Yes, the American people are responsible

Do you think the UK and the Commonwealth are in the same fix?

I don’t think the 1/3 of all American residents, and the 60% of registered voters who showed up at the polls (2004) is a good enough bellwether to allow the assessment that all Americans chose Bush, or that that all Americans endorse the current leadership, or that the people who are largely victims are responsible for their conditions. Nor is our country an actual democracy, really. When your choice for office holders is from among a rather limited slate of oligarchs and daddy’s little princes, with a corporate media that enlists itself to winnow that field down even further, the word “democracy” doesn’t come to mind.

“If they couldn’t be bothered to vote” is an argument that ignores its own environment, the actuality of our “democracy,” the relative homogeneity of the supposedly different political parties, and the fact that there are about 80 million Americans who don’t have a “right to vote” but who are being held responsible for the decisions made by oligarchs.

Even my conditioning is conditioned.

How’d the Franklin line go? “It’s a republic, if you can keep it.”

I want to blame the proles; I really do. But, as Jonathon Schwarz wrote this weekend “How much history in our heads is fabricated?” A putative democrazy (an unintentional typo which I’ve decided is closer to reality so left uncorrected) where they choose between two pre-vetted by the powers-that-be candidates while they get all of their info from corporatized propaganda outlets …

At this point, everything’s very likely beyond saving, so blaming everyone – dunno dude. I’d rather just get ready to eat the rich.

Eh, once you start going back to elections held over 30 years ago, you’re no longer blaming the American people. You’re mostly blaming dead folks who used to be the American people.

Heh. Ian you are touching on one of the cornerstones of modern American existence – eternal American innocence. In this mindset, “you” or “we” are never to blame. “They” are.

I call it the “it just happened..” syndrome. It goes something like this: “You know, I was a Reagan Democrat living in a nice cul de sac driving a SUV minding my business and then..it just happened….”

“They”?

Does that mean you?

And guilty of what?

War crimes?

So, what are you saying, Ian?

Nuke ’em all?

Hang every 10th as an example?

@Gaius First of all, you need to back the fuck up and stop putting words in Ian’s mouth. You’re an utter tool to think that Ian wants to nuke anyone or hang every 10th as an example, you little cretin.

And yes, douchebags like you, Gaius, Mr. Lesser of Two Evils, are responsible, and I hold you as such. I’ve seen how idiotic people like you are. You engage in silly emotional arguments with no critical thinking skills to back it up. Take for example your post right here. It’s nothing more than a silly emotional argument filled with logical fallacies. Well guess what motherfucker? The freight train is gonna smash through putzes like you, and then you can make your pathetic little emotional arguments and your illogical lesser of two evils bullshit when you’re being marched into indefinite detention and all your livelihood is taken from you forever.

The book, Fahrenheit 451, read it, shows an example of what to do to prepare. Bad education; read extensively, get interested. Bad historical recall; read biographies, read historic writers, even read historical novels to introduce yourselves to people, their times, their problems and how they coped. Bad reading skills, practice, practice, practice – turn off the TV/radio/game box. Comprehension and analysis skills dull; select challenging books, understand what the author is about, look for things the author missed or failed to address or overlooked as an answer – the oriental calligraphic rendition of a tree requires seven branches to be considered representative in a drawing, avoid those who present only dichotomies, their either/or does not usually represent the full range of choice actually available, learn to anticipate alternative choices not given, many times the best choices are those not given. Not enough time; make time, learn to control your life, become master of yourself, it is what becoming adult is all about. When you do become adult, then you can make choices; until then, you remain nothing greater than adolescent at best. This choice is yours, yours alone. Don’t be blaming others for your failure of responsibilities, you only cheat yourself.

Do you think the UK and the Commonwealth are in the same fix?

The Commonwealth is not a nation. It is merely a “club” of nations that share a common heritage and has no sovereignty. You may be assuming that the de jure fiction of a German housewife as a common head of state actually means anything; if Elizabeth Windsor actually tried exercising that power over a Commonwealth nation, they’d be a de jure republic in hours.

The American people are responsible for the American republic, just as the Brits are responsible for the UK, and the Aussies for Australia. To talk about “apathy” or “brainwashing” is to offer an excuse, not a reason – I can state that some of my excess weight is due to genetics, but I also know for a fact that much of it is due to “apathy” or “lack of willpower” – which is to say, my responsibility.

Well, the bottom line is that it’s not going to matter who is more to blame. The bill for our actions and lifestyle is coming due. Saying that you were clever enough to avoid being part of the system or that you were too distracted by the pressures of day to day living is not going to matter. Btw, that latter point is going to go over really well in a country where, even now, millions of people still line up around the block to buy the latest igadget.

