Core Dysfunction and what it does

[Alex Jacob]

Dan I'm glad to see you don't participate in the same over the top antics as solway. I swear you can't go 5 minutes reading anything from that guy without a personal reference to himself as a zen master or the greatest writer alive.

Inadvertently, you have hit on a very interesting point. It goes like this: the core formulations of what can be generally called the 'Genius Forum Doctrines' was established by Kevin. It is a sort of 'system' of thinking and of approaching life and reality but one with rather huge blind spots which are invisible to those who internalize the system. One neat little trick of the System itself, when it is installed in some persons, is that any resistance to the core ideas of the System on the part of others (criticism, alternate suggestions and possibilities) is taken as evidence of being on the right track. It seeks out opposition and this opposition becomes the 'fuel' it needs to keep running. It is functional dysfunction and, naturally, it invites those who 'suffer' from the same or similar level of dysfunction to participate in it. I have at various times referred to it as a 'boy's club' or a 'group of agreements' based in deluded 'absolutes' with an obsessive emphasis on 'reason'. On closer examination all its certainties and self-declarations fall to pieces...except for the True Believers of them who, again, interpret opposition as evidence of being in the right, etc. etc. It is a rather marvelous perpetual motion machine. To study it is to see how the mind is capable of tricking itself and of course it allows one a view into our own thinking systems. I think one of the lessons of observing 'rational madness' is to cause each one of us who are capable of self-awareness to remain a little humble and to try to avoid similar traps.

Be that as it may...Kevin recruited David and inculcated the basics of the System in him. David more or less ran with the ball and has turned a post-Solway philosophy into his 'life work'. I am not exactly sure when or where Dan was recruited but indeed he was. Genius One taught Genius Two and then Genius Three. Other Geniuses have been prepared for Life Works but unfortunately in those cases it didn't quite work out. Some Geniuses have 'self-chosen' the arduous and demanding path such as our beloved Fourth Genius, Sri Diebert.

The System is doomed to extinction, unfortunately. The reason is, I think, because there are a group of fundamental errors that are part-and-parcel of it but which are so fundamental to the structure of the persons who carry the System and, unfortunately, will not be and cannot be modified, and so they become Tragic Flaws*: a personality flaw that is invisible to the Holder which 'tempts fate' as it were.

You, John, from what one is able to tell (according to my opinion of course), share the core flaw or perhaps one should say 'a core flaw' which attracts you to the narcissistic notion of your 'enlightenment' which you cannot and will not relinquish. But curiously you are able to note the 'egotism' in Mahatma Kevin and it doesn't sit well with you. I personally have concluded that the whole notion of 'Genius' and 'Reasoning' (as it is used here) and also the peculiar way in which 'Masculinity' is privileged (which denies the Feminine as a part of the creative principal in each of us)---oh and of course the utterly deluded idea of 'Enlightenment'---is as addictive a drug as was ever invented to capture and to hold persons of a certain inner structure. Once they get stuck on that fly paper it may take YEARS to get free of it, if ever they do.

But if you actually say that to people here you win there unalloyed contempt.

The Forum will close before any one of the founding members would ever be capable of change or growth. If such growth had taken place, if evidence of desire to grow and expand had been shown, it is possible that the Forum would have grown and expanded. But people are not as stupid as they seem. I think they come up to the glass and look in and *feel* a basic dysfunction and choose simply not to participate in it. For me though it has been an invaluable---truly invaluable!---experience of about six years. To come face to face with this rigid structure and to be forced to deal with it on inner levels has enabled an expansion in my intellectual and spiritual life. It is this essential and indomitable inner rigidity which, so unfortunately, can see the outward surface of beauty but can never become 'beautiful' as with:

"We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did—and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the almighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see one another again,—perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us! That we have to become estranged is the law above us: by the same token we should also become more venerable for each other! And thus the memory of our former friendship should become more sacred! There is probably a tremendous but invisible stellar orbit in which our very different ways and goals may be included as small parts of this path,—let us rise up to this thought! But our life is too short and our power of vision too small for us to be more than friends in the sense of this sublime possibility.— Let us then believe in our star friendship even if we should be compelled to be earth enemies."

However, the Really and Truly Wise who have bothered to read any of the above know that every part of what I wrote is pure, deluded nonsense and the very definition of 'Samsara': wandering in a space from which one is unable to exit. That is of course why I have been allowed to stay: to provide evidence of how 'Samsara' functions!
__________________________

*Hamartia

[jupiviv]

Ah it's the Admirable Crichton.

the core formulations of what *I* generally call the 'Genius Forum Doctrines' was[sic] established by *me*.

*I* seek out opposition within this forum and this opposition becomes the 'fuel' *I* need to keep running.

To study *me* is to see how the mind is capable of tricking itself and of course it allows one a view into *my* own thinking systems.

Edited for the most perfect and exalted Truth, the lustrous Toenails of Whose Loins' most glorious Kevin Solway Shaped Outpouring I am not worthy to become emotionally detached from.

