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Copyright © 2007-2010 Daniel Marks | beyondthemind.net. All Rights Reserved.
This website went online on November 22, 2007 and is being continually developed.
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. | The Enduring Myth of Leadership
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." (Lord Acton, 1887)
Society runs on greed, envy, and fear - at no time has this shown to be more true than in the current financial turmoil in the U.S., which has rippled throughout the world. Even if the issue is ostensibly resolved with a taxpayer bailout, the underlying psychological problems remain, notably self-interest. Capitalism itself, founded on the principle of private gain and private profit, is under threat as the ruling global ideology. It is based primarily on debt, the illusory notion that borrowed money will always create more money in the long run. This debt, however, is masked in other terms, such as leveraging, and risk management. All major corporations and financial institutions run on it. It is the essence of greed, and greed is the essence of the self. Even a financial crash - recession, depression - does not stop the cycle, it only dampens it for a time.
Hence, the total U.S. National Debt alone has been described as a time bomb yet to explode. (This accumulated debt is a simple result of national spending exceeding revenue, which is personal debt on a national scale.) The debt-laden bailouts occurring on a global basis are a demonstration yet again of that old capitalist principle: 'Privatize the profits and socialize the losses.' This stark division of wealth perpetuates inequality and injustice, thus promoting underlying tensions that undermine the stability of the world economic system in the long run.
If ever the global society has been threatened it is now (see the twin debt clock at bottom of the page). America is facing future bankruptcy. All the current and former leaders in economics, banking and politics have directly brought this situation about - along with the public and their insistent demands for credit to fund their avaricious consumer lifestyles - yet people will still not examine the nature of greed and the makeup of the self that is the first cause of the problem. Instead, they put total reliance on authority to correct the problem, rather than accepting personal responsibility.
The financial problems of the world - like all societal issues - are a two-way street. You cannot sheet home the blame only to the authorities, as mentioned, as the public as a whole supports and sanctions these people in power. If the public did not, they would demand change to the system, and beyond the occasional failed revolution (which simply replaced one inequitable social system for another) the public as a whole has never demanded wholesale changes to the current system, as they have a vested interest in it. Thus, history shows that no deep change ever takes place, only a continuous process of minor reform - which changes nothing in the end as the primary causes of social ills are never tackled.. The primary public demand is for security, which is the continuation of the status quo. This is the mindset that says that deep change in society - in the social order and political authority - is a dangerous thing, which would bring on public insecurity. It is the self that is always seeking security, in one form or another. This entire social system that seeks national security (of the nation-state, not of the world itself) is the self writ large.
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"Is the problem not one of refusing to accept a leader? This alone brings equality in social and economic relationships.
When thrown on his own responsibility, man will inevitably question. ... The follower is the greatest curse."
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: pp. 146-7)
There are no leaders who can help us. History proves it. If you examine closely all the U.S. and world leaders and their personalities, from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill, they are all just like us - deeply flawed, power-seeking and self-centered. They act through great conflicts of interest, although this is always officially denied. And they get into power solely because of others, the compliant, docile voters. Remove their positional authority and titles and no leaders are either needed or required. We are our own leaders.
It is remarkable how people see the foibles and corruption of their past and present leaders but are eternally hopeful that the next batch will somehow be different; that they will in some way solve all the problems inherent in society. This is especially so when the next possible leader is perceived to embrace social change, or reform, which is no more than minor change at the margins - as in the case of the new U.S. president, Barack Obama. It is because of the public's strong desire for their new leaders to exert authority, leadership and drive for change that they lose the capacity of detached reason and discernment, the ability to see the actual person before them, instead of a projected and idealized image.
Perhaps the greatest attraction of the public towards political leaders is their power of oratory, which is a major factor now with the U.S. president. He deliberately panders to the audience, giving them what they want to hear, as in the tradition of the great charismatic leaders of the past. If you look closely, however, you will observe that these are only empty words - mere rhetoric - and there is nothing substantial behind them. Indeed, the political leader will lie and distort with abandon, and without remorse - justifying everything under the rubric of National Security. The carefully polished phrases they have rehearsed are in fact used as a mask to disguise the fact that there is no creativity/originality in the speaker. He or she is only dressing up for new audiences stale ideas and regurgitated reforms that have all been tried - and failed - in the past. When this dawns on the public, there is a shift to the opposing party, and the whole process thus repeats itself.
Nothing of eternal value has been learned from this past - a notorious and powerful orator of the 20th century in Germany was a tyrant and a megalomaniac. When these lessons are not learned the problems at the core of them repeat themselves in new crises - the current major loss of confidence in the financial system is a case in point. This is because the underlying issues of greed, fear and self-absorption are not faced and resolved. This endemic selfishness blinds people to rational behaviour. They then ignore both the past lessons and all the warnings that are issued before the crisis actually occurs, which is the case in this current situation. And the entire mainstream media in all its forms is complicit in this wilful ignorance, as all the media barons go along for the profitable ride. The herd mentality is a very powerful one - the self is basically an imitator.
So, the public then looks to other leaders to lead them out of the morass, only to have the whole cycle repeat itself again and again, down the road. This desire for leaders to lead, this insistent demand for authority figures, has produced this corrupt, deceitful, superficial and threatened society.
References & Further Reading:
A startling and cogent glimpse of a long line of official lies, deceit and insidious propaganda of the two world powers, the US and Britain, behind the creation of a battleground of the Cold War, in Afghanistan, against the so-called arch-enemy and "Evil Empire," the Soviet Union, which had its initial beginnings in 1973 - with the inevitable divisive consequences that are only too apparent today: Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story, by Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, Reviewed by Anthony Fenton; Asia Times Online, May 2, 2009; The apparent breakdown of democracy at the highest level of Congress and the White House, during the Bush/Cheney Presidency: Cheney is linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project, by Scott Shane, The New York Times, July 11, 2009.
