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“Why Did He Do It? White Man.” It Is Only Now That His Own Demise Is at Hand That Rational Man Stops to Reflect — The Primal Return
“Most Men They Don’t Need It. White Man He Kills for It.” Primitive Philosophy, Part Two: Away from Manifest Destiny, The Primal Renaissance
Manifest Destiny
Glorifying himself with the regalia of “Reason,” Western Man ascended the throne in the castle of Nature and deigned to cast his eyes below him on all the rest of living things, nay, on the rest of all of Creation.
From such imperial heights Western man deduced the workings of the Universe — utilizing his purportedly powerful tool of Reason — and conceived how he should apportion and determine all that he surveyed. For surely his perception and apprehension of a thing was akin to possession . . . he reasoned conveniently.
Thus adorned and fortified, Rational Man went about subduing all that came before his view. Letting nothing as trivial as philosophies, traditions, cultures, and the peoples who embodied them stand in his way.
Nor even, in this century, has “Rational” Man allowed the complete elimination, for all of eternity, of millions of species of living things, evolving out of the mists of billions of years, obstruct him in the least from the attainment of desires, regardless how trivial. Thus he “succeeded” to such an extent that he threatens now even his own existence.
“Why Did He Do It? White Man.”
It is only now that his own demise is at hand that Rational Man stops to reflect, to look back upon what he’s wrought, to re-evaluate his goals, his trajectory, his path.
In so doing he discovers his scapegoating tendencies. He stands horrified at his reddened hands, bloodied by his extermination of entire cultures, entire races, entire species of life. “Why did he do it? White man.” asks the rock group Steeleye Span in their song, “White Man”:
Some sing of their glory,
You tell the true story,
Most men they don’t need it,
White man he kills for it.They took to the seas,
Searching for a land
That they could call paradise,
Stealing the breeze that carried them toward the sun.With lust in their eyes,
They found a land,
And said “We found paradise,
Think of the Lord, and look at the prize we’ve won.”We know who they were,
They were the ones who killed their brothers to steal from others.
We know who they were,
They were the ones whose sons and daughters are doing it still. . . .And in their hearts,
What did they feel?
Did they think they had the right to steal
Another man’s land
Who had no name
Oh, they didn’t think he’d feel the pain.So they sailed away from their own country
To another man’s land far across the sea.
And they stole that land from the people there, And they called that land Australia.Why did he do it, white man. . . .
They sailed away, one winter’s day,
To a sunlit land that was far away,
And they stole that land from the people there,
And they called that land America.Why did he do it, white man. . . .
And in their hearts,
What did they feel?
Did they think they had the right to steal
Another man’s land
Who had no name.
Oh, they didn’t think he’d feel the pain. . . .(from “Portfolio,” Steeleye Span, 1988)
This Radical Reversal, This Primal Return
In the wake of this new realization a new humility is necessarily born. Both of these are nurtured further by the Westerner’s own sciences — which have overturned his cherished premises, requiring visions of the truth quite at odds with what was used to get him to this pass, and, coincidentally enough, quite akin to that which had been thrown away, beat back, persecuted, and even killed in its embodiment earlier.
This radical reversal, this mushroom-like returning to our roots, reappraisal of our origins and foundations, may be the thing momentous enough and radical enough to save us, to abort our countdown to extermination. For surely a “Boy Scout” or “Civic League” approach to tackling the problems that beset us is perhaps worse than nothing in its deluding us into thinking we are accomplishing something, when it is major efforts and radical changes that are required.
Yet, as difficult as this reversal will be in the lifestyle changes, the efforts required in the domain of attitudes and conditioning — in terms of assailing the millenniums-strong fortifications of culturally conditioned ego — may verge on the near-miraculous. People do not change easily, if at all.
Still, we are aided, only fortuitously, by some of our own devices. We are goaded also by the specters of our own dissolution and by their lieutenants of epidemic disease who, sent ahead, are even now making their way among us — our sentinels too often sleeping, too infrequently and much too feebly signaling the alarm.
There is evidence that we are aided also by unacknowledged powers — seen and heralded only by the relatively few. All things considered, by the grace of God … and perhaps that solely … we might make it.
This Vision of a Primal Renaissance
Still, we must apply ourselves. We must make the effort to see clearly, to see fairly, to break through our cultural conditioning, to reach out to all those living/nonliving, to all that is threatened by our misproliferation of deeds.
So it is that this book seeks to be part of that great reversal, that primal return, indeed, that primal renaissance. In so doing it will unavoidably overturn many of our comfortable illusions. But it will attempt to do so on the basis of the evidence, and it will attempt to leave the Mystery where it properly belongs.
Still, considering this intention to lay to waste or to reverse so much that is part of Western conditioning, so much that is unquestioned as universally true, and common-sensically indisputable, for many people this may be a painful book to read. I have no solace for that, save that of the vision of the harmonious age, the primal renaissance emerging from all this current pain and confusion. That is a vision whose soothing silhouette will hopefully appear increasingly closer as we proceed — summoned by our yearning, self-inquiry, and effort — to hold our hand and guide us, even as we simultaneously observe our familiar cultural edifices crumbling about us.