I think one of the lessons of observing 'rational madness' is to cause each one of us who are capable of self-awareness to remain a little humble and to try to avoid similar traps.

Precisely.

[Bobo]

Can not one use a core dysfunction to get rid other disfunctions?

[Alex Jacob]

That is a very good question in fact.

The way I am using 'dysfunction' is somewhat atypical: on one hand I refer often to inner defects, or character issues, blind spots and such. But there is another aspect and as I move into this I see it as a peculiar intellectual defectiveness which is based almost wholly in 'lack of education'. In order to know who we are, to know what has made us what we are, we have to know a great deal about what has come before us: a vast amount of work that has gone into discovery and definition in that area I often call 'our traditions'. If we are ignorant at a core level of *that*, then we are not even aware of what we are (or seem to be) rejecting so vehemently and attempting to replace with some never-well-defined something.

I just got through a preliminary reading of Ortega y Gasset's The Rebellion of the Masses and recommend it highly. I think his thesis is quite applicable to certain faults and failures in evidence---in this general sense---*here*. What particularly interests me is the notion and the fact of this terrible assertiveness of (Ortega y Gasset's) 'man of the mass movement'. He will stick his nose into everything, simply everything, but essentially without understanding. Please don't get me wrong: these are issues we all have to look at and turning around (in this sense) to look at our distorted selves is not easy. I critique GF because the ugly wart is just so visible, and so characteristic of 'our age'. If I didn't share the problem at least on some level I don't think I'd have been able to recognize it.

But I think that an answer to your question is that one has to have somehow become aware of any level of the dysfunction I am speaking about. One has to have come in contact with something or someone and been made to feel uncomfortable or perhaps inadequate is the word. One has to have noted a lack, one has to have felt the loss. In one way or another, at one time or another, one has to have felt this, and we all have. Except 'the Enlightened' who are in some other, separate, narcissistic class. Those Perfected Ones, the Mahatmas-among-us.

The dysfunction I am thinking of (if indeed I am 'right') is a psychological defect and appears to arise as a protective shield. But the other level of dysfunction: a refusal of desire to grow and expand in knowledge and understanding is part-and-parcel of other, distinct trends which are defects of preparation.

[Dan Rowden]

It goes like this: the core formulations of what can be generally called the 'Genius Forum Doctrines' was established by Kevin. It is a sort of 'system' of thinking and of approaching life and reality but one with rather huge blind spots which are invisible to those who internalize the system. One neat little trick of the System itself, when it is installed in some persons, is that any resistance to the core ideas of the System on the part of others (criticism, alternate suggestions and possibilities) is taken as evidence of being on the right track. It seeks out opposition and this opposition becomes the 'fuel' it needs to keep running. It is functional dysfunction and, naturally, it invites those who 'suffer' from the same or similar level of dysfunction to participate in it. I have at various times referred to it as a 'boy's club' or a 'group of agreements' based in deluded 'absolutes' with an obsessive emphasis on 'reason'.

Make some actual arguments against the core elements of the points we make or fuck off, Alex. Nothing less than that is acceptable to me. Are you up to it? Do you care about the substance or do you simply want to be a lazy shit and do this crap? Oh, and stop telling stories about a history you know precious little about. It's tedious and offensive.

Please be aware that if this is going to be your approach from here on, you are history. And no, I will not ask you to leave; I will ban you.

[Bobo]

For me, then, nobility is synonymous with a life of effort, ever set on excelling oneself, in passing beyond what one is to what one sets up as a duty and an obligation. In this way the noble life stands opposed to the common or inert life, which reclines statically upon itself, condemned to perpetual immobility, unless an external force compels it to come out of itself. Hence we apply the term mass to this kind of man- not so much because of his multitude as because of his inertia.
As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men and of women are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, the few individuals we have come across who are capable of a spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience.
These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

Above, Ortega y Gasset is talking about ascetism as outward, an ascetism of growth. Opposed to the inward - the ascetism of God (as the word is more commonly used). We could put knowledge, as a third kind, in the middle (with inner and outer growth).

[1] Massification brings the dysfunction of the first kind of ascetism, while it is the by-product of the third.
The second is a dysfunction of the first, maybe a function of the third.

Given [1], I wonder where he is going to take from there.

[Alex Jacob]

This is from a broadcast called The Hour of Judgment, 1995. The title you have to admit is a little clever.

David: Welcome again to the only radio program in the world which deals exclusively with Truth, The Hour of Judgment. I'm David Quinn - sage. With me is Kevin Solway - sage. We are sages because we both have a perfect understanding of Reality and a detailed knowledge of the path to Enlightenment. Now some people think, when they meet us and look at our beards and our noble ideas, that we are like ancient philosophers - as if we're some kind of apparition from the pre-Socratic era. But this isn't the case. I mean, we are here, living and breathing in Brisbane, 1995, and every day we are spewing out our poisonous wisdom in all directions. And so I say to all of you out there: watch out! Because some of it might stick . . .