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| The Profit Motive: The decline & fall of the mind
"There is no end to money and power; the more you have, the more you want and there is no end to it." (Notebook, page 214)
Our lives from the cradle to the grave are dominated, in one form or another, by money. We have a covert motive in so much of our actions: Is this going to bring me money, and how much is it going to bring? Corporations, likewise (not non-profits), are founded and driven entirely on the profit motive; without it they would act in the overall public interest, not the selfish interest of some select wealthy shareholders. The profit motive sanctions greed and makes it acceptable, and even respectable, in the eyes of the public. Yet there are scant few who stand up to the profit motive in society, per se.
The reason? The accumulation of wealth gives great pleasure. (And power - money in a very real sense equals power, the power to purchase material goods, as well as employing people; he who pays the piper calls the tune.) Wealth itself supposedly brings about physical security; it certainly brings with it celebrated social status. Rich people are never ignored; the greater their wealth, the greater their position in society. Nearly everyone wants to emulate their wealth, theor possessions, and exalted social status, and this is the driving force of envy. The twin motivators behind all economic bubbles are the pleasure of accumulation (greed) and the envy of the people above you on the social scale. Every national economy is built on these basic human desires. They are the desires of the self.
Yet, always shadowing the rich is the fear of losing their money, and with it their privileged position in society. Apprehension shadows greed every step of the way up the social ladder. Thus you have the cogent statement: "Pleasure and fear are two sides of the same coin."
So, periodically this pursuit of pleasure, manifesting as a greed bubble, reaches an unsustainable level, followed by the bust, which is the period when fear comes to the fore. This fear is displayed socially and economically as a lack of confidence, and it is this lack of confidence, which is really trust, which prolongs and deepens the downturn. Only when the wealthy can be confident once again of increasing their money does the economy pull out of a recession, or depression. The whole system of capitalism revolves around this wealth creation process - which is founded on human greed (which is the primary motivation of the self - that is, to accumulate, to gain, to achieve a result, over a period of time).
Leading economists, in an attempt to explain the latest boom/bust debacle, have resorted again to their great past 'authority' - in this case, John Maynard Keynes (Wikipedia article) and his bible, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Instead of thinking the situation out for themselves, they have bizarrely resurrected the phrase that supposedly clarifies all - 'animal spirits' (Financial Times, March 8, 2009).
So, because of this wilful intent in avoiding the real issues of greed, fear and envy, they once again present a traditional euphemism to explain why it all occurred, thus neatly setting up all the grounds for yet another bubble and downturn. This is precisely why history repeats itself. Human beings have a remarkable capacity to avoid looking at the root cause of a social problem.
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"No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon." (Jesus; Luke, Chapter 16)
"There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else."
Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth, 1889 (The 2nd-richest man in history, after Rockefeller)
The richest person who has ever lived, John D. Rockefeller, was a confirmed and lifelong Baptist, who became for a time a Sunday School teacher. He was to say about his wealth, achieved through the immensely profitable oil business: "God gave me the money." In this extraordinarily egotistical statement, he had managed to marry together (rationalize) his religion - Christianity - with his wealth. (This distorted thinking had a great influence on subsequent corporate chieftains, principally because of Rockefeller's demonstrable 'success,' arguably the greatest in business history.) The Christian God became his complete justification for seeking profit from the work output of others (when one person gains in society, other people always lose - it is always a zero-sum game). That is, religious beliefs are used to rationalize human exploitation, which is what profit accumulation actually amounts to.
(This same rationalization process occurs in war, in fact in wars going back to the Crusades, where God is invoked as being on the side of both combatants, as in George W. Bush invoking God as being on the U.S. side in the stated war against terrorism - equally, the Muslim combatants on the other side invoked Allah (the Muslim God) as being on their side.)
Now, 100 years on, the world has another wealthy person putting his God up to sanctify the accumulation of wealth. This time he is a banker, the chairman and ceo of the world's most prestigious investment bank, Goldman Sachs. As the head of one of the two great winning banks emerging from the financial crisis (the other being JP Morgan Chase) he is the leading banker in America. In a recent interview with John Arlidge of The Sunday Times, he declared that he was doing "God's work." (Presumably the chairman, Lloyd Blankfein, who is Jewish - the bank has Jewish founders - is a Jewish Christian, so he is referring to the Christian God.) This then neatly justifies all his and the bank's actions leading up to and following the financial crisis, irrespective of any corruption and/or exploitation of others that has been committed.
(Self-justification, or what is known as cognitive dissonance, is the belief by the self that what one is doing is right, that is, all their actions are rationalized in one form or another. Consequently they are incapable of admitting at any stage they have been completely wrong - their partial mistakes in some areas are grudgingly conceded. This inapacity is because self-justification is the primary belief structure of the self-image - thus any admittance of complete failure would be so damaging to this central image it would collapse, and the person's convictions would collapse along with it. Some of the psychology of this is explored in the book: Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Elliot Aronson & Carol Tavris, 2008.)
This marrying of religious belief and human action can thus be the perfect justification for all human behavior, for such statements cannot be logically challenged, as they are a matter of personal conviction. Yet it is a complete misreading of the words of Christianity's founder, as in the statement above about God and mammon. This indicates the way the mind completely twists the original principles and statements of the religion's founding, which the believers profess to believe in. All of this hypocrisy and contradiction is about personal gain, the primary motivation of that thing we call the self, the me.