But let us begin where it is necessary. Let us start by lowering our banner of being the pinnacle of cultural evolution. Getting a little humbler and peeking beneath the veil of pretentiousness, we may begin the journey downwards.
Continue with The First Retreat from the Natural Self Was Matriarchal Consciousness; It Should Hardly Be Our Goal: You Cannot “Balance” a Duality … You Can Only Transcend One.
Return to “Consciousness Is the Source of the Cosmos” … Physical Reality Is Metaphor: The Era of “Rational” Man Is Over, A Primal Return Has Begun
Chapter One References
Davies, Paul, and Gribbin, John. (1992). The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries That Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Eddington, Arthur Stanley. (1928). The Nature of the Physical World. London.
Ferris, Timothy. (1992). The Mind’s Sky: Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context. New York: Bantam Books.
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Labbe, Armand. (1991). “Consciousness versus awareness in the light of classical Eastern perspectives on the nature of transcendence.” Paper delivered at the 1991 Annual Conference of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, March 21, 1991.
Nerlich, G. C. (1967). Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944). In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 458-460.
Sheldrake, Rupert. (1991). The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God. New York: Bantam.
Steeleye Span. (1988). White man. From the recording, Portfolio. Newton, NJ: Shanachie Records. Audio recording.
Continue with The First Retreat from the Natural Self Was Matriarchal Consciousness; It Should Hardly Be Our Goal: You Cannot “Balance” a Duality … You Can Only Transcend One.
Return to “Consciousness Is the Source of the Cosmos” … Physical Reality Is Metaphor: The Era of “Rational” Man Is Over, A Primal Return Has Begun
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Thanatos Walking: Apocalypse is How an Over-Achieving Species Like Ours Does Its Will to Death
Apocalypse No! Chapter Five: Death Wish – Thanatos Walking
Apocalypse is How an Over-Achieving Species Like Ours Does Its Will to Death
Freud showed we had a will to die…so — Will we survive? Will we wake up from global apathy to save our planet? Will we resist cowardly denial or die out like the dinosaurs?
Will We Survive?
This chapter discusses an age-old question which has currently become of immense, literally vital, importance: Will our species survive or die out like the dinosaurs? is the most crucial issue of our time. It is related to the fundamental fact of our existence for it is about the struggle between the forces of Life and those of Death. The consequences as to the winner of that inner struggle have to do with no less than the continued survival of life on this planet or total planetary collapse.
Eros vs. Thanatos
In the struggle between the current powers of life versus death, it is helpful to remember Freud’s paradigm-shifting observations about the human psyche on Eros and Thanatos. Freud showed how all human lives are drawn out against the background of each person’s inner struggle between the opposing forces of life and death…Eros and Thanatos. Specifically, for our purposes here, Freud advanced an understanding that made his insights paradigm-shifting, specifically, that each of us carry within us a Will to Die, which he referred to as Thanatos. [continued after video]
Thanatos Walking/ Will to Die, Pt 2:
Fleeing Freedom, Hating Goodness, Wanting Apocalypse
by SillyMickel Adzema
For the author’s reading, with elaboration, of this chapter, click on the link to youtube above or click the audio player here:
“Sometimes the Lights Are Shining on Me.”
Freud established that we act out a will to live and to be in the sun and to have fun and to love and to like goodness and health and truth.
“Other Times I Can Barely See.”
Freud also saw that we have at other times an opposite feeling that causes us to want to live in the dark; to not be around people; to shy away from life and the light and being seen and recognized and even to wanting to be lonely.
This feeling causes us to not care about fun, to hate and be angry, indeed to hate everyone and even to want to lash out at them for no reason other than what might be self-labeled as spite. It makes us jealous of those who find happiness or pleasure in their lives and impels us to lash out at them and make them suffer the way we, on the inside, know we do. Because of this self-defeating tendency we irrationally beat up on our own bodies as well and abuse them with all kinds of substances and behaviors.
Thanatos is why there are always Republicans or something like them — Pharisees, Inquisitors…
And times in which they hold sway—stifling, life- and creativity-averse, stagnant and little changing times: the Middle Ages, for example…
This downward pull makes us want to hate goodness, calling things “kumbaya moments.”
This part of our nature causes us to be jealous of others who are more giving and to hate them for that, to call people “goody two-shoes” or say something is “schmaltzy,” or to be saying that all that good stuff is just “drama.”
It has us putting out terms like “bleeding heart” liberals.
It causes us to not care about the truth, but rather to say things instead to hurt, get revenge, to get back at. Or it has us say untruths to get advantage, to disable our competitors, to hide from the evils we commit which enslave us further in the hiding of them, and so much more.
Struggle Will Out
But Freud took it beyond our inner struggles and talked about how the events of the world, the actions and
movements of history, and the dramas of all the ages are in fact the products of this inner struggle.
At this very moment, our lesser selves are taking us on a path that leads inevitably, one way or another, to total species extinction. But not just that, being the “overachieving” species we are, we are bringing total life extinction to this planet and possibly even planetary annihilation–the death of virtually all life on this Earth.
Our Dogma Barks Out Our Specialness
Dogma Barks Out Specialness
Well, Ain’t We Special?