When the bill comes due, where you are 1% responsible or 99% responsible is not going to matter a whit. The bill will be paid.

I admit I share Ian’s dyspeptic views. At the same time, I see where Jack is coming from and agree with some of what he’s saying.

So if I may enter the fray: I don’t fault people who are too consumed with just trying to scrape by, people who are victimized by a system intent on screwing them, people who, through no fault of their own, don’t have the means to pull themselves out of whatever swamp they were born into.

I do, however, blame the privileged, the so-called educated (hyper-educated, frankly), the gifted, the blessed, the ones who’ve had every break in the book and then some, the apathetic, the willfully ignorant. Yes, I do blame them.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to talk seriously about serious subjects with people who just can’t be bothered. Who are okay with any injustice that comes down the pike as long as it doesn’t happen to them.

There are, for example, god-knows-how-many ostensibly liberal people and liberal blogs where the letters NDAA have never been uttered. This country isn’t crawling, it’s sprinting, towards fascism, and these supposedly educated, supposedly aware citizens, don’t want to talk about it. These people come from all professions of the chattering classes — they can’t be bothered.

The first step towards trying to right an injustice is acknowledging it. Acknowledging that it even exists. If you’re not willing to do that, well, then, sorry, but my reserves of sympathy are running low. It’s one thing to be genuinely ignorant; another to be willfully so.

It has nothing to do with level of education, brainwashing, etc. I’m sure I’ve mentioned him before but will do so again: my grew-up-in-poverty-sometimes-starving-often-bombed-in-WWII immigrant father had the equivalent of an 8th grade education. If he were still around, he’d be screaming bloody murder at what’s happening in this country. Yet millions of people, far more educated and privileged than he ever was, refuse to acknowledge what’s going on.

A 20 year veteran of world-wide service in the US Armed Forces Intelligence field, I believe my father knew exactly who the poisoners of society were, and the nature of our country’s crimes. The burden kept him retired and quiet, because he knew a rebellious split from dreamy Reagan America would pass hardship immediately upon my generation. Like many middle-classers, there was no fortune in our family, and what we had would only support a rural homestead. Yet, a slide show of Vietnam was all it took to show me the travesty of war. Exposure to literature and travel freshened my awareness. Lessons to avoid pitfalls like gambling were demonstrated. Regrettably, I don’t think such epistemic talks were a common thing in those carefree years. Why else would there be pro-war rallies? People preferred that the American quilt could be folded so just the nice stitching would show. Knowing that only a few regents control the pattern makes me want to reach for the scissors. I’m the one spreading the tough talk now, my father passing on just a few years after my college graduation. Maybe sewing things up will be all my time was good for.

Pretty harsh, Ian.

What do you think of the uncountable billions of dollars that have gone into play solely for the purposes of influencing public opinion, to making and keeping us ignorant?

It goes all the way back to Edwards Bernays and his demonic masterpiece Propaganda … or maybe even further back … Creel Commission and WWI …. Further?

Most people take in their beliefs and attitudes from the surrounding environment … which is managed by elite gatekeepers. Only a very few have the logical and critical thinking skills to keep hitting at issues until the truth is revealed. And this process occurs in the face of great winds blowing in the opposite direction.

I guess the point is that it seems too simple to me to say that the masses are willfully ignorant. A tremendous amount of energy goes into misinforming them and creating memes that perpetuate false consciousness. There’s a reason the Murdochs and Kochs and Rockefellers spend all that money influencing public opinion.

I want to get angry at all the couch potatoes out there, I really do, but they seem to be yet more victims. As far back as Plato you’ve got the idea that most people “imbibe” their morality from their surrounding culture and only a few “Guardians” have the mental power to know good in itself.

My essay writing skills tell me to wrap it up with a big conclusion … except I really don’t have one on this point. There’s something unfinished in human mental evolution, as though we’re still at the point where we want to take in the sacred stories of a tribal culture, but instead get the noxious substitute of institutionalized religion and Fox News.

No answers, sorry…. 🙁

There are many kinds of victims; which one are you?

You end up here when the better part of a people live their entire lives by the mantra of “More than enough is a good place to start”.

Anarchists rationalize the state, Bruce?

Yes, Jack Crow. You hadn’t noticed?

This is so true. If Americans could just turn off their radios and TV’s for just one week, we might have a fighting chance.

We me, I’ll be 60 next year and the last decade in America has left me numb.