References & Further Reading:
* Greed Layered on Greed, Frosted with Recklessness, by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, Books of the Times - a review, especially, of the book: Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J. P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe, by Gillian Tett - June 15, 2009;
* Happy Days Blog: In Coin of Praise, Money, sovereign power, trust, and belief, by Simon Critchley, The New York Times, August 30, 2009;
* 'I'm doing God's work.' Meet Mr Goldman Sachs, by John Arlidge, The Sunday Times, November 8, 2009.
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| War: The Eternal Division of Mankind
The most enduring principle in the history of diplomacy and international politics goes thus: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." (The most dramatic social movement demonstrating this principle was initial Western backing for early 1930s Fascism against the greater enemy, Communism.)
The entire history of man is the history of tribes (now nation-states) and their cultivated enemies, of division and conflict. Now it is cloaked, however, in that eternal justification-for-war phrase: "maintaining the balance of power' - the relentless geopolitics of power competition. It is why, when Communism fell, it was stated this epochal event represented: "The end of history" - the end of superpower conflict. It proved not to be, now that we have the 'never ending war on terrorism' and the relentless rise again of Russian nationalism. It's the Us and Them game all over again.
Humanity needs wars; democracy needs wars (in America they refer to it as 'endless militarism') - enemies/wars are used by the political leadership to focus the minds of the general public, distracting many from other valid concerns. Wars are also great energizers; enemies give a direction and purpose to daily life. They are also the greatest stimulus to business profits (the military-industrial complex), as well as to military and then civil invention.
We are all implicated in this war machine. The vast majority believe in a 'just war,' or 'righteous war,' - a concept that goes back to Roman times and is sanctioned by the Catholic Church and its theologians. It is interpreted by the U.S. to be cases where the national defense and national security of countries is at stake from aggression (behind all wars is the love of country?). This is pitted, of course, against 'unjust wars.' Thus World War 11 is seen as justifiable, to counter the aggression of two bellicose nations - and the appeasement of these two countries was reviled. Even though this national aggression was inititally sanctioned by the very powers that later took up arms to defeat it.
We are all complicit in these wars, in this identification with something greater than ourselves, the country we live in, or the god of some religion and philosophy we revere, all of which is an elaborate extension of the self. We all accept and condone this social system built on power, domination and exploitation of others. We simply do not challenge this system in a deep and consistent way, as it gives us satisfaction in so many ways. In this very real sense, we are the system, we buttress it - we are the world.
Man talks endlessly about peace but the last thing he really wants is for wars to end (unless the war threatens free trade among the wealthier nations, then all means are employed to avoid conflict, lest the profits of the multinational corporations be threatened). The war-profiteering global arms industry is a lucrative business in each nation's drive for economic superiority, which is really what the competitive game of nations is all about. This game (which includes the threat of war - the need of nations to rearm to defend themselves against perceived enemies - rather than actual war itself), is as old as the superiority of the dominant tribe, demonstrating yet again there has been no evolution of the human mind. Only a steady decline.
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| The Universal Craving for Fame
"To want to be famous is tawdry, trivial, stupid, it has no meaning; but, because we don't love what we are doing, we want to enrich ourselves with fame.
Our present education is rotten because it teaches us to love success and not what we are doing."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Anonymous Creativity' - November 3, 2008)
Nearly everyone in the world desires status, in one form or another. Status is success (as rated by society, which usually translates this to wealth). Status is fame, of having achieved, of being recognized by others for your talents, efforts and accomplishments. This desire for recognition is a primary urge of the self. It may not be necessarily overt, but the desire is there, hidden away in the corners of the mind. You can see it in yourself. As history has demonstrated however, time and again, recognition comes at a terrible price, which in the end destroys. This self-generated primal urge is always narcissistic and it is this self-centredness that distorts the mind, that sets one upon the long road to self-destruction.
A recent survey of teenagers showed that 90% wanted to be famous. This demand creates the supply in society, thus the resultant culture we see all around - which is celebrity-obsession. (People are obsessed with celebrities because their lives are so dull and routine. They look up to idols they have put on a pedestal and they project so-called glamour into their lives. This is, like movies, yet another escape from the dreary lives they lead.)
Thus you have reality TV, the various national TV Idol competitions, YouTube, every form of exhibitionism, extravagant and narcisisstic behavior of every sort. It is disguised as individuality, as one's personal so-called uniqueness. Yet all of it is the imitation of others, of role models and heroes, of social icons, there is nothing original in it at all - although everyone invariably denies it. Thus you have certain film stars and sportsmen and women with undoubted physical talents - inevitably the result of years of strenuous practice - who are worshipped as icons to look up to and rewarded with extravagant financial incentives (hence their emulation by the mass public), way beyond rationality. Narcissism, or self-worship, is not generally seen as a major problem in society, so it is very prevalent in every corner of it. It is a worship of iconic images, held in the mind of the idolater.
But what is behind all this activity? What is the self, what is the very basis of it? Is it identification? Identifying oneself to ones talents, capacities and ambitions? (If one did not identify with the movement of thought, would there be a self?)
It is one of the most extraordinary things in life that we have never actually looked closely at this thing we call the self, or ego. Everyone appears to simply take it for granted. Like a brain, we all have an ego. We never grow up questioning it, we don't challenge it or see its essential structure. It is highly self-protective, thwarting attempts to examine it, to dissolve it. (The talks threaten the self, which is the dominant reason they have not been taken up by the general public.)