Freud pointed out we have a Will to Live, too–nothing earth-shattering there. In fact, so far he is stating nothing more than the common-sensical beliefs of the masses. Indeed, it is the universally held mainstream near-definition of humans…one of those “obvious truths” about us we like to bless ourselves with. Freud’s first point, taken by itself, encapsulates the cliched view of What We Are—that what distinguishes our species above all others revolves around a superior Will to Life.
While common-sensical that our Will to Life is part of a species superiority of ours, it is wrong…going too far. For would anyone say that other species don’t also have an incredible Will To Live?
Not So Much
But this hyperbole or over-reaching in stating humans are unique in the degree of their Will to Life reinforces my point about Freud’s ideas being zeitgeist-shattering. For in this common, frequent, pervasive even universal, and nauseatingly repeated promulgation of supposedly the obvious, by any and all who speak before an audience—large or small, from a principal speaking in front of a gathering of high schoolers or a preacher before his gathering of church-goers to the TV media pundit before a world-wide audience, and even to a US President’s audience of even greater global reach—it is shown that our special Will to Life is not as true as is assumed.
For if we had such a superior drive in us, would it need to be constantly reinforced and upheld, as if against some attack, or attacker? And if so, what is the feared attack or attacker?
And here we get a clue into Freud’s discovery and its utter undermining of all that which is normally said regarding our humanness. For regarding our being special in our Will to Live, this kind of “protesting too much” and its flip side of repeating it ad nauseum, as Shakespeare obviously saw points to a hidden agenda. Truths do not have to be repeated endlessly, mantram-like, even ritualistically. For they are self-evident and need as much propping up as the belief that the sky appears to be the color blue to us—and you don’t hear much about that, do you?
My Dogma Barks Out My Specialness
But the pervasive repetition of the supposed Truth of our species Will to Life—especially the blown-up version that has it being the thing that makes us human, different from other species, “superior” to other species (there’s a clue), and even “special” (clue. Getting it?)—points to its being, not so much truth as dogma. And dogma does need to be endlessly repeated in that such things are exactly about things that are not obvious truths.
In fact, this repetition of an obvious truth points to its being not true. In the previous chapter I showed how our “sad proselytists” have to say their untruths and unrealities out loud in order to buck up or reinforce their believability. So also human societies need to endlessly repeat, in order to reinforce against onslaughts of insight, their precious untruths.
But the reasons behind the promulgation of this supposed “obvious truth” go even beyond, since we are not dealing here with any conscious or acknowledged, let alone written and standardized, set of things not obvious. For indeed, in this sad repetition of our superior life-valuing, it is put out as being something not needing institutional backing, being simply true in its obviousness.
So what then? Well, this repetitive characterization of Us, as Humans, has all the indications of something that has an intention, however unconscious, that has a calculation, however desperate our desire to not see it, about it to achieve an effect on the audience—in this case—the masses of all humans.
.
.
Humans’ Uniqueness Among Species? We Suck Up
What is that pathetically overlooked intention? Well, let us take a look at what that effect might be.
Anytime you place our species above all others (true or not), you are making as much as anything else a play to butter up your audience of fellow humans and appeal to their vanity…and thus, making them feel good, hoping that they will feel good, or, like you in return. In commonspeak, that’s called “people-pleasing.” In the vernacular, it’s called “sucking up.”
OK, so we’ve established that people in front of audiences near-universally want to say things that will make their audience feel good towards them. No, not so fast. For that overlooks the fact that somehow…and get this; for if the spoken thing were of the obvious truth category, then why would this follow…that somehow all these people speaking out to others about the unique will to life they have know—somewhere inside them—that saying such a thing will, in fact, give people a good feeling. That’s another clue.
More Socratic Dialoguing
And again, continuing this Socratic dialogue, well, wouldn’t humans just, of course, feel good hearing about their being superior? Doesn’t everyone feel good when told they are better and such? Well, now we’re getting to where Freud took us. For he knew, as we all do if we simply think about it. The answer is “no, not necessarily or even usually.”
Think about it. If the Beatles were to be told they were a good band, would that give them a good feeling? No. certainly not. For that was so true as to be overwhelming and almost scary in its near-universal belief. And we can suppose that to them having that kind of power and influence because of their talent—especially when you come out of nowhere, from humble, unassuming backgrounds—may have been distressing to think about and hardly something wanted from others. How could they not wonder about this power, its source, where it would lead, and all that? I don’t think it happenchance that this success sent all of them into drug-taking—to both block it out as well as come to terms with it—into soul-searching of the spiritual and, especially John, of the therapeutic sort. Sometimes one does not want to be reminded of how “good” (and therefore powerful…therefore responsible) one is; there’s such a thing as feeling one is scary good.
Or take the obviously accomplished anybody, Pavarotti, say. Wanna tell Pavarotti he sings good? Don’t think he’d feel a thing.
But, you say, that’s because they hear that all the time.
Ok, granted that. But think about when it would have felt good to them. Look to your own experience and you realize that you feel good when people tell you things about yourself—especially when they state them as self-evident and obvious to all—about which you are not certain, about which you often or at least sometimes have doubts, and about which you are insecure! Look to your own life. Can anyone be flattered about the things they know to be without question? Can you be flattered about the color of your skin or hair, or about…. Well, not stated as a fact, you wouldn’t. A person would be flattered only if they had some bad feeling, insecurity in that area, first;
and second, if that quality of them is not usually noted though it be assumed by everyone to be a good, positive, or “superior” thing.
