Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Come for the Sex, Stay for the Tyranny

I've been thinking lately of the "break in being" represented by man as we find him. Everything else in the cosmos just "is," from matter on up through animals. But man is always in some way divided from himself, which you might say is his gift and his curse.

With regard to the gift, what sets man apart from the rest of creation is his "self-consciousness," which implicitly posits a self of which we are conscious.

Ah, but there is the split: consciousness on the one hand, self on the other. Animals -- or let us just say "life" -- are also split off from the cosmos, except they have no conscious awareness of this fact. In order to know this, consciousness would have to wrap around itself, as it does in human beings. Only man may become "critical," so to speak, capable of offering everything from reasons and explanations to pretexts and likely stories.

In "hindsight" -- which is also "downsight," vertically and ontologically speaking -- humans can see the various splits that are necessary for humanness to exist. We could also call these "multiplicities" that are necessary for the higher unity of humanness to reconcile in order to be "one."

For example, life seems to somehow exist apart from matter. While obviously dependent on matter, it dances upon its precipice, somewhat like a whirlpool, which is a form created by the ever-changing water coursing through it. Thus, the form cannot be reduced to "water," since the water is always changing.

Same with life. Any biological entity is a kind of stable form through which courses matter and energy. The same can be said of the person, except on a higher plane. Our minds are constantly taking in information and emotion, and metabolizing them via experience. For human beings, existence is the metabolism of experience.

Evidently, man cannot be man without being aware of the splits that define him. Take, for example, Genesis. The "story of man" begins with the story of a primordial division that exiles man from his true station.

In this excerpt of J.G. Bennett, he writes of how parents and culture encourage and facilitate this split condition, which they apparently regard as "normal":

"If we study our own childhood, and that of any children growing up around us, we can see how, by every means, we and they are led to accept, and to prefer to exist in, the dream state. The one thing that everyone without exception impresses on children is the need for insincerity, the need to appear to be other than what one is, to hide what one is and appear different" (emphasis mine).

This is a systematic form of "crazy making," because it forces one to distrust one's own perceptions and eventually reject and abandon one's intuition. In raising my son, I am very much aware of not doing this to him. For example, when I was a child, I couldn't help but notice that certain adults were creepy, or crazy, or anxious, or annoying, or weird, or stupid, etc. But I could never discuss these intuitions in a free and frank way with my parents. Rather, adults were people one respected.

I also teach my son to respect -- or at least be polite to -- others, but not to ignore the subtle stream of data given to him by his perceptions. Thus, of our neighbors, he knows that this one is a harmless nut, that that family across the street is rather loud and unrefined, that this lady is anxious and prone to projection, that that mother is a fearful, humorless, controlling, and judgmental "liberal" who is afraid of toy guns and thinks there is no difference between boys and girls, etc.

When the person is alienated from himself, it is not as if the alienated core just closes up shop. Rather, as Bennett writes, "there is a progressive shutting out of all the experience of possibilities, and their replacement by dreams, and, with dreams, just living in the functional life only."

As a result, "man gets divided into two parts. He gets shut up in the world of facts and shut out of the world of possibilities" (emphasis mine).

I was propelled down this path this morning after reading this excellent talk on The Origins of Political Correctness (ht Vanderleun). Lind correctly points out that the regime of political correctness is just a new from of Marxism, or of Marxist principles applied to man and culture instead of economics, where it is too easily disproved.

What is so insidious about it is that, like Genesis -- which it explicitly replaces with its own counter-myth -- it recognizes the primordial split referenced above. Any religion begins with a "diagnosis" of man, for which it then offers the treatment.

Likewise, the pseudo-religion of cultural Marxism begins with a diagnosis of man, and finds him to be irredeemably stupid, to such an extent that he is incapable of recognizing his own interests (never ask why liberals are so sanctimonious and superior, because this is how they see you if you aren't one of them). If you are not a liberal, it is only because you are essentially infested with mind parasites of various kinds, including religious, patriotic, class, gender, and sexual parasites.

Thus, you need to be purged of these impurities. Since not everyone can afford to take the cure at an elite college, the purging process has to be much more widespread, extending into elementary education, entertainment, and media in general. Only then will you be capable of recognizing your own economic interests (and there isn't any other kind).

As Lind explains, Marxism and Freudianism had a baby known as "critical theory." This theory has no "positive content," so to speak; to be perfectly accurate, it does, but it conceals this sinister content behind an epistemological omnipotence -- i.e., industrial grade cynicism -- capable of dissolving the most settled truth acquired by man in his slow struggle up from barbarism. Thus, it truly results in the re-barbarization of man, at which point the "new man" may be programmed into him.

As alluded to above, never wonder about the source of the liberal's sanctimony and superiority; likewise, never wonder about the barbarism, i.e., the body mutilation, er "art," the celebration of animal sexuality, the replacement of morality with "authenticity," the promotion of homosexuality and other deviations, the mindless attacks on tradition (which are fundamentally no different than the Taliban blowing up religious statues), etc. Man must be demolished and demoralized in order to begin history anew.