The self is an image is it not? An image that we adopted very early in life because our parents had their own self-images which they then unwittingly passed on to the baby. Thus the image is imbedded so early in life it appears to be a natural thing we were born with, an intrinsic part of 'human nature. And it is because of this early incubation in the mind that we never question it; we just accept it along with everything else in life.
The self-image then gets hurt - by our parents, by our relatives, by school teachers, by peers, by siblings. The deeper the hurt, the greater the withdrawal and wall of resistance built up in the mind. The self is hurt, the objective is to prevent further hurt, which actually brings further pain. But it is the self that is hurt, we are not hurt. And this hurt simmers in the background and causes frustration; it is the root cause of sustained carryover anger. And it is this anger that periodically explodes into violence as a means of release. All because of damage to a self-constructed image.
Yet, if no image is built up there is no consequent hurt - but no-one wants to end it. This carefully nurtured product of imagination competes with others to become someone, someday - that is, to become famous. And thus rich. This is naked ambition, which is cherished and nurtured by all of us. In fact, fame itself consists of a series of images, both in the minds of the famous themselves and in the public 'fans' who view them as famous. The entire structure of fame is manufactured by promoters, publicists and public relations experts who manipulate the public perception of their creations. And the public goes willingly along for the ride, wanting that so-called glamour to enliven their dull lives.
Unless the self is understood in all its self-destructiveness then the inner tensions it produces amongst people will be the undoing of the human race.
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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." (Lord Acton, 1887)
Society runs on greed, envy, and fear - at no time has this shown to be more true than in the current financial turmoil in the U.S., which has rippled throughout the world. Even if the issue is ostensibly resolved with a taxpayer bailout, the underlying psychological problems remain, notably self-interest. Capitalism itself, founded on the principle of private gain and private profit, is under threat as the ruling global ideology. It is based primarily on debt, the illusory notion that borrowed money will always create more money in the long run. This debt, however, is masked in other terms, such as leveraging, and risk management. All major corporations and financial institutions run on it. It is the essence of greed, and greed is the essence of the self. Even a financial crash - recession, depression - does not stop the cycle, it only dampens it for a time.
Hence, the total U.S. National Debt alone has been described as a time bomb yet to explode. (This accumulated debt is a simple result of national spending exceeding revenue, which is personal debt on a national scale.) The debt-laden bailouts occurring on a global basis are a demonstration yet again of that old capitalist principle: 'Privatize the profits and socialize the losses.' This stark division of wealth perpetuates inequality and injustice, thus promoting underlying tensions that undermine the stability of the world economic system in the long run.
If ever the global society has been threatened it is now (see the twin debt clock at bottom of the page). America is facing future bankruptcy. All the current and former leaders in economics, banking and politics have directly brought this situation about - along with the public and their insistent demands for credit to fund their avaricious consumer lifestyles - yet people will still not examine the nature of greed and the makeup of the self that is the first cause of the problem. Instead, they put total reliance on authority to correct the problem, rather than accepting personal responsibility.
The financial problems of the world - like all societal issues - are a two-way street. You cannot sheet home the blame only to the authorities, as mentioned, as the public as a whole supports and sanctions these people in power. If the public did not, they would demand change to the system, and beyond the occasional failed revolution (which simply replaced one inequitable social system for another) the public as a whole has never demanded wholesale changes to the current system, as they have a vested interest in it. Thus, history shows that no deep change ever takes place, only a continuous process of minor reform - which changes nothing in the end as the primary causes of social ills are never tackled.. The primary public demand is for security, which is the continuation of the status quo. This is the mindset that says that deep change in society - in the social order and political authority - is a dangerous thing, which would bring on public insecurity. It is the self that is always seeking security, in one form or another. This entire social system that seeks national security (of the nation-state, not of the world itself) is the self writ large.
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"Is the problem not one of refusing to accept a leader? This alone brings equality in social and economic relationships.
When thrown on his own responsibility, man will inevitably question. ... The follower is the greatest curse."
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: pp. 146-7)
There are no leaders who can help us. History proves it. If you examine closely all the U.S. and world leaders and their personalities, from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill, they are all just like us - deeply flawed, power-seeking and self-centered. They act through great conflicts of interest, although this is always officially denied. And they get into power solely because of others, the compliant, docile voters. Remove their positional authority and titles and no leaders are either needed or required. We are our own leaders.
It is remarkable how people see the foibles and corruption of their past and present leaders but are eternally hopeful that the next batch will somehow be different; that they will in some way solve all the problems inherent in society. This is especially so when the next possible leader is perceived to embrace social change, or reform, which is no more than minor change at the margins - as in the case of the new U.S. president, Barack Obama. It is because of the public's strong desire for their new leaders to exert authority, leadership and drive for change that they lose the capacity of detached reason and discernment, the ability to see the actual person before them, instead of a projected and idealized image.
Perhaps the greatest attraction of the public towards political leaders is their power of oratory, which is a major factor now with the U.S. president. He deliberately panders to the audience, giving them what they want to hear, as in the tradition of the great charismatic leaders of the past. If you look closely, however, you will observe that these are only empty words - mere rhetoric - and there is nothing substantial behind them. Indeed, the political leader will lie and distort with abandon, and without remorse - justifying everything under the rubric of National Security. The carefully polished phrases they have rehearsed are in fact used as a mask to disguise the fact that there is no creativity/originality in the speaker. He or she is only dressing up for new audiences stale ideas and regurgitated reforms that have all been tried - and failed - in the past. When this dawns on the public, there is a shift to the opposing party, and the whole process thus repeats itself.
