Amazing post, well written as always - Getting down to the true true causal factors of the global condition.
I have been along a similar path, with very different manifestations.
Societies view of competition and how it relates to wealth is based on secondary psychopathy and the "crabs in a bucket" mentality. Becoming wealthy is tough, staying there after is the real challenge. Why is this?
The concepts you discuss here are the basic principals of Alchemy and Hermetics, two of my favorite Mystery Teachings.
Thanks for the Great Work!
Hey Jay - thanks so much. It's tough to balance unity and individuality within a culture steeped in competition and self-focus. The breakdown of the person-to-person tribal mindset (where its easily apparent how we all rise or fall together) leaves everyone isolated with government as the go-between. Our common humanity and shared fate as a species should be the bond that links us together, but instead the state becomes the ostensible "unifying" factor.
People I've never met assert that I am part of this "partnership" called "The United States", and that voting and law is how we cooperate, yet I cannot get them to understand and respect natural law rights which are rooted in our very nature as human beings.
So be a good law-abiding citizen and you've done your part for the tribe. If the way I relate to you is legal, then I've fulfilled my obligation to you (and mankind on the whole). This is the perverted form of unity that fills the receptor site where true unity should reside, and it's rooted in an unnatural (and impossible) act of abdication.
"Let us relieve you of the troublesome responsibilities of life - we will arbitrate your interactions, we will handle the organization of society, we will dictate morality and act as your protector... Our yoke is easy, our burden light - just pay your taxes and obey our agents, and everything else will be taken care of...
[cough] at the expense of your very soul and everything that makes you human [cough]
see? Here you lose it again ;-)
Exactly! Our shared reality is what makes us "one". Through a true understanding of Natural Law and Morality our responsibilities become apparent.
In theory our societal structure itself is not the problem, rather the people within it. The dominance of psychopathy (especially taking into account the very limited percentage of the population in which primary psychopathy actually exists) could not be possible within an educated, self-respecting population - nor could most of the social injustices we witness today.
Hi Jay! I find that so many of these discussions leave us remiss due to a glaring omission - who (or what) is at the head of all this, and why the cultural mindset is what it is. We talk about how to best organize society, and what morality means, and historical examples, etc. but this is all rather premature. The necessary first step hasn't been completed - a cult deprogramming.
You know how it goes - the back and forth with statists, trying to make them see clear logic - but amidst all the faux-practical talk about borders, delegation, protection, and roads lies the obscenely ludicrous fact that this whole thing is a Satanic cult with its vile tentacles in the very souls of the people having the discussion.
Do we need government or not? How can this be discussed without first understanding what it is? And never mind what it is philosophically (the invalid and immoral belief in non-existent authority), but what it is in the most practical possible terms is a seething horde of baby-drinking vampires.
The notion of fixing it, or getting it to a "reasonable" size, or thinking of it as having anything to do with protection or social organization is a complete red herring. But getting this fact to be accepted (which, if understood, would no doubt compel more strongly than any appeal to logic or morality) is actually more difficult to get across than the already nigh-impossible rational or moral argument. Bringing it up is a surefire way to close someone's mind irreversibly.
This is the awe-inspiring efficacy of the cultural mind-control. I'm no master of the flies-and-honey formula. I try to be calm and deliberate in my writings, but I'm more of a "here's the truth, choke on it" kind of person, due to many long years of philosophical study and the resistance to lucid thought I've encountered from others on nearly every topic imaginable. I resent having to prance around spreading rose pedals to get someone to listen to reason. But some soft-spoken spoken with a fuse left to burn has to coax these people out of their sea-bottom depth delusion or everything is damned to hell.