This pervasive, mutual stroking we do has a result which is of dire consequence currently: We scapegoat our planetmates because of this pathetically low self-esteem and those who play on it.
Sycophantic, Suicidal Ape – “Quit Hitting Yourself!”
“Quit Hitting Yourself!” and Sycophantic, Suicidal Ape
Sycophantic Ape
Skipping to the point here. People can be made to feel good about things of themselves they are not sure of.
How to Make Someone Love You: Tell Them Something Wonderful About Themselves They Normally Doubt Is True
They will feel good, because the thing they would want to believe, the thing that would
make them see themselves positively, the thing that would feed their slanted bias toward themselves…. Ok, I’ll finally use the word: The thing that would prop up and feed a person’s “ego” or the belief in one’s goodness, superiority, and so on, in a world of so many others, well that makes one feel good, whether it is true or not.
So, we see that the intention of this pathetic public pronouncing of a superior human will to live is to salve the egos of the masses. Why does it feel good? Because it is universally true that the ego is in constant assault from something which makes it feel not good.
What is that thing that makes people feel not good about themselves, so that being told something that counters that would make them feel good? Well, the answers, by psychologists since Freud, have many terms attached to them. And by the way, before the psychologists there were the theologians attempting to answer this. But Freud’s analysis not only answered it, but put it in the largest context possible—one into which both psychologists and theologians would find an inroad.
We can say, to backtrack a bit, that this pandering by those in front of audiences makes people feel good because it supports the defense system that all humans have erected against the real truth—that zeitgeist-shattering one that Freud was first to fully explicate. It feels good because it supports the denial that all humans have against the real truth that they feel about themselves, one of the things that human societies universally consign to that black hole of the Unapproved and Hidden. [Footnote 1]
“Quit Hitting Yourself!”
So this repetitive obvious truth about humans having a strong Will to Live is repeated to please audiences and make them feel good—”people-pleasing”—because it is a salve to the egos of the masses, which in reality are not merely bruised.
No, this goes directly toward propping up a particular defense, a particular denial that we all carry. And that denial is that, IN TRUTH, humans don’t at all feel like they have a tremendous Will to Live. How can I say that? Well, how many things do you know you do which are “not good for you”? How many things do you not do which you know would aid the cause of our supposed universal desire to Live and to Live as long as possible?
The point is that humans, along with a Will to Life that is undeniable, also have a Will to Death.
How many times have you woken up, thought about all the pressures and obligations, or complexities, responsibilities…. thought about all the seemingly insurmountable obstacles or challenges that you are facing… thought about all the things that just have to get done, yet you feel that you could not possibly have the time to do all of them…. How many times have you woken up and felt overwhelmed with what life has become and not wished to just curl up, go back to sleep, and never wake up again? How many times have you taken to drugs or intoxicants in full knowledge of their negative and even dire concomitants and simply thought to yourself, “Aw, what the hell. If I were to die, so what? What’s so great about life anyway?” Or, with less clarity, simply said, “Well nobody lives forever!”
Do they sound like the pronouncements of a species that has a tremendous will to live? No, in fact, alongside our Will to Live, we have not only a Will to Die, but even a will to self-destruction.
Right about now, it might be occurring to you how this makes sense of so much, seemingly insane, human behavior we’ve seen of late. This Will to Die explains why we continue nonchalantly our march to armageddon. It shines light on how we can suck up air in cities that gives us raging allergies, clogs our lungs as bad as chronic smoking would, and will kill off the children we raise there long before their times. It reveals how we could drink poisoned water, blithely go about our business as the globe fills up with nuclear radiation and makes its way into our food supplies and as our government refuses even to test for it,
and turn our backs as the oceans die, and killer tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis chalk up thousands in the kill column. It explains why people allow themselves to be enslaved and controlled by others—allowing fascism in established democracies—unconcernedly voting for rabid folk who would take away their rights and security and bring down their freedoms, health, and even lives, while watching those living under totalitarian systems risk their lives for a such freedom and rights and democracy. So much more.
But anyway….
Suicidal Ape
Now, the intention here is not to repeat all that Freud and psychologists have said in showing how this works. Besides, just look at the evidence around you of addiction, chronic accidentalism, unhealthy behavior habits without number, and of course the ultimate evidence: suicide.
And by the way, if we have such a strong Will to Live, superior to all other species, then explain why it is so that we are the only species that has suicide? And we’re supposed to be the conscious ones?
What Freud pointed out has tremendous explanatory power, especially now in our current worldwide financial upheaval, depression/recession, expanding global fascism, nuclear meltdowns, oil spills, near environmental collapse, wars and terrorism, nuclear armaments of planetary annihilation, and tendency to pollute body as well as environment, and even to do it thoughtlessly, in full knowledge of the consequences.
The Only Important Question and About That Inner Monster of Yours
The Only Important Question
and About That Inner Monster of Yours
I repeat: Freud established that we act out a will to live and to be in the sun and to have fun and to love and to like goodness and health and truth.