Nothing of eternal value has been learned from this past - a notorious and powerful orator of the 20th century in Germany was a tyrant and a megalomaniac. When these lessons are not learned the problems at the core of them repeat themselves in new crises - the current major loss of confidence in the financial system is a case in point. This is because the underlying issues of greed, fear and self-absorption are not faced and resolved. This endemic selfishness blinds people to rational behaviour. They then ignore both the past lessons and all the warnings that are issued before the crisis actually occurs, which is the case in this current situation. And the entire mainstream media in all its forms is complicit in this wilful ignorance, as all the media barons go along for the profitable ride. The herd mentality is a very powerful one - the self is basically an imitator.
So, the public then looks to other leaders to lead them out of the morass, only to have the whole cycle repeat itself again and again, down the road. This desire for leaders to lead, this insistent demand for authority figures, has produced this corrupt, deceitful, superficial and threatened society.
References & Further Reading:
A startling and cogent glimpse of a long line of official lies, deceit and insidious propaganda of the two world powers, the US and Britain, behind the creation of a battleground of the Cold War, in Afghanistan, against the so-called arch-enemy and "Evil Empire," the Soviet Union, which had its initial beginnings in 1973 - with the inevitable divisive consequences that are only too apparent today: Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story, by Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, Reviewed by Anthony Fenton; Asia Times Online, May 2, 2009; The apparent breakdown of democracy at the highest level of Congress and the White House, during the Bush/Cheney Presidency: Cheney is linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project, by Scott Shane, The New York Times, July 11, 2009.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| The Profit Motive: The decline & fall of the mind
"There is no end to money and power; the more you have, the more you want and there is no end to it." (Notebook, page 214)
Our lives from the cradle to the grave are dominated, in one form or another, by money. We have a covert motive in so much of our actions: Is this going to bring me money, and how much is it going to bring? Corporations, likewise (not non-profits), are founded and driven entirely on the profit motive; without it they would act in the overall public interest, not the selfish interest of some select wealthy shareholders. The profit motive sanctions greed and makes it acceptable, and even respectable, in the eyes of the public. Yet there are scant few who stand up to the profit motive in society, per se.
The reason? The accumulation of wealth gives great pleasure. (And power - money in a very real sense equals power, the power to purchase material goods, as well as employing people; he who pays the piper calls the tune.) Wealth itself supposedly brings about physical security; it certainly brings with it celebrated social status. Rich people are never ignored; the greater their wealth, the greater their position in society. Nearly everyone wants to emulate their wealth, theor possessions, and exalted social status, and this is the driving force of envy. The twin motivators behind all economic bubbles are the pleasure of accumulation (greed) and the envy of the people above you on the social scale. Every national economy is built on these basic human desires. They are the desires of the self.
Yet, always shadowing the rich is the fear of losing their money, and with it their privileged position in society. Apprehension shadows greed every step of the way up the social ladder. Thus you have the cogent statement: "Pleasure and fear are two sides of the same coin."
So, periodically this pursuit of pleasure, manifesting as a greed bubble, reaches an unsustainable level, followed by the bust, which is the period when fear comes to the fore. This fear is displayed socially and economically as a lack of confidence, and it is this lack of confidence, which is really trust, which prolongs and deepens the downturn. Only when the wealthy can be confident once again of increasing their money does the economy pull out of a recession, or depression. The whole system of capitalism revolves around this wealth creation process - which is founded on human greed (which is the primary motivation of the self - that is, to accumulate, to gain, to achieve a result, over a period of time).
Leading economists, in an attempt to explain the latest boom/bust debacle, have resorted again to their great past 'authority' - in this case, John Maynard Keynes (Wikipedia article) and his bible, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Instead of thinking the situation out for themselves, they have bizarrely resurrected the phrase that supposedly clarifies all - 'animal spirits' (Financial Times, March 8, 2009).
So, because of this wilful intent in avoiding the real issues of greed, fear and envy, they once again present a traditional euphemism to explain why it all occurred, thus neatly setting up all the grounds for yet another bubble and downturn. This is precisely why history repeats itself. Human beings have a remarkable capacity to avoid looking at the root cause of a social problem.
~~~~~~~
"No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon." (Jesus; Luke, Chapter 16)
"There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else."
Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth, 1889 (The 2nd-richest man in history, after Rockefeller)
The richest person who has ever lived, John D. Rockefeller, was a confirmed and lifelong Baptist, who became for a time a Sunday School teacher. He was to say about his wealth, achieved through the immensely profitable oil business: "God gave me the money." In this extraordinarily egotistical statement, he had managed to marry together (rationalize) his religion - Christianity - with his wealth. (This distorted thinking had a great influence on subsequent corporate chieftains, principally because of Rockefeller's demonstrable 'success,' arguably the greatest in business history.) The Christian God became his complete justification for seeking profit from the work output of others (when one person gains in society, other people always lose - it is always a zero-sum game). That is, religious beliefs are used to rationalize human exploitation, which is what profit accumulation actually amounts to.
(This same rationalization process occurs in war, in fact in wars going back to the Crusades, where God is invoked as being on the side of both combatants, as in George W. Bush invoking God as being on the U.S. side in the stated war against terrorism - equally, the Muslim combatants on the other side invoked Allah (the Muslim God) as being on their side.)