There is not much fight and argument left in a person when numbness sets in.

“All you stupid Americans are responsible. Now admit you’re wrong, take responsibility, and go out and fix it!”
Suppose they do. Suppose they riot and fight. What then?
Know who I’m blaming? I’m blaming those jackasses who are willing to put on riot gear and fight their fellow citizens. Those are the ones I can’t stand to look at. If they refused to stand between the people and the cowards in power, if they refused to fight innocents on foreign soil and push buttons to drop drones for the sake of their corporate and political masters, we would not be in the situation we are today.
In my opinion, there is noew no difference between them and Hitler’s army and Hitler’s SS. They are more responsible than all of us regular citizens combined, because they are willing to snuff out any dissent.

Some here, not all by any means, are engaging in Strawman tactics, wittingly, or unwittingly. Ian said that the “Americans” who are considered poor are not granted victim status in perpetuity and therefore get a pass for their part in this. He also emphasized that their degree of culpability is surely less than that of the Oligarchs and their Technical minions, but it doesn’t absolve them of all culpability. So, it’s not correct to replace what Ian has asserted with your own version of what you wanted him to say and then proceed to criticize that fabricated assertion, i.e. the Strawman you have erected.

Some above said:

As satisfying as it is (esp. for an outlander) to blame ugly, stupid “murricans” for everything it’s too simple and too easy.

That’s a Strawman and not what Ian said, and therefore, everything that is said in that post that hinges on it, is invalid. I only say this, because it has happened to me on another thread, and it happens all too often and is allowed to slip by without calling it to account.

Not to any particular purpose, just out of affinity really, this conversation is making me remember Human Stain, a later Philip Roth novel. A black man passes as white and lives with his wife and children at a small college where he teaches. One day a student accuses him of making racist remarks and his life falls apart. I take the book as a sobering kind of meditation on identity and responsibility.

When the right wing radio spends decades training my fellow citizens to think feminists are nazis and liberals are fascist, how do you think their listeners talk to progressives when they meet us? Being blamed for everything wrong whether it was our fault or not is the very air we breathe. Why, if it weren’t for cognitive dissonance, I’d hardly have a social life at all!

So blame on. I’m going to keep trying to keep myself alive and have joy and do good when possible. Everybody holds people like me and my friends responsible for everything anyway, so what the fuck. I know folks are out there blaming and hating on me and my ilk. I’m gonna be in here, in my own strange little world, doing my best to stay human and humane and probably fucking up a lot as always but soldiering on. shhhhhh ….

Also from another celebrated novelist on questions of responsibility – Bluest Eye, Tony Morrison. I’m glad somebody finally told that story, just seems funny I know of no others.

A good analog would be Nazi Germany. Certainly Hitler and the architects and implementors of the Reich bear the bulk of the blame for what happened, but it wouldn’t have been possible if the average German had not given away their power and consent to these people, even though this often came about through coercion. And to varying degrees, all Germany suffered the consequences of this misplaced trust.

alyosa, ks,
as the ‘Teuton’ here, who sometimes throws his bits into this round, a comment:
Marx- French-German war – Bismarck -Kaiser-Wilhelm -WWI -Versailles- Bavarian revolution – Weimar Republic- Hyperinflation – Dolchstosslegende-rise of Hitler- racial purification- WWII -Nurenberg Tribunal- Marshall-Plan -Montan-Union -Concept of Social Democracy- 1968- RAF -Wirtschaftswunder- Neoliberal takeover …

What I want to say, is that in history everything is connected, and every sensible person hopefully knows that.
Makes your head spin.
On the outside are those stupid stereotypes: like the British ‘cultivate’ the germans mainly being all Nazis.
See Fawlty Towers in the more humorous variant, or prince Who?, who impressed his upper-class fellows on a party with a Nazi-uniform.
This is a simple mechanism of selfdefence, the British used for a long time, dating back to at least the East India company.
Every Empire has its semantics of lies.
Nothing new to see here.

2nd.
It is difficult to generalize.
Somehow hopefully we are Bayesians here.
At least valuing probability.

Sofar so good.
But valuation of probability, if it is of any use, should bring us to the HOT SPOTS in history.
Right?

I do not claim to know them, but I try.

Conclusion.
1) a broad brush a’la “we all are -evenly- responsible”, even the couch-potatoes IS NOT HELPFUL.
Sure. The American couch potatoes are a laughing matter for the rest of the world.
But to include them into the causality of affairs seems to be a bit overstretched to me.
2) WE HAVE TO IDENTIFY THE HOT SPOTS.
Re Assigning responsibility, I would assign 99% responsibility to certain groups, who are quite small.