I repeat: Freud also saw we have at other times an opposite feeling which causes us to want to live in the dark—to not be around people, to shy away from life and the light and being seen and recognized and even to wanting to be lonely—that causes us to not care about fun, to hate and be angry, indeed to hate everyone and even to want to lash out at them for no reason other than what might be self-labeled as spite; that causes us to hate goodness, calling things “kumbaya moments,” that causes us to be jealous of others who are more giving and to hate them for that, call people “goody two-shoes” or saying something is “schmaltzy”; or saying that all that good stuff is just “drama”; and putting out terms like “bleeding heart” liberals; that causes us to beat up on our bodies and abuse them with all kinds of substances and behaviors; and that causes us to not care about the truth, but rather to say things instead to hurt, get revenge, to get back at; or to say untruths to get advantage, to disable our competitors, to hide from the evils we commit which enslave us further in the hiding of them, and so much more.
Pandavas versus Kauravas
Freud said we struggled between these two opposite feelings throughout our lives. It is because of this contradiction we carry inside that we can never be truly sure of who we are and even that we can question our motives and intentions (those more self-analytical of us). It is because of this contradiction that we can always feel we could have done better, that people don’t know everything about us, even when they say they do, and that sometimes we fear, especially when we are younger, that if people knew what we had inside they would shy away, not like us, think us to be bad, even monstrous.
By the Way, About That Inner Monster of Yours…
It is because of this contradiction that people are so terrified of revealing themselves,
lest some of that not socially appropriate, not socially sanctioned, not socially approved part of themselves slip out. And the fear there is that then we will be seen to have been found out; and that then we will be confirmed in our worst fears that indeed that “other” part of ourselves is—the horror that cannot even be spoken in one’s mind—that dark part of ourselves is the real us…which carries with it the view that any of the “good” in us is just a cover up so that other people will not know.
Mask on a Monster, Lipstick on a Pig
But Freud took it beyond our inner struggles and talked about how the events of the world, the actions and movements of history, the dramas of all the ages, are in fact the products of this inner struggle.
Desperate between these poles, we join together with others of the same feeling—whether of lightness or of negativity—in multiple relations and groups on both sides of that struggle. More than that, while driven unwittingly from sources on one side, we expend ourselves in complex ways, in concert with these other, to represent these groups as well as ourselves as acting out from sources on the other side; we mask ourselves as the other.
Babel’s Inner Blueprint
Ultimately, these groups magnify our powers. And the cumulative acts of many individuals, along with the actions of groups and their leaders, all within complex and contradictory motives at all levels and in every matter, create the complex events of all times.
All these happenings are at base the story of inner conflicts—complex outer conflicts notwithstanding. In a cumulative manner and over time, things are ever more convoluted and twisted and complicated through the actions of the myriad characters—all of whom conflicted inside, act inconsistently, and out of their own unique struggles which have all of us perceiving and interpreting things in ways totally unique to ourselves.
Again, The Question
These huge world events, then, Freud laid at the feet of the individual struggle. Basically the world becomes an arena of the acting of the Will to Life against the Will to Death, of Eros versus Thanatos.
That is why I say what we are discussing is an age-old question. Although to our detriment…or fortune?…it is now more than any other time crucially relevant, and it is the most immense importance and consequence as to the winner of that inner struggle.
For while we watched with paralyzed hand on one side, on the other our lesser selves are presently taking us on a path that leads inevitably, one way or another, to total species extinction. And not just that alone, but in fact total life extinction on this planet, and possibly even to planetary annihilation—the destruction of this planet itself.
That is why in upcoming sections I focus on this question of dire importance. I talk more about this Will to Death manifesting currently as planetary suicide. But unlike Freud I do not address this Will to Death in a general sense. I deal specifically with its existence as an element of the current struggle between those of us who would live and those opposing that.
I deal with the question of the sway of the the “dark side” as over against the Power of Truth, Love, Higher Power; God…if you will; Sathya Sai, that is, Truth Love…if you will; the Universe; or simply the Better Angels of Our Nature manifesting in increasing numbers of lives….
The questions we need to ask are about which side will win in the end. For certainly it will be decided one way or the other, and soon, of that we can be sure. And that is what makes this time and this question different from any other time. Because this question is not an academic one, now. It is one whose answer will become known far sooner than we would ever wish.
So, we will continue to live, and we will become good citizens of this planet and our species will continue on?
True? False?
This discussion is only now beginning.
Strange Days, Indeed. “Most Peculiar, Mama!”
Beginning in the next chapter, “Strange Days,” we begin discussing this question of life-death, eros-thanatos, survival-extinction.
Continue with Apocalypse No! Chapter Six:
Strange Days
Return to Apocalypse – No! Chapter Four:
Death Wish – Zombies and Sad Proselytists
Footnote
1. The “Unapproved and Hidden” is discussed in the chapter, “The First Prasad,” in my book, The Great Reveal by SillyMickel and the Planetmates. The planetmates describe the origins of this tendency of ours to need to speak out our supposed specialness, tying it to our creation of the Unapproved and Hidden in societies. I write about this more generally on one of my blogs in particular, “Sillymickel’s Blog of the Obvious Unspoken Things.”