Now, 100 years on, the world has another wealthy person putting his God up to sanctify the accumulation of wealth. This time he is a banker, the chairman and ceo of the world's most prestigious investment bank, Goldman Sachs. As the head of one of the two great winning banks emerging from the financial crisis (the other being JP Morgan Chase) he is the leading banker in America. In a recent interview with John Arlidge of The Sunday Times, he declared that he was doing "God's work." (Presumably the chairman, Lloyd Blankfein, who is Jewish - the bank has Jewish founders - is a Jewish Christian, so he is referring to the Christian God.) This then neatly justifies all his and the bank's actions leading up to and following the financial crisis, irrespective of any corruption and/or exploitation of others that has been committed.
(Self-justification, or what is known as cognitive dissonance, is the belief by the self that what one is doing is right, that is, all their actions are rationalized in one form or another. Consequently they are incapable of admitting at any stage they have been completely wrong - their partial mistakes in some areas are grudgingly conceded. This inapacity is because self-justification is the primary belief structure of the self-image - thus any admittance of complete failure would be so damaging to this central image it would collapse, and the person's convictions would collapse along with it. Some of the psychology of this is explored in the book: Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Elliot Aronson & Carol Tavris, 2008.)
This marrying of religious belief and human action can thus be the perfect justification for all human behavior, for such statements cannot be logically challenged, as they are a matter of personal conviction. Yet it is a complete misreading of the words of Christianity's founder, as in the statement above about God and mammon. This indicates the way the mind completely twists the original principles and statements of the religion's founding, which the believers profess to believe in. All of this hypocrisy and contradiction is about personal gain, the primary motivation of that thing we call the self, the me.
References & Further Reading:
* Greed Layered on Greed, Frosted with Recklessness, by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, Books of the Times - a review, especially, of the book: Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J. P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe, by Gillian Tett - June 15, 2009;
* Happy Days Blog: In Coin of Praise, Money, sovereign power, trust, and belief, by Simon Critchley, The New York Times, August 30, 2009;
* 'I'm doing God's work.' Meet Mr Goldman Sachs, by John Arlidge, The Sunday Times, November 8, 2009.
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| War: The Eternal Division of Mankind
The most enduring principle in the history of diplomacy and international politics goes thus: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." (The most dramatic social movement demonstrating this principle was initial Western backing for early 1930s Fascism against the greater enemy, Communism.)
The entire history of man is the history of tribes (now nation-states) and their cultivated enemies, of division and conflict. Now it is cloaked, however, in that eternal justification-for-war phrase: "maintaining the balance of power' - the relentless geopolitics of power competition. It is why, when Communism fell, it was stated this epochal event represented: "The end of history" - the end of superpower conflict. It proved not to be, now that we have the 'never ending war on terrorism' and the relentless rise again of Russian nationalism. It's the Us and Them game all over again.
Humanity needs wars; democracy needs wars (in America they refer to it as 'endless militarism') - enemies/wars are used by the political leadership to focus the minds of the general public, distracting many from other valid concerns. Wars are also great energizers; enemies give a direction and purpose to daily life. They are also the greatest stimulus to business profits (the military-industrial complex), as well as to military and then civil invention.
We are all implicated in this war machine. The vast majority believe in a 'just war,' or 'righteous war,' - a concept that goes back to Roman times and is sanctioned by the Catholic Church and its theologians. It is interpreted by the U.S. to be cases where the national defense and national security of countries is at stake from aggression (behind all wars is the love of country?). This is pitted, of course, against 'unjust wars.' Thus World War 11 is seen as justifiable, to counter the aggression of two bellicose nations - and the appeasement of these two countries was reviled. Even though this national aggression was inititally sanctioned by the very powers that later took up arms to defeat it.
We are all complicit in these wars, in this identification with something greater than ourselves, the country we live in, or the god of some religion and philosophy we revere, all of which is an elaborate extension of the self. We all accept and condone this social system built on power, domination and exploitation of others. We simply do not challenge this system in a deep and consistent way, as it gives us satisfaction in so many ways. In this very real sense, we are the system, we buttress it - we are the world.
Man talks endlessly about peace but the last thing he really wants is for wars to end (unless the war threatens free trade among the wealthier nations, then all means are employed to avoid conflict, lest the profits of the multinational corporations be threatened). The war-profiteering global arms industry is a lucrative business in each nation's drive for economic superiority, which is really what the competitive game of nations is all about. This game (which includes the threat of war - the need of nations to rearm to defend themselves against perceived enemies - rather than actual war itself), is as old as the superiority of the dominant tribe, demonstrating yet again there has been no evolution of the human mind. Only a steady decline.
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| The Universal Craving for Fame
"To want to be famous is tawdry, trivial, stupid, it has no meaning; but, because we don't love what we are doing, we want to enrich ourselves with fame.
Our present education is rotten because it teaches us to love success and not what we are doing."
(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'Anonymous Creativity' - November 3, 2008)
Nearly everyone in the world desires status, in one form or another. Status is success (as rated by society, which usually translates this to wealth). Status is fame, of having achieved, of being recognized by others for your talents, efforts and accomplishments. This desire for recognition is a primary urge of the self. It may not be necessarily overt, but the desire is there, hidden away in the corners of the mind. You can see it in yourself. As history has demonstrated however, time and again, recognition comes at a terrible price, which in the end destroys. This self-generated primal urge is always narcissistic and it is this self-centredness that distorts the mind, that sets one upon the long road to self-destruction.
A recent survey of teenagers showed that 90% wanted to be famous. This demand creates the supply in society, thus the resultant culture we see all around - which is celebrity-obsession. (People are obsessed with celebrities because their lives are so dull and routine. They look up to idols they have put on a pedestal and they project so-called glamour into their lives. This is, like movies, yet another escape from the dreary lives they lead.)
