Twelfth Entry
I'm confronted tonight by another case of the exploitation of the not-space of a truth being used by the right to confuse the uninformed. This case stems from an e-mail list that I belong to that is not politically oriented. I don't care to go into the specifics, but I find myself angry and frustrated because of the subtlety of the argument that needs to be made to counter this kind of political discourse. The arguments are always in the space where they can exploit the fear of the uninformed and get away with their manipulation by simple denial. The dumb and uninformed will not get what you are accusing the right of. In this sense, the right is the envious position of being able to exploit fear when they make their augments. The left, which tries to appeal to reason, is trumped by fear. Surely, there are elements of the left that exploit fear also, but they are exploiting the fear of the disenfranchised not a big deal in a country with a large middle class. I will even concede that there are elements of the right that appeal to rationality, only these days they get in trouble if they raise their voices.
This, of course, points at what the middle-class intellectual knows to be the great flaw on the rich's current attack on the middle class. The more they disenfranchise the middle class, the more powerful they empower their real enemy, the poor. The middle class understands that they are the true beneficiaries of the rich and they will, therefore, die to protect them even while they know better than the poor that the rich don't deserve their richness. It's better to have a few rich people around than for all of us to live in hell. Therefore, we have in this world the bizarre situation where some of the rich thinking that they can strip the middle class of their power and thereby ensure unending generations of richness, indirectly empowering their destroyers -- the lower classes. How do I believe the rich, if they are allowed to succeed, will do this? They will do this because they will push enough of the middle class into the lower class status that revolution with be fermented. Fortunately, for them, the middle class will not tolerate this stupidity and they will prevent their own destruction and thereby preserve the idiots who would destroy them -- at least we can hope. Moreover, irony upon irony, it is the right wing part of the middle class that are the weapons of these rich fools. The rich claim allegiance to conservative values only because these are the values exploitable by the fear of change. Why is this? Because our values come from the truths that we experience as we grow. So those that live in relatively stable circumstances will value stability, those that do not will value change. (I realize that this chain of reasoning is almost untraceable. I am writing it because I want to fill it in the steps over time.)
And, what motivates the rich to such foolishness? They are afraid that a global middle-class economy cannot be sustained. If we cannot sustain a global middle class, then surely we are headed toward an unprecedented catastrophe. For instance, a global middle class may cause an ecological disaster that destroys much of our ability to sustain the world's population at more than, say, 1/10th today's population.
The bottom line is that we are faced with a tremendous looming crises and we can be certain that on the other side of this historic node in human history things are going to be vastly different than they are today -- in political, economic, personal, transpersonal, and any other terms you can think of. The only question is will the forces of lightness or darkness win, and which side is which?
Don't get me wrong I am not predicting the end of history, the end of humanity. No, I am a true believer in our ability to survive. I believe the earth will be long dead when humanity is extinguished. We are, after all, a great expression of the Absolute.
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Back to that quest for truth: Belief in the Absolute is itself a contradiction. Why? Because what or who is doing the believing? If it is you, the individual, how is it that something less that the Absolute can know the truth of the Absolute? If it is the Absolute then there is only the Absolute and it cannot be asking the question since it already knows. Therefore, you are the Absolute. Why? Because only the Absolute can survive this contradiction and you exist.
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The red slime grew at the bottom of the pool of water. It grew slowly, at first. Each day the Sun heated the pool to near boiling and each night it cooled again to near freezing. This process happened for an eon. An eon so long that all the other phases of this impossible event seem like brief moments. Slowly the rocks broke down under this constant stress. Unnoticed the cycles themselves were changing. Slowing. Getting less extreme. Dryness and wetness came and went. There was mixing of every kind. Molten rocks and comet dust were both added to the pool. It's not clear when the red slime first appeared. There was no one watching. Slowly it grew, and miraculously it held on through impossibilities upon impossibilities. It should have been washed away. It wasn't. It changed, with each change. It grew with each new opportunity.
r.slime
This, of course, points at what the middle-class intellectual knows to be the great flaw on the rich's current attack on the middle class. The more they disenfranchise the middle class, the more powerful they empower their real enemy, the poor. The middle class understands that they are the true beneficiaries of the rich and they will, therefore, die to protect them even while they know better than the poor that the rich don't deserve their richness. It's better to have a few rich people around than for all of us to live in hell. Therefore, we have in this world the bizarre situation where some of the rich thinking that they can strip the middle class of their power and thereby ensure unending generations of richness, indirectly empowering their destroyers -- the lower classes. How do I believe the rich, if they are allowed to succeed, will do this? They will do this because they will push enough of the middle class into the lower class status that revolution with be fermented. Fortunately, for them, the middle class will not tolerate this stupidity and they will prevent their own destruction and thereby preserve the idiots who would destroy them -- at least we can hope. Moreover, irony upon irony, it is the right wing part of the middle class that are the weapons of these rich fools. The rich claim allegiance to conservative values only because these are the values exploitable by the fear of change. Why is this? Because our values come from the truths that we experience as we grow. So those that live in relatively stable circumstances will value stability, those that do not will value change. (I realize that this chain of reasoning is almost untraceable. I am writing it because I want to fill it in the steps over time.)
And, what motivates the rich to such foolishness? They are afraid that a global middle-class economy cannot be sustained. If we cannot sustain a global middle class, then surely we are headed toward an unprecedented catastrophe. For instance, a global middle class may cause an ecological disaster that destroys much of our ability to sustain the world's population at more than, say, 1/10th today's population.
The bottom line is that we are faced with a tremendous looming crises and we can be certain that on the other side of this historic node in human history things are going to be vastly different than they are today -- in political, economic, personal, transpersonal, and any other terms you can think of. The only question is will the forces of lightness or darkness win, and which side is which?
Don't get me wrong I am not predicting the end of history, the end of humanity. No, I am a true believer in our ability to survive. I believe the earth will be long dead when humanity is extinguished. We are, after all, a great expression of the Absolute.
------------------------
Back to that quest for truth: Belief in the Absolute is itself a contradiction. Why? Because what or who is doing the believing? If it is you, the individual, how is it that something less that the Absolute can know the truth of the Absolute? If it is the Absolute then there is only the Absolute and it cannot be asking the question since it already knows. Therefore, you are the Absolute. Why? Because only the Absolute can survive this contradiction and you exist.
-------------------------
The red slime grew at the bottom of the pool of water. It grew slowly, at first. Each day the Sun heated the pool to near boiling and each night it cooled again to near freezing. This process happened for an eon. An eon so long that all the other phases of this impossible event seem like brief moments. Slowly the rocks broke down under this constant stress. Unnoticed the cycles themselves were changing. Slowing. Getting less extreme. Dryness and wetness came and went. There was mixing of every kind. Molten rocks and comet dust were both added to the pool. It's not clear when the red slime first appeared. There was no one watching. Slowly it grew, and miraculously it held on through impossibilities upon impossibilities. It should have been washed away. It wasn't. It changed, with each change. It grew with each new opportunity.
r.slime