Everything else is misappropriation of Bayesian Rule, and sort of misinterpretation of social dynamics.

Another question, which maybe somebody here can answer:
How is it, that the British are 70% atheistic, their US-brethren 80% religious?
Strange.

Where is the protestant Ethic of good old Max Weber in that?

On the other hand there seems to be a subtribe of wallstreeters and London-innercitiers, who are -well, sorry- the scum of this universe, and solely believe in ‘money’.
I.e. the ultimate abstraction, which for materialist Anglosaxian belief is quite a feat, I would suppose.

How does that fit together?

I very much would know what goes on here?

Is it, that they do not care, whatever belief is there in the lower social strata, upon which they thrive?
Because they are the 0.x% anyhow?

So why care about the scum, because there is the buffer of the 10%, which shields them from any harm from the lower classes.
This buffer is all to be cared for.
If it reduces to 5%: Who cares? All the better. Lower costs.

Or what?

@ groo

Once someone said they were not alive when the war went down, how could they be responsible for what others did. They had a valid point.

There is no one younger than 90 years young that could conceivably been responsible for what happened in the Spanish Civil War as well.

How old would you have to be to have had a position of responsibility in the Irish Civil War.

That is not to say living memories of these times is unknown to those that follow. It is for those to put those memories to rest with the bones of those who were responsible and bury for all time those ghosts so that those spirits never return.

My point put more simply is only this:

There is more holding the ruling classes of Europe, Japan, Canada and the USA together than there is holding the deluded–or conscious–masses of the USA to their rulers. We continue to give national “interests” more weight than they actually have in a globalized world. The rulers know better.

I repeat: Tony Blair is way more responsible for the horror in Iraq than I will ever be. And voting won’t cut it.

There is more holding the ruling classes of Europe, Japan, Canada and the USA together than there is holding the deluded–or conscious–masses of the USA to their rulers.

I’d say the unity of action by those ruling classes is more the result of the U.S. having waged a one-sided social war against its industrial allies for the last decade, than of some preexisting natural cohesion among their ruling elites.

just saying.

My inner warrior for a peacable kingdom is deeply embarrseed.

Could there be something like a peacable warrior?

Sometimes I am confused.
Sorry.

Sometimes I only find something sensible in that:
—-
Only you can do something about it.
There’s no-one there, my friend, any better.
I might know what you mean when you say you fall apart.
Aren’t we all the same? In and out of doubt.
I can see angels standing around you.
They shimmer like mirrors in Summer.
But you don’t know it.
And they will carry you o’er the walls.
If you need us, just call.
Rest your weary world in their hands.
Lay your broken laugh at their feet.
I can see angels around you.
They shimmer like mirrors in Summer.
There’s someone who’s loved you forever but you don’t know it.
You might feel it and just not show it.
——-
(Kate Bush)

Then I have to lay down my imaginary weapons on her beautiful feet, just to adore her visions.

But at times they get bloody real.

this is what Southern White Americans wanted. plain and simple. living in the South, Government was always an enemy of the Whites, starting with the Civil War. and later, LBJ, & Democrats using Government to give Blacks “OUR” tax money.

the successful fear of the Blacks worked/and still works so well in the South. Reagan and the Southern Strategy/ in Philadelphia MS is proof of the Lee Atwater propaganda White Southerners bought lock, stock and barrel.

that’s just a Southern view. i saw how well it worked with poor whites told blacks were stealing their tax money. Don’t know how life was in other parts of America. White Male power vs the “others.” keeping us all in our place. works incredibly well.

Blame belongs where it originates, with the willful ignorance chosen by the Whites who agreed to what they were being “sold.” Propaganda needs willing participants to really be effective.

ownership of responsibility can’t be denied, but it will be derided. No one forced these Americans to drink the Kool Aid.
we are just more “Good Germans” who speak English.

excuses for not wanting to see what is going on around is something i gather Good Germans lived by until they were forced to see the results of Hitler’s “leadership.’ We are starting to see ours sooner rather than later.

St. Reagan began the cornerstone destruction of the American dream. a Dream only for the Rich White Males. Saving White America became the Goal of the Republican party. the whole environment of the history of and beliefs of the poor white Southerners rests on the distrust of Government and the Fear of the Blacks who would dilute the purity of their race.