Thanatos Walking/ Will to Die, Pt 2:
Fleeing Freedom, Hating Goodness, Wanting Apocalypse
by SillyMickel Adzema
For the author’s reading, with elaboration, of this chapter, click on the link to youtube above or click the video player here:
Continue with Apocalypse No! Chapter Six:
Strange Days
Return to Apocalypse – No! Chapter Four:
Death Wish – Zombies and Sad Proselytists
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Facing Foursquare the Darkness – Not for Cowardly or Uncaring Humans: Strange Days, Pt 3
Facing Square Our Apocalypse—For the Heroic and Most Caring Only: Strange Days, Part Three
There will always be those that will have their heads in the sand and will be cast about like flotsam upon the waters by the events swirling around them–impotent in the face of them and dependent upon other’s actions for the result. If you are one, know we’re trying to save you, too.
Assuming you are not one of them–a good bet, if you’ve managed to get to this paragraph–there is much to say about the current apocalyptic trends. [continued after video]
Strange Days. Apocalypse? Or Earth Rebirth?
by SillyMickel Adzema
For the author’s reading of a version of this part, click on the link to youtube above or click the video player here:
Facing Foursquare
But even those of us aware of this crisis hardly think of it. Of course it is our normal psychic defenses that operate to keep this huge awareness out of our daily minds; we must do this in order to be able to function.But perhaps, for some of us, our defenses work too well–so much so that we unthinkingly participate in and contribute to our own demise. This is classic neurotic self-sabotaging, self-destruction on a macro scale.
However, psychologists, historians, psychohistorians, and scholars and the educated public claim not to be like that. It is their job, or their claim, to be looking squarely into the face of these forces of denial and potential apocalypse and to be seeking to understand the human condition and human psychology in light of them. It is their duty then to inform the rest of us about what they see so that we might have a chance of reversing our self-destructive tendencies. [Footnote 1]
If you’re not alarmed, you’re not paying attention.
Whether the educated public and the multitude of scholars actually are fulfilling their mission in these times is debatable.
Regardless, my thesis is that when we do this, when we look foursquare into the face of the global crisis and its accompanying denial, we find that these unprecedented global factors contribute to a unique and unprecedented human condition and psychology. I have seen a bumper
sticker around, in California where I live, that proclaims, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention!” It could as easily say, however, “If you’re not alarmed,” fearful, anxious, depressed . . . you name it, “You’re not paying attention!” [Footnote 2]
To Face These Maddest of Days and Minds
So then let us pay attention. This book is about facing foursquare into the fantastic circumstances and situation in which we find ourselves, watching,
like a photograph emerging in solution, as the face of these times slowly comes into view, and then waking up to the meaning of the message, perhaps the warning, it brings us, so that we might live most fully and take up our roles consciously amid these unprecedented unfoldings. What is required of us now, then, having turned to receive the message, is to look deep into the features of our age. Let us begin.
Continue with “We Ain’t Born Typical”: A Closer Look at the “Human Nature” Pushing Us to Humanicide – The Perinatal Unconscious
return to “people attending to political action but ignoring the environmental catastrophes rising up around us“
Strange Days. Apocalypse? Or Earth Rebirth?
by SillyMickel Adzema
For the author’s reading of a version of this part, click on the link to youtube above or click the video player here:
Footnotes
1. An example of what we should be doing. These are the kind of public figures and pundits we need.
If the bees disappeared, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. – Albert Einstein
Vanishing bees is “just a sign” of what is going on, as they point out. The canary has died, and we cannot just leave the coal mine.
So we owe gratitude to Ellen Page and Bill Maher for setting an example for the kind of discourse we could and should be having in the media.
2. Helen Caldicott compares our complacency in the face of these dire happenings to the parents who respond emotionless when she has to tell them their child has leukemia. She says, “Get mad. Get emotional.” She urges us to take back our governments from these mad perpetrators of the darkest doom imaginable. And, in the least, occupy! She proclaims,
It’s time you took your country back…. Use your bodies like they did in Wisconsin. Do a Tahrir Square here. Take back New York. Take back the Congress. Invade the Congress! Those people belong to you. They are your representatives, and you are their leaders. But you’ve got to have some guts! And stop being so goddamn polite all the time! And don’t need approval. Step up to the plate….
We’ve got to be emotional…. It’s time we used our emotions and become incensed! Otherwise we’re not going to make it.
Continue with “We Ain’t Born Typical”: A Closer Look at the “Human Nature” Pushing Us to Humanicide – The Perinatal Unconscious
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Wtf? The End Being Nigh: Strange Days, Pt 2
The End Being Nigh:
Strange Days, Part Two
Strange Days
For most people, I would assume I am not saying anything new in pointing out that our times are unique. For that matter, all times are unique—unlike any other. But what no other time has seen is the actual—not imagined—possibility, even likelihood, of the “end of the world.” That is to say, we are facing the end of our species and maybe all life on this planet along with us. Considering just one scenario, we have the capacity, with only a minuscule amount of our nuclear weapons, to wipe out all life on this planet. We all know this. [continued after video]
Strange Days. Apocalypse? Or Earth Rebirth?
by SillyMickel Adzema
For the author’s readingof this part, click on the link to youtube above or click the video player here:
“The End Is Nigh!”