Thus you have reality TV, the various national TV Idol competitions, YouTube, every form of exhibitionism, extravagant and narcisisstic behavior of every sort. It is disguised as individuality, as one's personal so-called uniqueness. Yet all of it is the imitation of others, of role models and heroes, of social icons, there is nothing original in it at all - although everyone invariably denies it. Thus you have certain film stars and sportsmen and women with undoubted physical talents - inevitably the result of years of strenuous practice - who are worshipped as icons to look up to and rewarded with extravagant financial incentives (hence their emulation by the mass public), way beyond rationality. Narcissism, or self-worship, is not generally seen as a major problem in society, so it is very prevalent in every corner of it. It is a worship of iconic images, held in the mind of the idolater.
But what is behind all this activity? What is the self, what is the very basis of it? Is it identification? Identifying oneself to ones talents, capacities and ambitions? (If one did not identify with the movement of thought, would there be a self?)
It is one of the most extraordinary things in life that we have never actually looked closely at this thing we call the self, or ego. Everyone appears to simply take it for granted. Like a brain, we all have an ego. We never grow up questioning it, we don't challenge it or see its essential structure. It is highly self-protective, thwarting attempts to examine it, to dissolve it. (The talks threaten the self, which is the dominant reason they have not been taken up by the general public.)
The self is an image is it not? An image that we adopted very early in life because our parents had their own self-images which they then unwittingly passed on to the baby. Thus the image is imbedded so early in life it appears to be a natural thing we were born with, an intrinsic part of 'human nature. And it is because of this early incubation in the mind that we never question it; we just accept it along with everything else in life.
The self-image then gets hurt - by our parents, by our relatives, by school teachers, by peers, by siblings. The deeper the hurt, the greater the withdrawal and wall of resistance built up in the mind. The self is hurt, the objective is to prevent further hurt, which actually brings further pain. But it is the self that is hurt, we are not hurt. And this hurt simmers in the background and causes frustration; it is the root cause of sustained carryover anger. And it is this anger that periodically explodes into violence as a means of release. All because of damage to a self-constructed image.
Yet, if no image is built up there is no consequent hurt - but no-one wants to end it. This carefully nurtured product of imagination competes with others to become someone, someday - that is, to become famous. And thus rich. This is naked ambition, which is cherished and nurtured by all of us. In fact, fame itself consists of a series of images, both in the minds of the famous themselves and in the public 'fans' who view them as famous. The entire structure of fame is manufactured by promoters, publicists and public relations experts who manipulate the public perception of their creations. And the public goes willingly along for the ride, wanting that so-called glamour to enliven their dull lives.
Unless the self is understood in all its self-destructiveness then the inner tensions it produces amongst people will be the undoing of the human race.
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* The Enduring Myth of Leadership
* The Profit Motive: The decline of the human mind
* War: The Eternal Division of Mankind
* The Universal Craving for Fame
* The Dangerous Occupations of the Mind
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* The Profit Motive: The decline of the human mind
* War: The Eternal Division of Mankind
* The Universal Craving for Fame
* The Dangerous Occupations of the Mind
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The Steady Bankrupting of America
These are the twin ticking U.S. National Debt clocks referred to in the discussion at top: The Enduring Myth of Leadership. This total debt will ultimately bring down the entire American economy, because it is not being fully confronted. As all nations are economically interconnected, this looming world financial crisis, far greater than the one the world is in at present, will affect the entire planet - each and every one of us.
These are the twin ticking U.S. National Debt clocks referred to in the discussion at top: The Enduring Myth of Leadership. This total debt will ultimately bring down the entire American economy, because it is not being fully confronted. As all nations are economically interconnected, this looming world financial crisis, far greater than the one the world is in at present, will affect the entire planet - each and every one of us.
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The Matrix: The Self & its Discontents
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(Photo courtesy beachhunter.net)
(A website exploring the possibility of transcending the limited self; page last updated March 8, 2010)
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The whole of society is founded on competing self-interests. From Adam Smith onwards, free enterprise is held to benefit society across the
board, economically - that is, to be for the greater good. Yet, as wealth accumulation has become the sole arbiter of success, the sole
measure of value, then those who cannot compete equally with the privileged few feel left out and of less value. Capitalism is entirely
about winners, and to win is to get rich. Money is both the means and the end; the sole object of the game. The self has created this society.
It is immensely flawed, immoral, and inequitable, yet there are very few who will stand up and challenge it.
board, economically - that is, to be for the greater good. Yet, as wealth accumulation has become the sole arbiter of success, the sole
measure of value, then those who cannot compete equally with the privileged few feel left out and of less value. Capitalism is entirely
about winners, and to win is to get rich. Money is both the means and the end; the sole object of the game. The self has created this society.
It is immensely flawed, immoral, and inequitable, yet there are very few who will stand up and challenge it.
| The Dangerous Occupations of the Mind
This is the great Age of Distraction. The mind wants to be occupied at all times; it is always seeking new sensations. It has a demand for instant gratification, and there is evidence that this becomes hard-wired in the brain. There is a deep, abiding fear of the unoccupied mind, the empty mind, the silent mind. Thus you have all the distractions of the modern age: 16-hour-job days, on-call 24/7, wireless Internet connectivity, Blackberry mobile emails, texting, Twitter, iPhones, iPods, YouTube, continual blog posting, online gambling, video games, on-demand radio and TV 24/7, all the latest faddish technological gadgets, or toys. The Internet as a whole, and Twitter especially, allows for instant responses from participants, without any due reflection and self-editing - again, instant gratification, which is the hallmark of selfish behaviour, or narcissism.
