ruling Class wants us to believe that we are all right. They nurture, promote and elevate the virtue of relativistic annhilation of truth a truth that we all share, the People with themselves and Humanity with a future possiblity of peace, freedom and mutual prosperity.
But this truth of peace and prosperity for all will not arise in the consciousness of the People by itself. It must be fought for intellectually but also practically in organizing for autonomy and responsiblity at the local a regional level. The principle of subsidiarity must prevail: that is, what can be done at home should be done at home. Regional communities must be rebuilt relatively independently of the state and "federal governments. All politics is local politics and democracy is to be one also at home. How we want to live our lives must be established and realized at home. Our values are not to be determined by corporations, centralized state governments, mass media, artificial culture created by "youth cultures," professionalization of sports and entertainment.
We the People must awaken to the truth of life here, now in the community. But this new community, new social individuality and de-consructed state is one that thinks globally but acts and organizes organically at the local level. The new regionalism and central-servant state is not isolationist but open to others as immigrants, cultures, ideas and commerce. The new populist communites and regions must grow toward a new multi-cultural melding of the gifts and flavorings of the differences among us in order at some level and in some way to make them our own.
We can have unity and harmony through difference, differences that are not trivial, abstract and meaningless. We need not be homogenized into a manipulable mass nor atomized and alienated into a herd of wage slaves selfishly looking out for "our own interests" as if this will actually work out. We can have 'difference' without fear, hatred, rage and prejudice. We can have differences to learn from grow from, be nurtured by. In fact it is only through difference, friendly opposition and the experience of the other that life lives and prospers, learns, laughs and ultimately loves.
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