Thus, the purpose of Critical Theory "is to criticize. The theory is that the way to bring down Western culture and the capitalist order is not to lay down an alternative. They explicitly refuse to do that. They say it can’t be done, that we can’t imagine what a free society would look like (their definition of a free society). As long as we’re living under repression -- the repression of a capitalistic economic order which creates (in their theory) the Freudian condition, the conditions that Freud describes in individuals of repression -- we can’t even imagine it. What Critical Theory is about is simply criticizing. It calls for the most destructive criticism possible, in every possible way, designed to bring the current order down" (Lind).

Consider the bait-and-switch involved in the "sexual liberation" of the 1960s. Yes, animal sexual was "liberated," so to speak, with the result that human sexuality was eclipsed. As Murray documents in his Coming Apart, the liberation resulted in a vast increase in cultural pathology, including broken homes, fatherless children, criminality, abortion, new and deadly venereal diseases, etc. But progressives do not call this "pathology." Rather, for them it is progress: the progress of breaking eggs in order to cook your goose.

Herbert Marcuse was one of the most prominent feelers of the new left, and was quite explicit about the use of sex for political ends (which we saw repeated just last week with the disingenuous Georgetown Skank):

"Classical, economic Marxism is not light, and most of the radicals of the 60s were not deep. Fortunately for them, and unfortunately for our country today, and not just in the university, Herbert Marcuse.... saw the 60s student rebellion as the great chance" to begin refascining man.

In Eros and Civilization, he "argues that under a capitalistic order... repression is the essence of that order and that gives us the person Freud describes -- the person with all the hang-ups, the neuroses, because his sexual instincts are repressed. We can envision a future, if we can only destroy this existing oppressive order, in which we liberate eros, we liberate libido, in which we have a world of 'polymorphous perversity.'"

This is the bait: "here is a guy writing in a way they can easily follow. He doesn’t require them to read a lot of heavy Marxism and tells them everything they want to hear which is essentially, 'Do your own thing,' 'If it feels good do it,' and 'You never have to go to work.'"

Here is the switch: "America today is in the throes of the greatest and direst transformation in its history. We are becoming an ideological state, a country with an official state ideology enforced by the power of the state.... The terror against anyone who dissents from Political Correctness on campus is part of it.... it’s not funny, it’s here, it’s growing and it will eventually destroy, as it seeks to destroy, everything that we have ever defined as our freedom and our culture."

Mission accomplished!

25 comments:

julie said...

Hey - is that our Walt over at Moon Terrace Hermitage?

julie said...

(Stupid question; of course it is. I had no idea he was still doling out the frothy goodness, but am glad to see it. Thanks for the link, Bob.)

Gandalin said...

Hello Bob,

Your focus on the existential alienation of the human being, unique not only in our natural world, but also I think in contrast to the hierarchies of angelic beings, points to the most profound essence of humanity, and the most compelling evidence, to me, of the existence of a higher-than-natural dimension: were man entirely the product of natural forces, why would he be alienated from them, from his natural existence?

I'm not sure that Bill Lind is such a great source, but I probably shouldn't complain, since I am very fond of Igor Shafarevich on The Socialist Phenomenon.

Gagdad Bob said...

Well, I don't know anything about Bill Lind. I just metabolize whatever comes my way.

Gandalin said...

No worries. He's usually found at Lew Rockwell's site, but as I said, he is probably no worse than Shafarevich. There are good things to be found in the works of both of them.

Gagdad Bob said...

Ack! Not my type.

mushroom said...

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose" VERSUS "If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free"

Gandalin said...

David the King "learned from every man." We can learn from Bill Lind and Igor Shafarevich.

John Lien said...

When I misread the title as "Come for the Sex, Stay for the Tranny" I didn't even blink.

mushroom said...

Lola ... thy name is Fluke.

mushroom said...

Isn't it sad? Used to be if somebody said they had a tranny problem, I would ask if they had checked their fluid.

walt said...

So there I was today, poking around on the internet, minding my own bidnez, reading this and that, and coming to rest on The B'ob's latest post. As I read along, I suddenly realized: I didn't have any pants on! Ooh, I felt so >>exposed!<< But, wait ... surely this must be a dream sequence, right?

Oh well.

I remember reading how John Lilly decided he wanted to speak with Franklin Merrell-Wolff, the problem being that no one seemed to know where the man lived. Those who might know would cryptically say, "Gone herb picking on the mount [somewhere near Lone Pine, CA], cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown." But Lilly persisted and finally found him in a little house at the end of a narrow mountain road. When he answered the knock on the door, Merrell-Wolff said, "Come in. Anyone who finds this door finds it open."

That account has rather stuck with me, and I adopted its point.

julie said...

:D

I'm just glad to see there's still froth. Sorry if I helped blow your cover, though. Funny thing, just this bright and early I decided to do a spot of standing meditation, something I haven't done in a couple of years, at least. Must be something in the air today.

walt said...