(Gadgets have no intrinsic meaning whatsoever; they are accumulated because the self is essentially an accumulator and derives great comfort in its possessions, whether these are experiences or material playthings that boost one's self esteem and status in the eyes of others. Gadgets become far more important in themselves than the content they carry (quality of content in itself, for itself, is almost completely ignored). Gadgets (ie, large and small screens, in effect) entrance the mind - they are a great antidote to boredom. Boredom is in fact the spur for the purchase of gadgets, along with the ever-present fear behind their purchase of "missing out from what others have," and being "left behind" in the materialistic, technological race to what is called progress.)
A further diversion is the constant stream of movies, pandering to the public's latent desires and self-images. Mainstream movies are a deliberately constructed fiction, centered around traditional plot lines, artfully playing on the (often hidden) urges of the self. They have no redeeming social value whatsoever; they are not cathartic. Frequently riddled with the ancient themes of personal conflict, crime and violence, they dull the sensitivity of the mind, the brain and the central nervous system. Over time, the mind becomes inured to violence itself.
(This is also the age of the collective mind, conforming to the so-called 'wisdom of the crowd' - which doesn't exist. In the slavish imitation and transient gratification of the internet, creativity, critical thinking and the ability to stand back and objectively perceive the bigger picture are lost.)
Whilst this obsessive occupation comes with its inevitable complement of related physical and psychological problems, there is an addictive quality about it that is highly seductive. Occupation is a great comfort to the self-image; busyness means that you are in demand, that you are self-important. It is a far preferable state to aloneness, peace, quiet, inactivity, passive observation, contemplation, meditation, emptiness... silence.
There is a major psychological/social backlash coming over this constant mind pre-occupation. Instant gratification actually causes the mind to regress. Indeed, society may implode from within because of it, whilst citizens everywhere retain this abiding blind faith in upcoming technological waves of invention which will supposedly solve all of society's problems.
This is the great Age of Distraction. The mind wants to be occupied at all times; it is always seeking new sensations. It has a demand for instant gratification, and there is evidence that this becomes hard-wired in the brain. There is a deep, abiding fear of the unoccupied mind, the empty mind, the silent mind. Thus you have all the distractions of the modern age: 16-hour-job days, on-call 24/7, wireless Internet connectivity, Blackberry mobile emails, texting, Twitter, iPhones, iPods, YouTube, continual blog posting, online gambling, video games, on-demand radio and TV 24/7, all the latest faddish technological gadgets, or toys. The Internet as a whole, and Twitter especially, allows for instant responses from participants, without any due reflection and self-editing - again, instant gratification, which is the hallmark of selfish behaviour, or narcissism.
(Gadgets have no intrinsic meaning whatsoever; they are accumulated because the self is essentially an accumulator and derives great comfort in its possessions, whether these are experiences or material playthings that boost one's self esteem and status in the eyes of others. Gadgets become far more important in themselves than the content they carry (quality of content in itself, for itself, is almost completely ignored). Gadgets (ie, large and small screens, in effect) entrance the mind - they are a great antidote to boredom. Boredom is in fact the spur for the purchase of gadgets, along with the ever-present fear behind their purchase of "missing out from what others have," and being "left behind" in the materialistic, technological race to what is called progress.)
A further diversion is the constant stream of movies, pandering to the public's latent desires and self-images. Mainstream movies are a deliberately constructed fiction, centered around traditional plot lines, artfully playing on the (often hidden) urges of the self. They have no redeeming social value whatsoever; they are not cathartic. Frequently riddled with the ancient themes of personal conflict, crime and violence, they dull the sensitivity of the mind, the brain and the central nervous system. Over time, the mind becomes inured to violence itself.
(This is also the age of the collective mind, conforming to the so-called 'wisdom of the crowd' - which doesn't exist. In the slavish imitation and transient gratification of the internet, creativity, critical thinking and the ability to stand back and objectively perceive the bigger picture are lost.)
Whilst this obsessive occupation comes with its inevitable complement of related physical and psychological problems, there is an addictive quality about it that is highly seductive. Occupation is a great comfort to the self-image; busyness means that you are in demand, that you are self-important. It is a far preferable state to aloneness, peace, quiet, inactivity, passive observation, contemplation, meditation, emptiness... silence.
There is a major psychological/social backlash coming over this constant mind pre-occupation. Instant gratification actually causes the mind to regress. Indeed, society may implode from within because of it, whilst citizens everywhere retain this abiding blind faith in upcoming technological waves of invention which will supposedly solve all of society's problems.
"One can see very clearly in oneself the operation of the male and female going on. When one or the other gets exaggerated, the imbalance creates disease; not superficial ailments but disease at the depths.
I have noticed personally within myself under different situations and climates, with different people who are aggressive, violent, the female takes over and becomes more prominent. This prominence, the other uses to assert himself. But when there is too much femininity around one, the male does not become aggressive but withdraws without any resistance."
(Tradition and Revolution: Dialogue 1, New Delhi, 12th December, 1970 - 'The flame of sorrow')
I have noticed personally within myself under different situations and climates, with different people who are aggressive, violent, the female takes over and becomes more prominent. This prominence, the other uses to assert himself. But when there is too much femininity around one, the male does not become aggressive but withdraws without any resistance."
(Tradition and Revolution: Dialogue 1, New Delhi, 12th December, 1970 - 'The flame of sorrow')
Education: Re-Engineering the Noblest Profession
Restructuring the philosophical basis & social intent that lies behind the educators and teaching in general. Can major change be effected?
Restructuring the philosophical basis & social intent that lies behind the educators and teaching in general. Can major change be effected?