In a dream last night, I suddenly understood what is meant by the saying "The Kingdom of God is within you". For our atheist readers: a better reality is right here, right now, wherever and whenever you are only waiting for you to realise and pay attention to it. Sadly, the last part is so very difficult - the elevator is waiting to take you to the penthouse for a visit, but it doesn't come all the way to the basement, and if you have lived all your life in the basement and you don't even realise that there's a way out, you'll find it difficult to get there.
The civilisation we live in is determined to keep all of us in the basement, because at least in that way we're predictable. This is a civilisation which prioritises the collection of imaginary "points" in a trading system (aka $$$) over all else. Some would tell you that power and oppression of a tiny elite are the reason for the warped system, but money is more powerful than any elite whims. Military force, oppression and control tactics are in the service of money in an advanced capitalist economy, not the other way around.
This is why magic and narrative thinking are so important in the modern era, because we are already in a trans-personal era. This is what conspiracy theorists don't get - "anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools", because it assumes that money itself doesn't have a will of its own, that its evil doings must be traced to an evil group of people, i.e. tha j00s. Of course people and how they live their lives are the final, fundamental reality. But if people act as if they are forced to by some evil idol, then the evil idol is a real thing that can't be banished just by pointing out that it doesn't exist. Things that don't exist often have more power than things that do.
Our social system is deeply devoted to a hideous idol / egregore / false God / master meme, which unlike previous Gods doesn't demand blood and grovelling, it just demands that you devote every single part of your life to its needs.
hell yeah Dolores. I'm reminded of Christine Harold's thoughts in "Ourspace", however, in which she makes a strong case that old models of resistance may be losing their usefulness in the information age. In the old days, one conceptualizes the power held by a monarch. To seize the power, we must enact come kind of coup and pass around the resources.
ReplyDeleteBut it's not like that anymore. It's not like we live in capitalism because one person at the top of the pyramid has chosen it for us - we consent to it every day, with every one of our actions. Adbusters tried to release an "anti brand" sneaker, but they only succeeded in creating an anti-brand brand identity. It's not that Nike is in control, it's that WE put Nike in control.
That Master Meme is composed of all of us in some way, yes? All our desires and goals woven together into a tangled tapestry of supply and demand.
For me, I'm starting to think of the revolution not in terms of storming the castle, but waking up the peasants. -Cramulus
You're speaking pretty much plain trutht there. I would 100% agree that waking the peasants (and ourselves - how can we be sure we're not just dreaming all this?) is top priority. But I think we'll have to storm the castle sooner or later, unless the castle collapses because of its own structural integrity, and many people will be damaged by falling masonry in that case. And this metaphor is utterly out of control, so let's finish by saying that "The Bad Guys" still have most of the guns and all of the nuclear weapons, and that won't go away if we stop believing in it.
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