Pathocracy, that's a keeper. Aside from all the evil involved - worthy of another essay, my friend - just from a monetary POV, this seems a grand global heist. And touchpapers are being lit. Mass protest is getting stronger, as the trucker protest in Ottowa exemplifies. When Malcolm X talked about not using a banana, I bet he didn't mean a truck!
Yeah he didn't. Have you read Buckminster Fuller's book Grunch of Giants? Grunch stands for Gross Universal Cash Heist. Gross Universe Cash Heist (Grunch)” is the theory that large corporations use the government to enforce their economic suppression of the rest of society and steal resources and assets from around the world whenever and wherever they want.
This essay is my Abstract for a very overlong paper delivered by Zoom to 4 colleges in India. 22 pages I think. I found my ego flattered by the invitation. Only of course from Facebook posts on Covid! And frankly, one writer to another, it is about time. Freedom is just another word for time gone to pasture and to write is shouting out and fighting back with the arsenal of the imagination. "Beloved Imagination what I most like in you is your unsparing quality.
The mere word “freedom” is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of
indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery—even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness—is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself. Imagination alone offers me some intimation of what can he, and this is enough to remove to some slight degree the terrible injunction; enough, too, to allow me to devote myself to it without fear of making a mistake (as though it were possible to make a bigger mistake). Where does it begin to turn bad, and where does the mind's stability cease? For the mind, is the possibility of erring not rather the contingency of good?
There remains madness, “the madness that one locks up,” as it has aptly been described. That madness or another.... We all know, in fact, that the insane owe their incarceration to a tiny number of legally reprehensible acts and that, were it not for these acts their freedom (or what we see as their freedom) would not be threatened. I am willing to admit that they are, to some degree, victims of their imagination, in that it induces them not to pay attention to certain rules— outside of which the species feels itself threatened—which we are all supposed to know and respect. But their profound indifference to the way in which we judge them, and even to the various punishments meted out to them, allows us to suppose that they derive a great deal of comfort and the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves. And, indeed, hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure. [. . .]
The case against the realistic attitude demands to be examined, following the case against the materialistic attitude. The latter, more poetic in fact than the former, admittedly implies on the part of man a kind of monstrous pride which, admittedly, is monstrous, but not a new and more complete decay. It should above all be viewed as a welcome reaction against certain ridiculous tendencies of spiritualism. Finally, it is not incompatible with a certain nobility of thought.
By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life. The activity of the best minds feels the effects of it; the law of the lowest common denominator finally prevails upon them as it does upon the others.
[...] ***
We are still living under the reign of logic ... But in this day and age logical methods are applicable only to solving problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism that is still in vogue allows us to consider only facts relating directly to our experience." Breton
"love for the enormous, the gigantic, the colossal; his delight in towering works that impress" Yep, that's what we are up against. A technocrat's version of one of the Wonders of the World, as their Titanic legacy, built with the blood of slaves.
Soon to be the big losers in this kleptocratic reign of losers. May even be increasingly surprised by philosophical changes of heart in the kleptocratic “elite”. Some are beyond redemption but maybe not all. We the people are in charge. We are the source of all their wealth and power. There are awakenings from all corners.
It’s a planetary three dimensional game of GO - a poker game of games.
Their are so many permutations to these ideas they won’t fit in a comment. Thanks for developing this further.
Pathocracy, that's a keeper. Aside from all the evil involved - worthy of another essay, my friend - just from a monetary POV, this seems a grand global heist. And touchpapers are being lit. Mass protest is getting stronger, as the trucker protest in Ottowa exemplifies. When Malcolm X talked about not using a banana, I bet he didn't mean a truck!
Yeah he didn't. Have you read Buckminster Fuller's book Grunch of Giants? Grunch stands for Gross Universal Cash Heist. Gross Universe Cash Heist (Grunch)” is the theory that large corporations use the government to enforce their economic suppression of the rest of society and steal resources and assets from around the world whenever and wherever they want.
This essay is my Abstract for a very overlong paper delivered by Zoom to 4 colleges in India. 22 pages I think. I found my ego flattered by the invitation. Only of course from Facebook posts on Covid! And frankly, one writer to another, it is about time. Freedom is just another word for time gone to pasture and to write is shouting out and fighting back with the arsenal of the imagination. "Beloved Imagination what I most like in you is your unsparing quality.
The mere word “freedom” is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of
indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery—even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness—is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself. Imagination alone offers me some intimation of what can he, and this is enough to remove to some slight degree the terrible injunction; enough, too, to allow me to devote myself to it without fear of making a mistake (as though it were possible to make a bigger mistake). Where does it begin to turn bad, and where does the mind's stability cease? For the mind, is the possibility of erring not rather the contingency of good?
There remains madness, “the madness that one locks up,” as it has aptly been described. That madness or another.... We all know, in fact, that the insane owe their incarceration to a tiny number of legally reprehensible acts and that, were it not for these acts their freedom (or what we see as their freedom) would not be threatened. I am willing to admit that they are, to some degree, victims of their imagination, in that it induces them not to pay attention to certain rules— outside of which the species feels itself threatened—which we are all supposed to know and respect. But their profound indifference to the way in which we judge them, and even to the various punishments meted out to them, allows us to suppose that they derive a great deal of comfort and the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves. And, indeed, hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure. [. . .]
The case against the realistic attitude demands to be examined, following the case against the materialistic attitude. The latter, more poetic in fact than the former, admittedly implies on the part of man a kind of monstrous pride which, admittedly, is monstrous, but not a new and more complete decay. It should above all be viewed as a welcome reaction against certain ridiculous tendencies of spiritualism. Finally, it is not incompatible with a certain nobility of thought.
By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life. The activity of the best minds feels the effects of it; the law of the lowest common denominator finally prevails upon them as it does upon the others.
[...] ***
We are still living under the reign of logic ... But in this day and age logical methods are applicable only to solving problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism that is still in vogue allows us to consider only facts relating directly to our experience." Breton
So much to dwell on with Stegiel's essay. I am probably going to need some follow-up.
"love for the enormous, the gigantic, the colossal; his delight in towering works that impress" Yep, that's what we are up against. A technocrat's version of one of the Wonders of the World, as their Titanic legacy, built with the blood of slaves.
Soon to be the big losers in this kleptocratic reign of losers. May even be increasingly surprised by philosophical changes of heart in the kleptocratic “elite”. Some are beyond redemption but maybe not all. We the people are in charge. We are the source of all their wealth and power. There are awakenings from all corners.
It’s a planetary three dimensional game of GO - a poker game of games.