Certain Memes on the Rise.

[Nick]

A few memes that seem to be on the rise in the minds of people is the vague concept of a "higher power" which orchestrates how things unfold, that some "cosmic force" is going to end their suffering, and a tendency toward the postmodern mentality that all "truths" are uncertain. Kind of surprising to me is that this mentality is not only rapidly increasing among young people, but older people as well.

Some of the effects these memes seem to be having is that they produce incredibly uninspired people, and a stagnancy in all things spiritual and philosophical. It's not really that surprising when this kind of mentality basically implies that something beyond our comprehension is responsible for the future, that they will eventually be rescued from their suffering by a benevolent force, and nobody can tell them otherwise. I just wonder what kind of effect these memes will have on the future as they continue to spread and solidify within the subconscious of humanity. It certainly doesn't paint a very exciting picture of the future.

[Cory Duchesne]

Yes, good issue to raise, Nick. We live in an age now where religion is unfashionable and looked down upon. There's almost a mainstream consensus that religion is for those of lower status, for those who lack modern sophistication. In the meantime, the efforts of theosophy and the 60's counterculturalists to promote lite eastern philosophy and mysticism have percolated through mainstream culture, eroding the rigidity of religion.

Naturally, without religion, people still need a source of magical thinking, and so here to replace religion is "spirituality" which to most people seems to mean you can think and do just about anything you want. Celebrities and Musicians are naturally leaders of this new spiritual way of thinking.

A good example is the Oprah endorsed: The Secret

That's right, the universe can answer our prayers, and this time our prayers aren't hindered by the conventional religious ideal of restraint, but instead can be indulged to fulfill our every whim.

Modern Spirituality is mostly about feeling good, it's about titillating our emotions and attaining greater and greater heights of egoistic gratification, and the means used to reach our ends are often just as superstitious before, but instead of any clearly defined ideas or concepts, people can now draw upon the mystical/Taoist/Eastern notion of the "ineffable" and combine that with some loose new age psuedoscientific gobbledygook.

If we keep it it all beyond the reach of words, ineffable, mysterious and intuitive, we can justify whatever it is that is making us comfortable and thus we can remain safely complacent, spending the afternoons idyllically trying to communicate telepathically with our pets.

Here's a really good article on Oprah's efforts to promote "The Secret" and the relationship it has to her school over in Africa.

[Nick]

Modern Spirituality is mostly about feeling good, it's about titillating our emotions and attaining greater and greater heights of egoistic gratification, and the means used to reach our ends are often just as superstitious before, but instead of any clearly defined ideas or concepts, people can now draw upon the mystical/Taoist/Eastern notion of the "ineffable" and combine that with some loose new age psuedoscientific gobbledygook.

Seems humans finally came up with something that places the ego squarely in the center of the universe without batting an eyelid.

If we keep it it all beyond the reach of words, ineffable, mysterious and intuitive, we can justify whatever it is that is making us comfortable and thus we can remain safely complacent, spending the afternoons idyllically trying to communicate telepathically with our pets.

lol...

Here's a really good article on Oprah's efforts to promote "The Secret" and the relationship it has to her school over in Africa.

Yeah that was a good article. I liked this part the best...

"For these believers, self-knowledge is much less important than self-"love." But the question they never seem to ask themselves is: If you wouldn't tell another person you loved her before you got to know her, why would you do that to yourself? Skipping the getting-to-know-you part has given us what we deserve: the Oprah culture. It's a culture where superstition is "spirituality," illiteracy is "authenticity," and schoolmarm moralism is "character." It's a culture where people apologize by saying, "I'm sorry you took offense at what I said," and forgive by saying, "I'm not angry at you anymore, I'm grateful to you for teaching me not to trust shitheads like you." And that's the part that should bother us most: the diminishing, even implicit mocking, of genuine goodness, and of authentic spiritual concerns and practices. Engagement, curiosity and active awe are in short supply these days, and it's sickening to see them devalued and misrepresented".

Doesn't it seem like most people today are incredibly boring? I mean, yeah, I don't expect everyone to have insight into the fundamental nature of reality, but there's absolutely nothing interesting, note even on a superficial level, about most of the people I encounter. I find myself shocked, caught off guard, and pleasantly surprised on the rare occasion I hear someone offer a unique and inspired perspective on something, even if I don't agree with it.

[jupiviv]

I don't exactly know what a "meme" is, but what you're describing seems to be just another form of deluded religion. Materialism, empiricism, etc.(the most popular versions of these ideas) are deluded religions. Even atheism can be a form of deluded religion, as is obviously visible among the atheists on Youtube....not to mention love, sex, work, family, marriage and having children.