And some people looking at them, and listening to them, merely break out in embarrassed laughter. Dan, I would offer these sorts of declarations as evidence of a certain 'dysfunction', but how do you think one should go about building an argument about it? I think we generally make quite a few kinds of analysis on 'common sense basis'. While it is true that were we to notice some loon in a matted beard on a street corner advertising to all the people going by that he is a 'sage' and the nearest thing to the Buddha himself (and were he to shout

• "I am a sage because I have a perfect understanding of Reality [capital R mind you] and detailed knowledge of the path to Enlightenment" [also capitalized]

...it is possible that some of us might stop for a second and listen, just to see. But we wouldn't only *listen* and reason (as you might say), we would look and observe: feel with their eyes, if you will. There are different ways we all use to gather information. Do you consider this a valid use of analytical skills? You must see crazy people on the street from time to time, right? And those crazy people who are on a Godly mission? Now, do you only base your analysis on what you hear? Or, rather on a whole group of different cues?

As I understand things, the sort of declaration made by both David and Kevin quite strongly points to a certain form of dysfunction. A grandiosity perhaps it could be called. Or is it all tongue in cheek? How do you see it if I may know?

[Tomas]

This is from a broadcast called The Hour of Judgment, 1995. The title you have to admit is a little clever.

But then 18 years ago is like ages ago Alex.

They were in their early thirties and Australia was partying to INXS.

Eighteen years. What's changed?

[Alex Jacob]

Dan, let me know how I am doing. Am I succeeding or failing?
____________________________________________________

From the first chapter of The Revolt of the Masses:

THERE is one fact which, whether for good or ill, is of utmost importance in the public life of Europe at the present moment. This fact is the accession of the masses to complete social power. As the masses, by definition, neither should nor can direct their own personal existence, and still less rule society in general, this fact means that actually Europe is suffering from the greatest crisis that can afflict peoples, nations, and civilisation. Such a crisis has occurred more than once in history. Its characteristics and its consequences are well known. So also is its name. It is called the rebellion of the masses. In order to understand this formidable fact, it is important from the start to avoid giving to the words “rebellion,” “masses,” and “social power” a meaning exclusively or primarily political. Public life is not solely political, but equally, and even primarily, intellectual, moral, economic, religious; it comprises all our collective habits, including our fashions both of dress and of amusement.

I admit that I often think of GF and its denizens as well as Kevin and David and Dan in things that I read these days. As I have said, this place has been quite important for me to get clear about many different things related to life, to spirituality, to politics. I regret that what I learned here is almost completely not what one is supposed to learn from the 'sages', but this is how it was for me.

But this notion of 'accession'---if applied in a naughty way to these 'sages' in regard to whom no such analysis should be undertaken since they have seen directly into Reality and know everything there is to know about it and, really, what more could there be said, about anything at all after you have gotten that far?)---the notion of accession can be looked into. And Tomas: When you have really and truly seen into Reality 18 years ago when you were an arrogant 30-something, do you mean to suggest that your Perfect View of Reality then changes? Heh heh. You see the difficulty here, right? Once you have made that declaration you are locked into it...for eternity!

Do you see my point? I mean it is sitting there like a turkey on a telephone cable, isn't it? Obviously, the fool who could make such a statement as to having 'perfect understanding of Reality' is not, at least I don't think so, of quite the higher or noble type Ortega y Gasset is referring to, if indeed we even consider that an ideal type. If this is so we have to ask ourself: Just what sort of man is talking here? Is he indeed of a higher order or is he really of a lower order, the one who should submit to a competent authority? To which group does he belong? I will continue to cherry pick out of some of these radio shows various quotes and will submit them to your viewing, but I ask: Does this really need to be proven? I mean really?

My take is the following: David and Kevin represent not the appearance of a higher man but the burrowing upward of a very common willful man who will not stay in his place but who forces himself into the public conversation and, in a manner of speaking, craps on the floor. This is 'spewing poison'.

Tsk tsk. What would good Ortega y Gasset have to say. Who so loved and admired 'nobility'?

But in actual point of fact, if we were speaking about Christianity (the above-mentioned radio broadcast is titled 'Christianity and Buddhism') there are many many very fine levels to Christian theology. There is a really respectable body of theological writings by men who have taken their Christianity to very high levels, and they cannot simply be dismissed, not by mere fools.

Except perhaps those two sages who have a 'perfect understanding of Reality'.

But what these 'mass men' do is to barge into an area they have no real knowledge of and like Mexican Lucha Libre wrestlers stage a silly little show in which they tear apart some local Christian and get a few laughs out of it.

[A PDF of The Revolt of the Masses]

[Dan Rowden]

This is from a broadcast called The Hour of Judgment, 1995. The title you have to admit is a little clever.