I used the phrase, just now, “end of the world,” deliberately. For I expect that it will evoke in some a reaction that what I am going to say from here on will be a drawn-out verbal version of a familiar cartoon, depicting a bearded and bedraggled man on a street corner, carrying a sign or wearing a clapboard proclaiming, “The end is near!” and that what I will say will have just about as much credibility as that man’s would.
I take that chance to make my first point…which is: The fact that we can so easily dismiss, ridicule, and smugly deride such ideas of apocalypse points to our complacency with these strangest and most precarious of days. In fact, we have lived with this unprecedented situation—dangling on a thread, as it were, above the abyss of nuclear annihilation, to name just one of the possible forces of extinction…we’ve lived with it for so long as for it to seem commonplace—as part of the normal and familiar furniture of our daily lives.
Wtf?
Heads in the Sand
It has become so much a part of our daily lives, in fact, that we hardly give it any thought anymore. But for a moment, let us just imagine a person from a previous time in history being somehow transported into this time and being made to understand the impending forces: environmental collapse, species extinction, nuclear threat, population explosion, virulent epidemic, possibly human-created earthquakes and thus tsunamis, planet poisoning, and so on.
Unless this person was Nostradamus, we can imagine this person would be hugely alarmed, to say the least. This person might well wonder at our nonchalance, or should we say apathy, in the face of such likely, not just potential, apocalypse. [Footnote 1]
So I won’t waste time pointing out the statistics that prove the premise that the current trends we are following are apocalyptic.
We need simply to look to our daily headlines. Need I remind of the dangers from catastrophes like Fukushima and the Gulf Oil Spill?
Care for Some Radiation with that Milk?
We have radiation mixing into the world ecosystem as I write. Fukushima alone is spreading radiation that’s off the charts into food, air, oceans, and has made it to the East Coast of the U.S. and beyond in just a short time. We also know that nuclear waste needs to be guarded for 25,000 years because of its toxicity…it is still deadly for 250,000 years. Yet we continue to excrete massive amounts of it into our globe and even after the Fukushima meltdowns to push for building more plants. [Footnote 2]
Dead Zones and Dolphins
We have watched baby dolphins by the hundreds washing up on Gulf coasts and the creation of hundred mile dead zones in our seas. BP stupidly used toxic chemicals to disperse the oil rather than to collect it. The dispersants themselves are toxic, but the much bigger crime was to make sure the even more toxic oil, which depletes the oxygen in the water and thus creates the dead zones, would be spread far and wide throughout the global water. Good for BP shares looking like they could fix it, bad for survival of oxygen-breathers on Earth.
So BP’s egregiously criminal move was the equivalent of sweeping dirt under the rug to clean up.
Unfortunately there is no “away” in which it can “go.” So we have, in this incident alone, precipitated greatly the dying off of the life of the oceans—the oxygen-producing plankton—and, hence, the basis of all life on this planet.
*Cough, Cough*
To this ravaging of the lungs of the planet add worldwide runaway deforestation, already in full swing. I am practically choking as I think how we then stink up the air with industrial emissions and auto exhausts. Living in the LA area, I can tell you that I feel my mouth is sealed to the end of an exhaust pipe most of the time. So to the dangers bringing on our demise we need to add globally increasing air pollution.
Forget Your Sunscreen, We’re All Gonna fry.
Environmentally also, we have the greenhouse effect—global climate change or warming—the depletion of the ozone layer, and so on. [Footnote 3]
Al Gore is owed the gratitude of the world informing us of climate change in his book and documentary of the same name, Inconvenient Truth.
Meanwhile lots of folks think we have solved the ozone layer problem. We banned fluorocarbons, and we don’t hear much about this problem anymore in the media. Environmental nay-sayers are arguing that we “fixed” this problem, as part of their stance that we need not worry about what we’re doing to the planet. But not long ago—April 2011—CNN broadcast the news that the ozone had been depleted by 40% in the last two months alone! They immediately then turned to an item of dire importance—a snake had gotten loose in New York! [Footnote 4]
Only One Earth, Don’t Blow It!
Nor need I elaborate on the the nuclear threat–whether precipitated by terrorists, rogue nations, or accident. We know, but don’t want to, of the possibility of any one or more of these mad actors employing weapons of mass destruction,
possibly leading to ever-mounting rounds of retaliation with eventually no one left standing. Relatedly we push out of our minds the threat of other kinds of weapons–such as biological weapons–getting out of control and creating a worldwide epidemic or holocaust.
Eight billion and Counting…Now Let’s Attack Planned Parenthood! *sarcasm*
Need I mention the continuing explosion of the world’s population leading to likely famine, wars, diseases, and so on? We have twice as many people alive now as the combined total of all humans who have ever lived! We are no different from bacteria who overrun their petri dish only to die off. We certainly aren’t showing ourselves to be any smarter than that. [Footnote 5]
Outbreak
How about the possibility of virulent epidemic that cannot be cured? Does that catch your fancy? Strains of micro-organisms are evolving that are immune to our much-touted antibiotics.