Gosh, and now we have reaped the destruction of the appearances of Democracy. Society has been officially dismissed as non essential in America, not Profitable. The Few openly own the Many/Congress is the easiest example of that.

as one cartoon said, The poor may inherit the Earth, But we, the Rich White Males/Corporate Businessmen/ will still own Congress.

and it’s always the other Congressman who is “so” crooked. notice the re-election rates.

the White Middle Class authorized this with their Republican Control of Government, starting with Reagan. They got what they voted for.

Damn Hippies/OWS, causing trouble again, Call the police and put them away. we’ll show them Hippies what it means to be “American.”

bruce wilder wrote:

“When I try to think of the moral responsibility borne by the mass of people, as opposed to elites, I tend to think of it as the responsibility of an audience not to make a popular success out of a bad play.”

yes, but,

“no one ever went broke overestimating the bad taste of the american public”.

^ Of course; this all follows Ian’s OP. Nobody likes being served shit; but if that’s what’s being served; refuse it, but don’t call it fertilizer; call it the shit it is…

It’s interesting to read the protests from some commenters, citing reasons why the American people (or some portion of them) aren’t responsible for the country’s situation. I disagree with them.

Certainly most of us are taken advantage of by an oligarchy. Certainly most of us don’t have access to crucial decisionmaking forums, and many of the ones who do have access are corrupt. And most certainly, many among our population are poorly informed about the state of affairs. But it’s our responsibility to take charge of those things. We have to educate our neighbors. We have to monitor elections and recall bad politicians. When there is abuse of the financial and legal systems, we have to interrupt the processes that allow the oligarchy to continue benefiting from that abuse. If it means sacrificing our convenience, our well being, or even our lives to move our nation away from empire and fascism… it’s our responsibility to do so, because it is our nation.

If only you’d read Richard Bonin’s latest, you’d understand that it’s not our fault. The dirty brown man named Chalabi, a the nefarious criminal, masterminded an Iranian backed plot to deceiv our good moral, and upstanding innocent American selves. I know it’s a shock, divulged as it is from a member of the 60 Minutes stable, totally in contravention to their mission to deride the non-white, non-American bad people (courtesy of those later taped intercut shots of Mike Wallace scowling). Here’s Ian Masters (channeling Charlie Rose best “oh Tom Friedman, your mustache is so hot, please feed me your jizm”) with the “amazing story” – an absolution of the American soul (you weren’t responsible, you were duped by that dirty Satan-like Persian).

http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/mp3/bbriefing_2011_12_20c_richard%20bonin.mp3

I should add, too, that I have college educated family members who get their news from the television. I’ve tried to get them to read alternative news, I’ve pointed out that the TV news is full of lies and misrepresentation and skewed facts….

And yet, they sit there utterly mesmerized. As the character of Howard Beale says in the movie Network (1976), “This tube is the most awesome force in the whole godless world.”

There is more than uninformativeness going on. More than willful ignorance. There seems to be a kind of mass hypnosis that’s just dang near impossible to deprogram people from.

That movie was unbelievably prophetic on so many fronts….

jcapan, looks like you and Ian are in opposite situations. He should be listened to and isn’t, whereas no one should waste time listening to you, and yet here you are spouting away.

Oh, no, not the “CIA killed Kennedy” argument again. Spare me.

Too long a thread, too many good as well as missing-the-point comments to respond to. A few thoughts:

Thank you, Lex; hammer to many nail heads.

Thank you, MB, for pointing out straw men, in abundance here.

As for Bill H:

“Occupy Wall Street”? Pffft. Give me a break. A bunch of spoiled brats whining because they believe they have not received their fair share of the money.

What a crock of shit. The Occupy movement is the most — is the only — optimistic thing out there.

I’m 54, I have more than my fair share of money, not because I was born into it — far from it — but because in addition to my own work and frugality I was also lucky enough to be a part of an abnormally prosperous time in history in a particular country in particular surroundings that offered me particular opportunities. I’m not whining. I’m putting my ass on the line. I’m fighting for a future without indefinite detention, permanent state of war, foreclosure, unemployment, environmental disaster, lack of health care. I lost a fucking job over my involvement in the Occupy movement — I believe that’s called putting your money where your mouth is.

When the economy collapses, at least I’ll have a roof over my head, since I paid off this mortgage long ago — as long as our overlords don’t also throw Manifest House Destiny into the indefinite detention mix. When friends and colleagues — hyper-educated, privileged, heads-willfully-stuck-in-the-sand, “liberal” friends — end up living under a bridge because the entire social safety net is shredded and all their money in banks and retirement accounts isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, will I have to invite them to live with me? Or maybe you can, since they haven’t been involved in the Occupy movement and therefore aren’t the “whining spoiled brats” you decry.