Basically, any belief that is not grounded on a faith in logic is wrong, and since people have very little faith in logic to begin with, it's not surprising that they always end up believing nonsense. I find it hard to blame them, though. Religion offers a small escape from the torment of reality, so you find that people in areas where there is most poverty and hardship are most religious, and ready to believe any kind of nonsense. People in more well-off and educated areas, on the other hand, tend to believe in a more refined kind of nonsense.

[Nick]

Memes

[jupiviv]

Memes

An interesting concept, but extremely limited. All worthwhile ideas are timeless, as logic is timeless. They are the realm of genius.

If you consider things like the size of handbags, the design of radios and the pronunciation of the word "fuck" to be ideas and part of culture, then it is possible to apply the concept of memes to them.

[Nick]

Another thing about how uninspired people are, it seems the only thing people are actually allowed to get inspired about is starting a family and everything else that entails, i.e. the stuff that women care most about.

[Animus]

Crowder's "Tokin' the Ghost" and Gettin' high on Jesus seems popular.

[Carmel]

Nick Treklis: Another thing about how uninspired people are, it seems the only thing people are actually allowed to get inspired about is starting a family and everything else that entails, i.e. the stuff that women care most about.[/quote]

Carmel:
yeah, yeah ...Society is to blame. :)

There's nothing wrong with critiquing what you consider to be wrong with societal values, but at some point it just starts to sound negative, redundant and whiny. Incidentally, feminists complain about the prison of domesticity, as well, you know, equal opportunity whining;)

"Emanicipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind." ~Bob Marley

needless to say, though I'm saying it anyway, you're "allowed" to be inspired about whatever you want, in fact, I, for one, would be much more interested in hearing about was does inspire you, than what doesn't...

[Dan Rowden]

Incidentally, feminists complain about the prison of domesticity, as well, you know, equal opportunity whining;)

They do, yes, but they do so whilst fully entrenched in it. Kinda weird, really. Some aspects of domesticity are inevitable, but most of it is avoidable. The question then becomes, why don't people avoid it?

I, for one, would be much more interested in hearing about was does inspire you, than what doesn't...

Um, you have to learn to read between the lines. It's more or less obvious to me. As Nietzsche so succinctly put it: "The great scorners are the great reverers."

[jupiviv]

They do, yes, but they do so whilst fully entrenched in it. Kinda weird, really. Some aspects of domesticity are inevitable, but most of it is avoidable. The question then becomes, why don't people avoid it?

I think women complain about the aspects of domesticity which they don't like, and those are the things which they refer to as "prisons" and so on. They never complain about the actual source of their oppression and slavery, because they are not conscious enough to understand it. Was it Nietzsche who said that women feel most free when they are most bound?

Anyways, I think you can apply this to anyone. Not a single political movement for "freedom" in history has targeted the actual source of slavery. And that is precisely why every such movement has led to further slavery and oppression.

Edit - it was Weininger who said it in Sex and Character. Here's the quote:

Woman is not a free agent; she is altogether subject to her desire to be under man's influence, herself and all others: she is under the sway of the phallus, and irretrievably succumbs to her destiny, even if it leads to actively developed sexuality. At the most a woman can reach an indistinct feeling of her unfreedom, a cloudy idea of the possibility of controlling her destiny – manifestly only a flickering spark of the free, intelligible subject, the scanty remains of inherited maleness in her, which, by contrast, gives her even this slight comprehension. It is also impossible for a woman to have a clear idea of her destiny, or of the forces within her: it is only he who is free who can discern fate, because he is not chained by necessity; part of his personality, at least, places him in the position of spectator and a combatant outside his own fate and makes him so far superior to it. One of the most conclusive proofs of human freedom is contained in the fact that man has been able to create the idea of causality. Women consider themselves most free when they are most bound; and they are not troubled by the passions, because they are simply the embodiment of them. It is only a man who can talk of the “dira necessitas” within him; it is only he could have created the idea of destiny, because it is only he who, in addition to the empirical, conditioned existence, possesses a free, intelligible ego.

[Carmel]

jupiviv:
I think women complain about the aspects of domesticity which they don't like, and those are the things which they refer to as "prisons" and so on. They never complain about the actual source of their oppression and slavery,
because they are not conscious enough to understand it.

Carmel:
That's inaccurate. Most feminist authors and their followers are highly critical of the institution of marriage, the family unit and all that goes with it, including having children. Many feminists consider it a domestic trap and seek to avoid it, in the same way that some men do.