David: Welcome again to the only radio program in the world which deals exclusively with Truth, The Hour of Judgment. I'm David Quinn - sage. With me is Kevin Solway - sage. We are sages because we both have a perfect understanding of Reality and a detailed knowledge of the path to Enlightenment. Now some people think, when they meet us and look at our beards and our noble ideas, that we are like ancient philosophers - as if we're some kind of apparition from the pre-Socratic era. But this isn't the case. I mean, we are here, living and breathing in Brisbane, 1995, and every day we are spewing out our poisonous wisdom in all directions. And so I say to all of you out there: watch out! Because some of it might stick . . .

And some people looking at them, and listening to them, merely break out in embarrassed laughter. Dan, I would offer these sorts of declarations as evidence of a certain 'dysfunction', but how do you think one should go about building an argument about it? I think we generally make quite a few kinds of analysis on 'common sense basis'. While it is true that were we to notice some loon in a matted beard on a street corner advertising to all the people going by that he is a 'sage' and the nearest thing to the Buddha himself (and were he to shout

• "I am a sage because I have a perfect understanding of Reality [capital R mind you] and detailed knowledge of the path to Enlightenment" [also capitalized]

...it is possible that some of us might stop for a second and listen, just to see. But we wouldn't only *listen* and reason (as you might say), we would look and observe: feel with their eyes, if you will. There are different ways we all use to gather information. Do you consider this a valid use of analytical skills? You must see crazy people on the street from time to time, right? And those crazy people who are on a Godly mission? Now, do you only base your analysis on what you hear? Or, rather on a whole group of different cues?

As I understand things, the sort of declaration made by both David and Kevin quite strongly points to a certain form of dysfunction. A grandiosity perhaps it could be called. Or is it all tongue in cheek? How do you see it if I may know?

It's a combination of a Nietzschean approach to being truthful and candid about things and a bunch of theatre and provocation. The lads are/were 100% aware of what they were doing and why they were doing it. Nothing happened that wasn't thought through and calculated. Can't you get that from the title of the program (I think from memory I can take credit for that)? At one point Kevin got a t-shirt made with the word "sage" on it, which he wore out and about just to provoke potential interest and discussion. It was as funny as hell, actually. We set out through those years to exploit the media somewhat. When we started The Atheist Society we got a bunch of noted Australian figures to sign up as honorary members just for the advertising value. But apart from that, their claims about understanding ultimate reality and therefore being sages are perfectly reasonable. A denial of it would be the thing that is dysfunctional and stupid.

Neither philosophy nor enlightenment are subjects that need to approached grimly. And I have no idea why you have an issue with the capitalisation of words that are being used as proper nouns to give the terms emphasis. Oh, hang on, yes I do; you're a nong.

[Dan Rowden]

Dan, let me know how I am doing. Am I succeeding or failing?

Succeeding at what? Being relevant? Certainly not that. You don't know how to be. Or perhaps more accurately you don't want to be because to do that would take you into a paradigm of thought and discussion that is anathema to you. That's ok, as far as it goes, but it leads you to fixate on story-telling and psycho-babble.

Your primary failure - your primary error - in all this pseudo-analysis is that you take us far more seriously than we actually take ourselves. Play the man and not the ball all you like, just keep in mind that won't fly with me for long.

[jupiviv]

I admit that I often think of GF and its denizens as well as Kevin and David and Dan in things that I read these days.

LRFH.

Does this really need to be proven? I mean really?

The question is irrelevant because you are not proving anything. All you've done so far on this forum is directly or indirectly express disdain at what you consider to be this forum's philosophy/theology. Your 'proof' consists in providing quotes which echo your sentiments, which is fine so long as you also provide some rationale for them, which you don't.

There is a really respectable body of theological writings by men who have taken their Christianity to very high levels, and they cannot simply be dismissed, not by mere fools.

Yes, you are attached to Christian theology and/or apologetics and view everything that deviates from it to n degree as n-commensurate anathemas(and dare I suggest this perception includes people(s) as well?) What else is new?

The funny thing is that none/very few of the "faithful" here would have a problem with this if you didn't continuously confuse your views on such matters(which in themselves cannot be dismissed out of hand) with their collective psychology and the nature of this forum.

In case you've ever wondered why it is that we don't take too kindly to you in these here parts of the webinets despite your evident obsession with it and/or us, that is why.

Namah kaar. _/\_

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Hey Alex, I read your whole post for once, and I'm attempting a reply, but before I try writing something, a few important questions:

Do you think Quinn, Solway, and Rowden would agree on every single topic that they spoke of? Or do you expect the same disagreements in detail you might see anyone else come to?
(This question is to point out that this singular 'system' you see them as being part of doesn't actually exist, most have their own little dreams of the world as you would describe it)

Do you recognize what qualities are being referred to with the word 'egotism'? Do you see that it is widespread, that most everyone you've met has been egotistical in a similar sense to Solway's "I'm the greatest"?
(Or in many other ways such as: anger, irrational self-defence of one's actions, worry about self-appearance, etc,)

Lastly do you recognize the 'clinging' others display? (whether that be conceptual clinging as Pincho might show, or as believers in 'heaven' demonstrate, or other sorts of attachment such as to objects or pleasurable experiences)

Btw nice work with 'Mahatma Kevin'.