Re a much earlier comment of groo’s: yes, unfortunately, as research, not only this article, has shown, Facts Don’t Matter:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

Good luck getting people to acknowledge the ugly truths right in front of their faces. If any of you succeed, you are, as the saying goes, a better man than I.

dk:

You’re right. This reeks of smug, pompous self-regard.

And delusional in his insistence that elections will fix anything. This is a republic (not democracy) in name only.

Lisa,

Exactly right. Ian’s meaning was plainly obvious. I mean damn, he wrote in “See Jane Run” fashion. I don’t know how he could have been more straightforward. Some people are just pretending not to get it or are taking offense to avoid dealing with it directly.

I never realized so many people were so proud to be an American….especially people reading and responding to this blog. I mean, there are quite a few who are taking this way too personally, so therefore they must identify themselves as Americans, and thus take Ian’s criticism to mean them, even though they don’t fit the profile that is the recipient of Ian’s criticism.

It harkens back to what I mentioned on the other thread about what one considers oneself. If you’re an ethical person of principle first, then you are not an American…in the sense of what that term has come to mean. That’s why I said I am not an American on the other thread when I swapped out American for Atheist. I’m happy Ian took that and ran with it and I met the challenge of my words. I’m not the “American” Ian describes, so therefore I don’t take it personally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E

Sure he did:

“In a democracy, the PEOPLE are held responsible. Yes, there were forces working to stop it from being a democracy, but they voted for people like Reagan and the members of Congress, and so on. Whether you think the 2000 or 2004 elections were stolen (yes on the first, maybe on the second) they let it get to the point where it could be stolen. They didn’t riot in 2000. They reelected George Bush after everyone knew he was torturing scum.”

As far as “they” electing Reagan or Bush, or Obama for that matter, we’re talking 20% of the population. The rest have figured out their votes are worse than useless, and the remainder will be methodically vote-caged, barred from voter rolls and Diebolded if they don’t follow the duopoly

And exactly what has Ian done to stop the fascist Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper?

He typed. Glass house, maybe?
————————-
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor-General David Johnston paid warm tribute to the military today for its work in the Libyan campaign.

Mr. Johnston thanked the troops for their efforts.

“On behalf of all Canadians, I thank you for your service in this mission,” he said. “Together, you embody our commitment to international law, to the rights and freedoms we cherish in a democratic society, and to the personal values of duty, honour, and service.”

Oh, honestly, and Ian writes checks to Stephan Harper to bomb Libya. I think the organized electorate in Wisconsin and Ohio and occupiers in hundreds of US cities are doing more than Ian is on this score.

Liberated any foreclosed homes lately, or laid down in front of truncheon wielding police, Ian? Refused to pay your federal taxes? Didn’t think so.

I’m an “American,” and I am as responsible for the current state-of-affairs as anyone.

“Responsibility” means different things to different mind-sets. If one is in denial, they are by definition unable to perceive any personal responsibility for the consequences of denial. Only outside observers not in denial – at least not on the same subject – are free to debate about the responsibility of the denier. It is my sense, however, that it would not be much of a debate. It is pretty easy to see that denial is a robust, albeit passive-aggressive, defense of the status quo.

The “American way of life,” which was famously declared non-negotiable by Dick Cheney, has been subsidized by an overtly aggressive policy of exploitation. A disproportionate amount of resources have been retained by, and funneled into, the United States. This was (is) our status quo, and our active denial can be measured by all of the moments of history in the last century-and-a-half when cracks appeared in our Exceptionalist narrative, cracks which revealed the utter brutality* that underwrites the dreamlike standard of living that saw its apex in the sixties for the general population, in the nineties for a steadily refining class of martinets (I characterize myself, as a reasonably well-paid IT professional at the time, as being of this class – as opposed to the stagnant-wage majority), and finally here in the twenty-first century for a class of elites that have become sufficiently self-enabling for the rest of us to comfortably denounce them as ultimately responsible.

(A neat and convenient deflection in the end-game to our orgy of selfishness.)

My particular responsibility? I hope that an anecdote – a confession – will illuminate.

I “woke up” seven years ago last month. The consequences of that awareness has impoverished me.

Now, “waking up” does not excuse the 40 preceding years of adulthood in which I was quite aware of, and often decried (more stridently in my youth, of course) the hints of brutality that underwrote the relative prosperity that I experienced as an “American.” What was peculiar about my particular enlightenment was that choice was taken away from me. We all need to look at ourselves in the mirror, and once stripped of our toolkit of lies, then cursory glances no longer satisfy. My current materially sorry state is more than compensated, admittedly, by an enhanced sense of esteem, however undeserved.