You Sure You Should Be Reading This?
What island were you stranded on?
But why go on? If you are not aware of these things, you are from some other planet. If you are dismissing these facts, you are in actual psychological denial of your dire situation. If you are not paying attention, you are spending your life desperately running away.
No, I won’t go into stats and figures to support the premise. The evidence and statistics are there for all to see, crying for attention, put out, published, and promulgated by the best scientists of our time, mixed in with the more mundane messages of our daily newspapers and nightly newscasts, though we mostly turn our ears from them.
We’ll Try to Save You, Too.
In fact, if you are not already aware of the global crisis that besets us, I do not think you will get much out of reading further in this book and would probably better spend your time doing something else. There will always be those that will have their heads in the sand and will be cast about like flotsam upon the waters by the events swirling around them–impotent in the face of them and dependent upon other’s actions for the result. If you are one, know we’re trying to save you, too.
Continue with people attending to political action but ignoring the environmental catastrophes rising up around us
Return to Something’s Happening Here: Strange Days, Pt 1
Strange Days. Apocalypse? Or Earth Rebirth?
by SillyMickel Adzema
For the author’s reading, with elaboration, of this part, click on the link to youtube above or click the video player here:
Footnotes
1. Gulf Oil Spill, Fukushima meltdowns, nuclear radiation, toxic nuclear waste, HAARP, killing off of the ocean–destroying oxygen in it, dead zones with no oxygen, dolphins washing up, birds falling out of the sky, bees disappearing, ozone depletion at the rate of 40% in the last two months alone, and a massive 50% species extinction in the next few decades, i.e., in our lifetimes! (now, enjoy your hamburger.) [return to text]
2. Spent Nuclear Fuel a Danger 250,000 YRS!
Spent nuclear fuel needs to be guarded for 24,000 years just to reach its half-life; needs to be kept away from humans for 250,000 years; and it is still highly radioactive after that.
Guess I’ll have to stay up late!
My comment: Oil Spills and Reactor Blowups: “Where is the fierce urgency of Now?!!!” I can’t believe the nonchalance around the huge environmental catastrophes that have gone on in just the last year alone: specifically, the Gulf Oil Spill and the Fukushima Japan nuclear disaster. When the BP disaster was ongoing and gushing devastating amounts of oil into the Gulf, Donna Brazille, frustrated with the Obama Administration’s response to the Spill, fumed aloud, “Where is the fierce urgency of Now?!!!”
But these hugely unprecedented environmental catastrophes, daily spreading the damage to our planet, are just two canaries in a coal mine.
We are just beginning to understand the immensity of the damage to our planet the Fukushima disaster did. We will probably not be told the degree of radiation exposure from it we are receiving until long after people have been dying in droves from it.
The BP oil spill of 2010 is, similarly, presenting ongoing planetary damage, which, like the Japan nuclear disaster, is, as I speak, not being reported. At this moment, in fact, dolphin carcasses in the hundreds are washing up on Gulf beaches, birds are dying and some are simply dropping dead out of the sky, and we know of at least one dead zone–caused by the BP oil spill–a dead zone being an area in the ocean where nothing can live for lack of oxygen–which is a hundred miles long and 12 miles wide. That is the only one that is being reported on, who knows how many more there are and how great is the ongoing damage?
But none of these dire events are being mentioned much in the media. We hear the reports, but then the media directs our attention to something else. So we cover our eyes to what is going on. We dismiss these events thinking that someone higher up than us is surely attending to the problem (dream on!). What’s worse is these things are only the tiny beginnings of much more that is bound to happen. If we don’t listen up, and wake up, we’ll be just as unprepared and helpless when the even worse and more dire events unfold. This is not a time to curl up under the covers.
For more: The Time Danger of ‘Spent’ Nuclear Fuel [return to text]
3. “We’re all gonna fry.” With appreciation to Scout Niblett, “We’re All Gonna Die/ Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death”
[return to text]
4. “We Lost 40% of Ozone Layer Last 3 Months” and from CNN in April, 2011 — “Ozone Depletion Over Arctic ‘Unprecedented’ This Winter“
My take on this: CNN reported this month that 40% of the ozone layer over the Arctic was depleted from December 21st, 2010 to March 31st, 2011–roughly three months. I heard a CNN anchor report this, with some alarm. The clip provides confirmation. I also watched as this anchor continued, after a few sentences on this, to another news item–about a snake getting loose in New York, if memory serves me. Guess life on this planet not as big a deal.
Btw, if you want to dismiss this by consoling yourself that it is “only” happening over the Arctic, consider what is happening in parts of the globe that aren’t being actively monitored. Seems to me if the lake goes down on the other side, the water is lower on my side as well. [return to text]
5. John Leslie, The End of the World. See, Ok we’re commiting species-suicide; but how DARE we become species-suicide-bombers killing all OTHER life with us! [return to text]
Strange Days. Apocalypse? Or Earth Rebirth?
by SillyMickel Adzema
For the author’s reading, with elaboration, of this part, click on the link to youtube above or click the video player here:
Continue with people attending to political action but ignoring the environmental catastrophes rising up around us
Return to Something’s Happening Here: Strange Days, Pt 1
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