[Alex Jacob]

I ask if I am 'succeeding or failing' because I know, and you know, you seek a sufficient enough excuse to ban me. You have asked for me to change or improve tactics of presenting oppositional ideas and I made the effort to pull out some text from transcripts where Kevin and David declare their complete liberation and enlightenment, which is related to my opening post here to John-Seeker who noted what he might call 'egocentricity' in Kevin's basic position, and what I am calling 'dysfunction'.

It is not so much that I am interested in buckling under to your demands, but more that I think that no matter how my ideas or anyone's oppositional ideas are presented---as an alternative to the rigid structures offered by Solway or Quinn---will never be accepted. And the reason is utterly simple: 'you' understand Reality at a level which provides you with a position from which you can cut down anyone and everyone. Literally the whole world. Now, I know that you cannot and will not see this peculiar blind spot because to actually see it would necessarily evoke the need to modify it, or rescind it perhaps. The reason I focus in this area is because it is the Tragic Flaw the animates everything you say and do. Indeed it is the very platform on which you stand. As I have said about a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, 'you' perform a terrible disservice to the world of ideas and to good, solid, productive thinking, but worse than that you become a destructive force. I have in so many posts explained why in reasoned, careful prose.

I have referenced in these recent posts Ortega y Gasset because on similar levels he was deeply disturbed by the burrowing efforts of his powerful but unprepared 'mass men', or as he called it 'the vertical invasion of the barbarian'. I have written at length about these issues as I perceive them, with references and with reasoned arguments, just as I am now writing. The issue is vitally important. This is not a joke. You make declarations about yourselves and claim to represent the highest and the best that is possible for man. You place yourself over and above many others with your abrupt and (to use another Ortega y Gasset term) violent insistence on 'your' deep relevance to the world of philosophical ideas. But when push comes to shove, as now, you show yourself as a tyrant who will shut down any and all oppositional conversations no matter how reasoned they are simply because you recognize your position is being challenged. Opposition is intolerable. I say again, as I have said many times before, that you have failed in your ideological project, and I am making the effort to show you where that failing lies. In the context of this forum and with its declarations I do not at all see this as 'irrelevant'. It is rather deeply relevant.

Succeeding at what? Being relevant? Certainly not that. You don't know how to be. Or perhaps more accurately you don't want to be because to do that would take you into a paradigm of thought and discussion that is anathema to you. That's ok, as far as it goes, but it leads you to fixate on story-telling and psycho-babble.

What is anathema to me is any basic position that is founded in hubris, misrepresentation of attainment and understanding, and an undeserved entitlement to trample into territories that are not 'yours' to trample. Meaning 'you' have no qualification and also that you have not earned the right. Yet to speak to you in this way can only earn one your most violent invective. You are saints and 'sages' at such a high level that it is literally impossible that such low motives, and such low resulting attainments, could be attributed to the work of your hands. But these truths must be brought home to you.

Because you make outrageous and arrogant declarations about what spirituality is and isn't, what it should and shouldn't be, and yet you don't really know yourself but rest within the force of your declaration (the peculiar arrogance of the upward-burrowing mass-man), you require someone with superior understanding to set you straight. This certainly can be done. In your radio shows and PodCasts and essays you tend to pick incompetent persons, ones who do not really themselves understand their own traditions and who (as I have seen so far) cannot really defend them. And then you carry out a little spectacle of dismemberment with whoops of victory when that is done. I am of the belief that I have made the substantial effort to establish a sort of ground within serious ideas that is most definitely a considerable counter-position but no one can carry out the investigation that must be carried out by individuals to get to the bottom of your errors and misrepresentations. I have made efforts to bring some of this forward here and have, time and again, gotten shot down. The core of my effort has been in the assertion that 'you' work to destroy very very fine attainments that are and have been parts-and-parcels of 'our traditions' and that you do it as 'vertically invasive barbarians'. It has not been mere allusion. There have been efforts to bring forward substance. But you know and I also know that no matter at what level information is offered it will never be received. And the reason is simple: The sages have seen into Reality at a fundamental level and it follows that they 'understand' all things. With their arrival, conversation essentially ends.

Your primary failure - your primary error - in all this pseudo-analysis is that you take us far more seriously than we actually take ourselves. Play the man and not the ball all you like, just keep in mind that won't fly with me for long.

It is not 'pseudo-analysis' it is 'analysis' plain and simple. It is the result of work carried out in good faith, basically, and with clearly defined intentions. This statement about 'not taking yourselves seriously' seems to me absurd. And it is not 'playing the man and not the ball', although the man in this sense cannot be abstracted from the 'ball'. The error is really in your camp because ipso facto nothing I say as emissary of Samsara can be allowed to have an substantive value.