(As an aside: So I do not regret this, but I am keenly aware of what an abyss the truth is to those who are still clinging to their toolkits. While I’m aware of the denial, and the consequences of the denial, I am reluctant to reveal – even if I were able – the cruelty of the truth to others before it ripens within them. It’s hard enough when you are ready for it.)

Back to me – I have a clear memory of my prior state of mind, in which I marshaled mighty reason to explain my privilege in the most benign manner possible. And, bearing in mind that I spent the majority of my useful life in participation with “catapulting the hologram” – to mangle a Bush quote (can a Bush quote actually be mangled?) – I am loathe to judge the people around me for not being awake. As if I “woke up” in time.

However horrific the consequences of the Dream, the Dreamer, while clearly responsible, is perhaps not as clearly deserving of my contempt.

——————————————————–

*One can start with Twain’s ruminations, in his autobiography, over the infamous slaughter of Filipinos in his time, a particularly venal act of Empire ambition. There have been many such hints, and the American people, for the most part, chose to accept whatever narrative best mollified their doubts about their own “good” nature and intentions. Sure, the left in principle reject “America First!” exceptionalism, but their own response-in-denial is basically what neo-liberalism is today, that we need merely to export and educate the rest of the world to get up to “American Dream” speed, that a rising tide lifts all boats, blah blah.

I would be inclined to excuse those who are truly deluded with the philosophical fantasy of “infinite abundance” – but for those hints of brutality that were always knocking at our door, and that we passive-aggressively refused to acknowledge.

And really, are we being lectured by Canadians? Canadians? Get back to us when you at least have the decency to get a monarch off your fucking currency.

And exactly what has Ian done to stop the fascist Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper?/blockquote>

good point. Also, so far as I am aware, Ian has not gone to any of the Canadian Occupations, not even to report.

not dodging my responsibility for my country’s actions, but sheesh, at least I went down to Freedom Plaza to help with the occupation, not much, but at least a little.

Well, re-reading Ian’s post, I take the main point to be that our responsibility is moot anyway. The odds of saving this place are too remote any longer. Now the priority is keeping other nations from being pulled down by us.

I’m not comfortable setting myself apart from the shortcomings of my countrymen. I’m no better or worse than anyone else. Thinking in those terms never helped me much.

I’m not comfortable setting myself apart from the shortcomings of my countrymen. I’m no better or worse than anyone else. Thinking in those terms never helped me much.

I have no qualms setting myself apart from what is described and thought of as American. I would like to not be associated with such a term, but as was mentioned long ago on another thread from way back, it is extremely difficult to not be a U.S. Citizen, and getting more difficult everyday. It has its legal hooks in you, not to mention, it’s extremely difficult to emigrate to other countries without have something valuable to offer said country in return. I’m not saying any of that is impossible, but it’s full of roadblocks. So, for now, I’m stuck on this soil and I’ll be damned if I will lump myself in with the pond scum I’ve been fighting for more than half my life now. I’ll never forget how I was pilloried by many on the so-called “Left” when I called out Obama for what he was, and what I knew he would be, well before he was elected, or even seemed to have a chance of winning the Democratic nomination. Those very same types continue to pull similar stunts with other topics even if they have now admitted they were duped by Obama. It’s as though they haven’t learned from it, and instead continue to pummel anyone who has a controversial view….and a controversial view to them is anything that attempts to burst their cozy little comfort bubble.

I don’t want to go down with these freaks….and yet that’s most likely going to be the outcome. Yeah, of course, if we breath, we are partly responsible, but the degrees vary, and my responsibility, like others here, I’m sure, is mostly involuntary. I contribute to this diabolical system to a bare minimum……just enough not to lose my wife and children and keep from starving….or living under the bridge, or going to jail. I have refrained from taking another corporate job for several years now….and, in fact, have not earned an income, at all. As a result, Uncle Scam has paid me for the past several years due to tax credits. I’m a seasoned professional who has worked in corporate finance with these scum CFOs and CEOs….and quite honestly, I can’t do it anymore because of my conscience….so don’t you lump me in with those scum….not when I have sacrificed mostly everything whilst they, and their sycophantic, cheerleading minions rob us, and the world blind. They are not MY countrymen. You can claim them if you like.