[jupiviv]

Most feminist authors and their followers are highly critical of the institution of marriage, the family unit and all that goes with it, including having children. Many feminists consider it a domestic trap and seek to avoid it, in the same way that some men do.

They aren't happy with the current family/sexual system(most probably because they haven't had good experiences of it), so they want to change it into something more favourable to them. And "domesticity" does not necessarily have anything to do with staying with men. You must remember that these women are doing all that criticism in the bubble of a secure, affluent society(created and maintained by men) with plenty of wealth and labour to spare on them and their plans for changing it.

[Nick]

There's nothing wrong with critiquing what you consider to be wrong with societal values, but at some point it just starts to sound negative, redundant and whiny.

It would only be whining if I were a father and husband who wasn't happy with his situation, but alas, I am not. I'm simply making what I believe is an insightful analysis of humanity.

Incidentally, feminists complain about the prison of domesticity, as well, you know, equal opportunity whining;)

They can complain all they want, what matters is if they choose to become individuals, or go with the flow.

needless to say, though I'm saying it anyway, you're "allowed" to be inspired about whatever you want,

You know what I meant... :\

in fact, I, for one, would be much more interested in hearing about was does inspire you, than what doesn't...

You've been hanging around here a while, I would have guessed you already knew what inspired me.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Hello girls. Whining without Uncle Alex?

A 'meme' on the rise in some people? It is rather a fundamental and ever-recurring event of consciousness: the human need to organize perception of this realm. To come in contact with and 'order' our inner sense of what all this is and what our place is in it. What could be more basic to consciousness? It is something all of us do, and it begins before our thinking selves are formed: we divine the nature of our existence, we intuit it, we sense it, and we 'communicate' with 'our creator', that which has originated time and space and our existence in matter.

The idea that man can influence the world from some 'place' deep within his own self is as old as humankind is. It existed, it exists and it will continue to exist. To lose the sense that such an influence is possible, is to become debased (I suggest); partial, nullified, atomized. Probably with a greater sense of unity-of-self with environment (kosmos), such an understanding---and the ability to employ it---would increase. When it diminishes, the individual's relationship with the whole has likely diminished. He might even be on the verge of annihilation. Though it may be partial or even utterly superficial, the need to divine one's relationship with the Totality and to describe it as a Higher Power...is possibly a necessary and self-saving strategy of the individual under attack by mechanical forces.

'Post-modern' perception of relativism is complex, certainly, but in the sense Nick seems to mean is not unhealthy or undesirable as he seems to imply. And yet it could also be described as a necessary development for any thinking person. Every single certainty which upheld the fundamental structures upon which Medieval man existed have most definitely been overturned, and we live in the aftermath of that: we spin in that, we go crazy in that, we 'lose ourselves and disappear' in that 'perception', even if it is not conscious.

To talk about 'uninspired people'---wouldn't you?---you'd have to be an inspired person, and very little of that is in evidence. Neither you nor Cory (I suggest) really has a sense what this means because you are partial persons. You are just as much overt symptoms of the uninspired...as the hordes of uninspired. Inspiration is only a question to be asked. What could it possibly mean, now, to 'be inspired'?

Nick wrote: "...that something beyond our comprehension is responsible for the future".

Something beyond our comprehension is indeed 'responsible for our future'. Totally and absolutely!

"...that they will eventually be rescued from their suffering by a benevolent force, and nobody can tell them otherwise".

Yeah, it is called optimism and it is necessary for spiritual and psychological survival.

"I just wonder what kind of effect these memes will have on the future as they continue to spread and solidify within the subconscious of humanity. It certainly doesn't paint a very exciting picture of the future."

The use of the term 'meme' is pretentious.

These 'ideas' (which prefigure consciousness and in that sense are 'ineffable') have existed more or less forever if the mythological 'record' is accurate. How could it ever go away and what could ever replace it? Some pot-head philosophy out of the industrial North? The real astounding 'meme' here is the arrogance of this young snot who makes these declarations about things he has not really thought through.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Dan wrote: "They do, yes, but they do so whilst fully entrenched in it. Kinda weird, really. Some aspects of domesticity are inevitable, but most of it is avoidable. The question then becomes, why don't people avoid it?"

You, Quinn and Solway are, in fact, domestic. Quinn attends to his family, Solway contemplates travel, absorbing new culture with the prospect of meeting women. I assume you live in a house, leave dishes on the counter, walk across the floor.

You are people who misrepresent your complicity in domesticity.