It's a combination of a Nietzschean approach to being truthful and candid about things and a bunch of theatre and provocation. The lads are/were 100% aware of what they were doing and why they were doing it. Nothing happened that wasn't thought through and calculated. Can't you get that from the title of the program (I think from memory I can take credit for that)? At one point Kevin got a t-shirt made with the word "sage" on it, which he wore out and about just to provoke potential interest and discussion. It was as funny as hell, actually. We set out through those years to exploit the media somewhat. When we started The Atheist Society we got a bunch of noted Australian figures to sign up as honorary members just for the advertising value. But apart from that, their claims about understanding ultimate reality and therefore being sages are perfectly reasonable. A denial of it would be the thing that is dysfunctional and stupid.

I do indeed understand, as I said above, that ipso facto he who brings an oppositional message is dysfunctional and stupid. It is built into the basic program, Dan. Use your noggin, man! I am very capable of understanding provocation and theatrics and applaud it, but what I am speaking about is something else, something far more serious, and I think invisible to you. But I think you will ban me before you would actually consider what I am saying to you. And within that 'rigidity' as I am calling it is a substantial error, in my view. In my reasoned view. ;-)

[Alex Jacob]

John-Seeker, it is enough of a System of View or a general orientation to be labeled as such. I assume there are various differences among everyone who adopts it. But what most needs to be pointed out is the structure of it which is based on this notion of 'seeing into the nature of Ultimate Reality' and 'understanding Ultimate Reality' and from that position making declarative statements about what is and what is not 'enlightenment', and then everything else under the philosophical sun. As you know already I do not consider 'enlightenment' a term that can be used in intelligent discourse and where it is used as a term all conversation becomes hopelessly muddled. It is possible to speak of 'enlightened attitudes' or 'enlightened behavior' but of course these would have to be qualified.

I also consider 'ego' 'egotism' and other such derivatives to be ridiculous and stupid terms, in themselves. But one can speak of selfish individuals or egocentricity in a comparative sense. For example it is generally understood that all children are 'egocentric' and also 'narcissistic' insofar as they have not internalized values and concepts that modify behavior. It is possible to speak of humans as essentially egocentric and to speak about human problems as deriving from certain self-centeredness. But it is not possible and it always conduces to the absurd to speak of any person as 'egoless', in that particular Indian way. Or to speak of the nonexistence of a person, etc. etc. To get into any level of conversation with a person who declares that the self does not exist seems to me a recipe for incoherence. But the error of Solway and Quinn in their self-declarations and 'delusions of grandeur' or of attainment I do not see quite as 'ego issues' but as mistaken results of certain idea-processes. True, these notions have odd consequences which I call 'dysfunctional' but I have no problem at all with Quinn and Solway of existing egos (persons who have existence) and would not myself attack their 'egos' or their 'existence'. I do not think we should have to 'do away' with ourselves but that we need to augment ourselves and work on some level to improve ourselves. This is quite different from 'doing away' with oneself.

I don't think I recognize 'clinging' as you do nor do I privilege it as you do. I understand that you see yourself as 'non-clinging' and that, I guess, you become a sort of insubstantial vapor that floats through time and space. A sort of happy little cloud or purity and sunshine, rarely speaking, fearless of death, etc. I know that you feel you have attained the highest height and I suppose I can say I respect you for that. But I don't buy it, not ultimately. Sorry for saying this but I see you as a child playing within childish concepts---'feelings' perhaps. There is a sort of sentimentality I sense. It is very little to do with responsible, adult projects, and it is these projects within the Western opus that are my only real concern and interest. I regard 'you'---in respect to the world of responsible ideas---as a sort of invader. (A happy-go-lucky slacker? One will have to return to you in 20 years and see what you have done with yourself and where and how you stand).

Again the term describing your presence and activity could be described as something like 'vertical assent of the barbarian' but I know that you have no structure inside you to even grasp what that means or what its ramifications are. And that is, in my view, a big part of the problem!

[Alex Jacob]

Bobo, you ask 'I wonder where he is going to take from there'.

I am not sure I quite understood what you wrote in that post, but I think I can offer some sense of direction he might offer, and why, in a general sense. My impression is that he tends to root himself in very tangible realms of thinking and ratiocination and I think he would resist the assent of a particular sort of 'mass man', with inferior motives that attack and undermine established and hard-won values, in the following way:

From Ortega y Gasset ('Estudios sobre el amor', 1957):

"Professional noisemakers of every class will always prefer the anarchy of intoxication of the mystics to the clear and ordered intelligence of the priests, that is, of the Church. I regret at not being able to join them in this preference either. I am prevented by a matter of truthfulness. It is this: I think that any theology transmits to us much more of God, greater insights and ideas about divinity, than the combined ecstasies of all the mystics; because, instead of approaching the ecstatic skeptically, we must take the mystic at his word, accept what he brings us from his transcendental immersions, and then see if what he offers us is worth while. The truth is that, after we accompany him on his sublime voyage, what he succeeds in communicating to us is a thing of little consequence. I think that the European soul is approaching a new experience of God and new inquiries into that most important of all realities. I doubt very much, however, if the enrichment of our ideas about divine matters will emerge from the mystic's subterranean roads rather than from the luminous paths of discursive thought. Theology---not ecstasy!"