"...something in the air..."

I've heard those rumors.

And yes, it's surprising what can be discovered just standing around.

ge said...

speaking of headlines, Bob deserves a prize for his daily-- humorous & multi-entendred, and 'never' a miss
Listening to KIMONO MY HOUSE -an aged fave, their best i'd claim

Gagdad Bob said...

I saw them in concert at the Santa Monica Civic right after that came out. Or maybe it was Propaganda, since it was 1974....

Joan of Argghh! said...

Good evening dear Raccoons! And Walt!

Some extra-curricular reading for your consideration: God is dead. Can I have His stuff?".

Atheists. It's not that they want His stuff, they just don't want you to have it.

julie said...

Thanks for that, Joan. The irony is that the secular already have their religion(s), found in varying forms within the tenets of leftism.

Tony said...

Critical Theory is for the homeless and the lost. No one can survive, much less thrive, on what it represents. I know a few old men who still flog it and some 22-34 year olds who try to wedge themselves into academic positions by wearing the Frankfurt armband, but if you fall in love, and have kids, and have to earn a living outside the ivy walls, this stuff tends to lose steam.

And yet, the damage has been massive.

It's pretty clear to me that every Critical Theory person I've ever met has a cramped and unattractive personality. Sour, vacant, angry. So perhaps one way to address it is simply to point out its sterility. It seems to be the opposite of the words "flourishing," "positive," and "alive."

Van Harvey said...

" As Murray documents in his Coming Apart, the liberation resulted in a vast increase in cultural pathology, including broken homes, fatherless children, criminality, abortion, new and deadly venereal diseases, etc. But progressives do not call this "pathology." Rather, for them it is progress: the progress of breaking eggs in order to cook your goose."

Exactly so, proregressivism in action. And thanks for the reminder on Lind's " What Critical Theory is about is simply criticizing. It calls for the most destructive criticism possible, in every possible way, designed to bring the current order down" (Lind).", which'll fit in really well in a post I'm working on.

And I won't even bring up how many times I've linked to Lind's article in the past, thats ok, Vanderleun posts on it and bam! its posted on... Thas ok.

Wait, haven't you mentioned it in a post before? Thats embarrassing. No matter, I'll just criticize my criticism of your criticism of his criticism that I'm criticizing myself for... wait, I think there might be possibilities for a new cable news channel in here....

Tony said...

So the sex is the bait and the tyranny is the switch. Nero, your table is ready.

The sex bait is appealing because it's both tangible and reductive -- you don't have to think about it, you "just do it." But it's empty in the end and lonely. Fullness is the answer to that, cf. "the ripeness is all." In order to enjoy that fullness, you need real freedom, not some cheap license that only gets you past the bouncer.

To flip this equation would be what... "come for the fullness and stay for the freedom?"

Van Harvey said...

"Herbert Marcuse.... saw the 60s student rebellion as the great chance" to begin refascining man."

Love that.

Van Harvey said...

;-) John, Mushroom, you're killing me.

I don't have a problem with that of course, but my neighbors... 16 of my closest coworkers that've been tossed onto two big picnic tables during a move, they would like to know where to send the bills for their clothings, keyboards, etc.

I told 'em I had an idea of what address you might give them, but promised to ask.

Van Harvey said...

Verdiales said "To flip this equation would be what... "come for the fullness and stay for the freedom?"

Yes, which highlights how well the "Come for the Sex, Stay for the Tyranny" works and accomplishes, because of course you can't just 'come for the sex', to get it, you've got to disregard and throw away every critical tenet and mores of your entire culture. You cannot 'come for the sex' and maintain manners, respect, family, respect for your history and the ideals of those who didn't 'come for the sex'... it's an ad for a fire sale in Hades, Everything must go!

And of course, when the Fire Sale is over and everything has gone, the Tyranny is ready to begin.

Cond0011 said...

"Animals -- or let us just say "life" -- are also split off from the cosmos, except they have no conscious awareness of this fact. In order to know this, consciousness would have to wrap around itself, as it does in human beings. Only man may become "critical," so to speak, capable of offering everything from reasons and explanations to pretexts and likely stories."

Ironically, many times when someone refuses to 'explain' themselves to a sincere and powerless query, alot of times it is because they have done an action that was either animal or less than animal in stature.

"For example, life seems to somehow exist apart from matter. While obviously dependent on matter, it dances upon its precipice, somewhat like a whirlpool, which is a form created by the ever-changing water coursing through it. Thus, the form cannot be reduced to "water," since the water is always changing."

Beautiful.

The human form is merely a vessel upon which we reside. When we were made in G-ds image, it was the image of our being - not our form.

Our form is that of a monkey - that of which is the genus called 'Homo Sapien' - even though people would not agree with this fact. Though there are animals with a greater brain-pan than our own, this monkey brain appears quite sufficient for our uses.

The form of a monkey... hmmm.... and who says G-d doesn't have a sense of humor.

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