But you do maintain a philosophical and spiritual stress which is necessary and good.

[jupiviv]

Quinn attends to his family

???

Care to elaborate?

[Dan Rowden]

Dan wrote: "They do, yes, but they do so whilst fully entrenched in it. Kinda weird, really. Some aspects of domesticity are inevitable, but most of it is avoidable. The question then becomes, why don't people avoid it?"

You, Quinn and Solway are, in fact, domestic. Quinn attends to his family, Solway contemplates travel, absorbing new culture with the prospect of meeting women. I assume you live in a house, leave dishes on the counter, walk across the floor.

You are people who misrepresent your complicity in domesticity.

You're full of shit, Alex. You don't even bother to read what's written by those to whom you "reply". I noted those aspects of "domesticity" - i.e. practical aspects of life - that are inevitable. Surely you can't be so dim that you don't know what I'm talking about? Meh, of course you're that dim, so let me spell it out a bit more for you: I'm talking about those aspects of "domesticity" that people complain about but can actually avoid but don't because they are unconsciousnessly attached, compelled, indoctrinated etc etc etc etc etc etc...

Here's a really simple example for you: most women complain about how much washing they have to do, yet change their attire more times in any given day than is necessary. Mundane, yet instructive.

[Dan Rowden]

Quinn attends to his family

???

Care to elaborate?

I assume he's referring to the fact that David helped care for his dying mother during her slide into dementia-driven oblivion. He did so because his father wasn't able to handle it alone. Not sure what else he could possibly be talking about.

[Carmel]

jupiviv:
They aren't happy with the current family/sexual system(most probably because they haven't had good experiences of it),

Carmel:
They think it's generally oppressive for all women. This is part of their ideology, which may or may not have anything to do with their subjective experiences.

jupiviv:
so they want to change it into something more favourable to them.

Carmel:
They don't necessarily want to change it, though some may. Many of them simply want to avoid it by not getting married.

jupiviv:
And "domesticity" does not necessarily have anything to do with staying with men. You must remember that these women are doing all that criticism in the bubble of a secure, affluent society(created and maintained by men)

Carmel:
Yo, Jupta! :) Do you live in a grass hut? It's 2010 and here in "affluent" America both men and women maintain society.
Also, the suffragists(early feminists) and the civil rights activists/feminists of the 1960's helped paved the way for other women, as well. (There were a few men among the ranks of these feminists, too.)

Anyway, that's the second time you've mentioned how men are responsible for creating society, as though you're trying to leech off their successes. Their accomplishments are not yours(or mine)to gloat over. Conversely, you(or I)are not responsible for the numerous atrocities and royal fuck ups committed by men either...

Anyway back to the point of marriage. What you're forgetting is that the institution of marriage was created by men, not women. Would men intentionally create and maintain an institution that was oppressive to themselves? Perhaps, it's men who are the masochists...?

[jupiviv]

It's 2010 and here in "affluent" America both men and women maintain society.

No they don't. The people who manufacture, build, produce food etc., are still almost exclusively men. These are the jobs which are primarily responsible for the maintaining of a society. Also, you are forgetting that men are the ones who created a secure and affluent enough environment for women to go out of their domestic prisons and work in extra jobs which could be created out of the spare wealth.

Anyway, that's the second time you've mentioned how men are responsible for creating society, as though you're trying to leech off their successes. Their accomplishments are not yours(or mine)to gloat over. Conversely, you(or I)are not responsible for the numerous atrocities and royal fuck ups committed by men either...

I'm stating the reality that virtually every human achievement has been possible because of men. Besides, I myself have accomplished enlightenment - which is the highest anyone can achieve. So I've no reason to be gloating over the achievements of anybody else.

Anyway back to the point of marriage. What you're forgetting is that the institution of marriage was created by men, not women. Would men intentionally create and maintain an institution that was oppressive to themselves? Perhaps, it's men who are the masochists...?

Human beings in general are "masochistic", i.e, willing slaves. They are slaves to their desires, environment, etc.. Men are almost as bound by their desire to reproduce as women are, but since they are more conscious, they have tried to create an organised system of sexual relations which brings some order to the chaos which exists in these relations.

Human biology and psychology is such that females always have far greater value than males in society, since they can have children.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Quote of the Month. We have May's winner!

"Doesn't it seem like most people today are incredibly boring? I mean, yeah, I don't expect everyone to have insight into the fundamental nature of reality, but there's absolutely nothing interesting, not even on a superficial level, about most of the people I encounter." ---Nick Trick

*Clap clap clap* Group applause please! We who have 'insight into the fundamental nature of reality' have achieved a special status and I think we should all give ourselves a little pat on the back for having made the commitment to the kind of intelligence and insightfulness that gives us this glimpse into the workings of the cosmos.