One of the reasons I take issue with some of the QRS attacks on Christianity and theology is because they really know so little about what is there, What is substantially there.

[Bobo]

I was thinking that his uncommon usage of the word ascetism could shed some light on dysfunction, and make a distinction between two disfunctions. One of being unable to function properly within society. The other, the dysfunction that the mass inflicts upon nobility.

And on [1] that massification is part and parcel of growth.

[Alex Jacob]

I am not sure that he would use the word 'dysfunction' to describe the 'vertical assent of the barbarian'. I use the term as a means to point out what locks in a 'mass-man attitude' in certain persons and seems to keep them from growing. That is my basic thesis in much of my writing of a critical nature, here.

Although he (Ortega) seems a little *terrified* at the notion of this 'mass-man' tromping onto history's stage, he also indicates that for all he knows it may tend toward some unforeseen good.

My reading of his 'asceticism' would be something like: seriousness in regard to ideas that have been won at steep cost and which require dedication and seriousness to capture and hold---precisely what his 'mass-man' has little time for and sees no reason to make the sacrifice. Ortega's 'ascetic' serves ideals and recognizes authority beyond his own self, and Ortega contrasts this with the 'mass-man' who only recurs to himself, to what is immediate in him. I have often felt that David's notion of the 'all, the absolutely all' is not an opening into the transcendental (nor the 'holy' or 'sacred' which cannot be a suitable term for QRS, for obvious reasons), but is an aperture that opens up little farther than David's own myopic sense of things. Interestingly, though it has grandiose notes, it conduces to the ultra-mundane and is a closing down in the face of knowledge.

We are all in the odd position of recognizing ourselves, our upbringing, our various cultures, our parent's doings, and the way our minds and spirits have been formed as being 'of the mass', and I think we are all (?) attempting to define Higher Life and what it can and should be. It is a conversation that echoes up and down history. A couple of jack-asses do not have the right to decide what has or has not ultimate value as it pertains to this important question and to the larger conversation. They would do best to come into the conversation as students and as learners, but most definitely not as teachers and maharajas.

One must give credit where credit is due in respect to Solway and Quinn and others who embrace their 'absolute' path, silly and trite as it appears in effect. But one is required to point out its massive failing and to locate *reasons* why it fails. In my own case, and this is my personal conclusion, I locate the failing in a peculiar type of hubris. Hubris has a cure: a hard fall either by accident or as a result of being pushed.

The mass-man would never have accepted authority external to himself had not his surroundings violently forced him to do so. As to-day, his surroundings do not so force him, the everlasting mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to other authority and feels himself lord of his own existence. On the contrary the select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose service he freely accepts. Let us recall that at the start we distinguished the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself, but contents himself with what he is, and is delighted with himself. Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression.

[Bobo]

In this way isn't the mass man close to what pass here as Woman?

[Dennis Mahar]

For Ortega y Gasset, philosophy has a critical duty to lay siege to beliefs in order to promote new ideas and to explain reality. In order to accomplish such tasks the philosopher must, as Husserl proposed, leave behind prejudices and previously existing beliefs and investigate the essential reality of the universe. Ortega y Gasset proposes that philosophy must overcome the limitations of both idealism (in which reality is centered around the ego) and ancient-medieval realism (in which reality is located outside the subject) in order to focus on the only truthful reality (i.e., "my life" — the life of each individual). He suggests that there is no me without things and things are nothing without me: "I" (human being) can not be detached from "my circumstance" (world). This led Ortega y Gasset to pronounce his famous maxim "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia" ("I am I and my circumstance") (Meditaciones del Quijote, 1914)[5] which he always situated at the core of his philosophy

Gasset is in the ballpark of QRS.
Why do you raise the names of various philosophers and fail to comprehend their writing.
You'd be better off citing Mickey Mouse.

[Dan Rowden]

One must give credit where credit is due in respect to Solway and Quinn and others who embrace their 'absolute' path, silly and trite as it appears in effect. But one is required to point out its massive failing and to locate *reasons* why it fails. In my own case, and this is my personal conclusion, I locate the failing in a peculiar type of hubris. Hubris has a cure: a hard fall either by accident or as a result of being pushed.

Your argument against us, Alex, is purely aesthetic, and therefore an expression of taste rather than an argument. You write voluminously yet make no real arguments at all - i.e. you do not address any element of the philosophy in a philosophical manner. This is your failure and your irrelevance. I have yet to meet any person so disconnected from any real sense of Truth as you are. It's a sublime waste of my time.

Your every post amounts to nothing more than a lazy ad hominem. Perhaps the others will have an interest in engaging with such verbose vacuity.

Au revoir.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

I also consider 'ego' 'egotism' and other such derivatives to be ridiculous and stupid terms, in themselves. But one can speak of selfish individuals or egocentricity in a comparative sense. For example it is generally understood that all children are 'egocentric' and also 'narcissistic' insofar as they have not internalized values and concepts that modify behavior. It is possible to speak of humans as essentially egocentric and to speak about human problems as deriving from certain self-centeredness. But it is not possible and it always conduces to the absurd to speak of any person as 'egoless', in that particular Indian way. Or to speak of the nonexistence of a person, etc. etc. To get into any level of conversation with a person who declares that the self does not exist seems to me a recipe for incoherence. But the error of Solway and Quinn in their self-declarations and 'delusions of grandeur' or of attainment I do not see quite as 'ego issues' but as mistaken results of certain idea-processes. True, these notions have odd consequences which I call 'dysfunctional' but I have no problem at all with Quinn and Solway of existing egos (persons who have existence) and would not myself attack their 'egos' or their 'existence'. I do not think we should have to 'do away' with ourselves but that we need to augment ourselves and work on some level to improve ourselves. This is quite different from 'doing away' with oneself.

I don't think I recognize 'clinging' as you do nor do I privilege it as you do. I understand that you see yourself as 'non-clinging' and that, I guess, you become a sort of insubstantial vapor that floats through time and space. A sort of happy little cloud or purity and sunshine, rarely speaking, fearless of death, etc. I know that you feel you have attained the highest height and I suppose I can say I respect you for that. But I don't buy it, not ultimately. Sorry for saying this but I see you as a child playing within childish concepts---'feelings' perhaps. There is a sort of sentimentality I sense. It is very little to do with responsible, adult projects, and it is these projects within the Western opus that are my only real concern and interest. I regard 'you'---in respect to the world of responsible ideas---as a sort of invader. (A happy-go-lucky slacker? One will have to return to you in 20 years and see what you have done with yourself and where and how you stand).

Always funny to read your comments Alex.

But I didn't ask you what you thought of 'egoless'ness, or what you thought of me, I asked you if you recognized widespread egotism which you do. Although you referred to it as narcissism and being self-centered. Which is exactly what we are talking about.

So really, in answer to the first question, I'm hearing "yes, I see it in everyone". (You did point out that people are essentially egocentric)
Is that correct, was your answer a yes?

I don't think I recognize 'clinging' as you do

Again you skipped ahead to what you think of not-clinging and what you think of me.
The question was about if you recognize that others display clinging?

Is your answer no? I would have a hard time believing that since you already recognize narcissism and so forth.

A few examples: attachment to people, attachment to self- appearance, attachment to passing opinions, attachment to "I'm right", attachment to pleasures, attachment to unceasing distractions and entertainments, etc
Are you denying that these are displayed widely? Or are you going to change your answer from;
'"I don't think"...I recognize 'clinging' as you do' ?

[Alex Jacob]

Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo — or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role? [Chapter XI of The Rebellion of the Masses: 'The Self-Satisfied Age'].

I like this quote quite a bit.
____________________________________________________

You write voluminously yet make no real arguments at all - i.e. you do not address any element of the philosophy in a philosophical manner.

In a sense you are right, of course. But I have seen other people spend days and days in 'philosophical jousts', and make very substantial points, but never to gain any real ground, never to get anywhere. I work on other levels and yet I assure you it is not 'aesthetic'. I make allusions and outline possibilities and trust in readership to do their own research---as I am doing---and come to their own conclusions. But it is also true that where I do engage more firmly with relating my ideas in clear prose, which is certainly philosophy in operation, it gets absolutely nowhere with you. But don't worry. I come and go like a comet.

____________________________________________________

You are right, Bobo, about the correspondence in concept between O y G's 'mass-man' and the QRS defining of woman, at least in some broad way. In that sense QRS have noble intentions which cannot be denied. But their flaws fuck everything up, in my view.

____________________________________________________

John, you are almost completely unintelligible to me. Whatever you do don't drop out of school! ;-)

[SeekerOfWisdom]

"The city was under seige. Everyone was busy fortifying the walls - some were carrying stones, others were patching the walls, yet others were building battlements. Diogenes, not wanting to appear idle while everyone around him was working so frantically, diligently rolled his barrel back and forth along the battlements. The city fell."


You don't get it yet Alex.

[jupiviv]

I have yet to meet any person so disconnected from any real sense of Truth as you are. It's a sublime waste of my time.

I would disagree with you there Dan. I think that Alex is the most (consciously)connected to Truth amongst the "scavengers". That is *precisely* what causes him to react the way he does. Seeker and Dennis are basically clueless and seem to post here solely to maintain their belief that they've a share in something remarkably insightful.

Alex, it seems to me, has gradually come to realise the uncompromising, almost brutal dedication to reason that is required to gain even a foothold on the Way. And it has scared the pants off of him. Perhaps that's what his new "barbarian" or "mass-man" label is all about.