May's prize is a Rubix Cube, a carton of Modiano rolling papers and a pair of binoculars for keeping tabs on the Tea Party Movement! Keep up the good work! And for being so incredibly inspired and exciting! (If this is inspiration and excitement, I may invest in a Smith and Wesson and end my suffering).
______________________________________________________

Don't tell me I didn't read your post, Dan. I completely understood what you wrote. And don't start on this crap about being dim. I understand things already, I have made connections, that in you are still bubbling under the surface, like a Cassoulet.

David HAS a family. A wife and a child that he regularly spends time with. It's really quite simple. He is engaged in precisely the 'domesticity' you decry. It has the effect of rendering the anti-family/anti-woman position a wee bit absurd. But, because you are absurd people, with absurd mental processes, who get together and share your absurdity, it doesn't register...

What you do---more in truth---and what is done by the Girls, is to launch into an ever-repeated, group-rehearsed contempt-fest of family life/women. This needs to be examined but separately from your-plural own definitions. Also, I humbly request that the life you-plural actually live is brought into harmony with the one you preach about, and which your young virginal girl-boys pick up with such fervor.

I come as a man to teach man's ways. I am getting tired of playing charades in a Romper-Room setting.

[jupiviv]

David HAS a family. A wife and a child that he regularly spends time with. It's really quite simple. He is engaged in precisely the 'domesticity' you decry. It has the effect of rendering the anti-family/anti-woman position a wee bit absurd. But, because you are absurd people, with absurd mental processes, who get together and share your absurdity, it doesn't register...

How do you know all that about him? I just visited his biography page, and he says there that his son doesn't live with him. On the internet, you can mostly only judge people by the things they write, and David Quinn speaks the truth fairly consistently on the internet. That's enough for me to respect him.

Obviously that respect would be gone if he doesn't abide by what he says, but there is no evidence for it. It seems to me that you are twisting the facts to make them support your position.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Ask David directly, or I suppose you can go through Dan. David regularly spends time with his family, Sue and his boy, and is therefor involved in a domestic arrangement. No big deal.

Dan, tell us a little bit about your home arrangement. That is if you feel it is relevant.

One of the first lessons in my Manly Man's Be-A-Real-Man Course is that one should never, ever take things at their face value, and most definitely not philosophers or religious types. What they say in their writings and with the handling of public persona is one thing, and can be considered in those terms, and the other is how they actually live, what they actually do. They rarely coincide.

Consider this:

"Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself and that in secret. But there are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."

---Dostoyevsky

What this points to is a more sticky 'truth' about humans. To understand ourselves and others and our condition we have to understand this first. Everything that is said and 'performed' has to pass through this pre-lens. Well, if we really want to be honest.

My project is to drag the girls out of their closets and parade them in full view. They deride 'lipstick' and sheer panties, I say they are wearing both. I will not rest until I have exposed them all.

"Obviously that respect would be gone if he doesn't abide by what he says, but there is no evidence for it. It seems to me that you are twisting the facts to make them support your position."

Most definitely not. What I am doing is telling the truth and suggesting that you (everyone) look behind the curtains, read between the lines. Nick, Cory, Diebert and others are playing an elaborate, stage-managed game to present themselves in certain ways. Alex mirrors all this in his wacky, 'irrational' style, as part of his generous penetrating behind the veils program. If you are comfortable moving in the direction of getting all knotted up in misrepresentations and distortions, well do so. The false world will rush out to meet you, selling all sorts of fine products. OTOH, if you want to move toward real intelligence, truth-telling, clarity and freedom, consider the wonderfulness of my Teachings---interwoven with marvellous humor, derring-do, some tap-dancing, as well as deeply insightful commentary about the Human Condition, politics in South America, Chomsky gossip. Plus, I've had and enjoyed more pussy than all these 'dudes' combined.

[jupiviv]

Ask David directly, or I suppose you can go through Dan. David regularly spends time with his family, Sue and his boy, and is therefor involved in a domestic arrangement.

Sue Hindmarsh claims to be interested in wisdom, and she does have some good things to say about feminine psychology, so this is definitely not an average family. I bet that they raised their son in such a way that he too is interested in wisdom. In a world as deluded as this, even an interest in wisdom is something quite noble...in my eyes at least. David can only be faulted if he's spending time with his family for emotional reasons.