Was Sophie Scholl a Nazi? Was she responsible for the Nazi Atrocities? Is my only atonement her fate? I’m ready and willing to be part of an effort, a movement, that would possibly change this marching pestilence….but I don’t see it…anywhere. And no, as Ina has said, OWS is not it. He’s more optimistic than me….he believes it’s a start, but I call it dead in the cradle. It’s stillborn. Half-measures, quarter measures…..anything less than full measures will not cut it, and I don’t think most “Americans” are willing, and/or capable of that for all the obvious reasons.

…I contribute to this diabolical system to a bare minimum……just enough not to lose my wife and children and keep from starving….or living under the bridge, or going to jail.

Those are the trade-offs you’ve made. You’re not willing to risk losing your wife, your kids and a roof over your head, or going to jail. It’s “inconvenient” – the word I used in my comment, in your case seriously so. And so your “contribution” to the system may be minimal, but it’s not zero. And so you are, to that degree, responsible, as awful as that might sound to you. Whether you like the people around you or not.

Psychologically, I largely checked out of this culture some time ago. I try to relate to people as human beings, not so much as Americans, although certain tribal affiliations can be fun at times. But bottom-line, none of this matters – the fact is, I still pay taxes, vote, and get all the advantages and disadvantages of living in the Empire. And all the group karma both good and bad (a concept which to me is a little more accurate than “responsibility”) thereof. There’s just no way around it. We all belong to certain groups, some of them impossible to get out of (our birth family), others difficult to leave, others completely easy to leave.

This doesn’t mean you have to run out and begin your one man battle against the USA, but it does mean being honest about your situation, and stop kidding yourself. If those are the trade-offs you want and are willing to accept, so be it. But don’t kid yourself that you’re not really a member of this group. As long as you’re writing a check to Uncle Sam, you most definitely are wearing a stars and stripes T-shirt. With all the bennies and negatives that go with it.

oh, and thank you ian for for stirring the pot, and generally giving a damn.
someone’s got to do it, and as a long time reader, i for one appreciate it.

Alyosha, you’ve provided a great case, and plenty of incentive for everyone here to become a Zealous American. I mean, why not go all out and reap all the benefits while we can, since we’re all responsible, and will be punished, accordingly. I’m calling the recruiter as I type this. They’ve been knocking down my door for three years now. They’ll be glad to hear I’m ready to get back in the saddle. Might as well enjoy the most of it before my penance comes due. Thanks. You’re right, I was kidding myself and punishing myself unnecessarily. Now, it’s time to party like it’s 1999.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnuijDieOvY

Good rant, Ian.

Personally, I tried organizing for a few years and simply gave up because there was hardly anyone joining me.

Come on Lisa, their very name spells out the futility of OWS. 1% are the wealthy and they are on Wall Street carrying signs reading “we are the 99%.” They are not protesting endless war, nor America killing innocents with unmanned drones, nor environmental damage of war, nor spreading depleted uranium with expended ammunition, nor starting a war in Libya without Congressional authorization, nor propping up tyrants and dictators. They aren’t concerned about corrupt legislators, or Glass -Stegall, or a “national security” budget run amok.

They listened to a president say that “1% aren’t paying their fair share” and printed up their signs and headed for where they believe the 1% hang out.

Obama’s popularity is rising big time again, and over what? Health care reform did not do it, financial reform did not do it, the stimulus did not do it, repealing DADT did not do it, a new stimulus this year did not even get out of the gate, but a 2% tax cut has made him wildly popular, especially so since it’s “paid for” by “making the rich pay their fair share.”

This has been an eye opening thread. Ian put forth a very simple proposition. Namely, that the citizens of a democracy are responsible for the actions, both internally and externally, of their government. He even gave you an out by recognizing that not all citizens are equally responsible. The point being that until citizens accept responsibility they can’t really change anything. Granted, he wasn’t exactly nice about it, which seems to be some folks problem more than the substance of what he put forth, but still, I’m not sure how his main point is even debatable except as an exercise in intellectual posturing.

In any event a lot of the reactions have been interesting. From parsing blame to the nth degree, to not only not holding citizens responsible but holding them blameless due to a myriad of somewhat reasonable but ultimately shallow reasons, to having a personal definition of Americaness that excludes yourself, to silly taunts about Ian being Canadian and so on……seriously?

If we can’t even accept the general notion that We The People are responsible, in whatever measure, for the actions of our government, even in a generally enlightened forum like here, then really it’s probably best to take Ian’s oft offered advice and pack up and leave before it all comes crashing down.

We The People, my ass. Their isn’t any mythical We The People. That’s a load of bull. And don’t hand me that crap about leaving if I don’t like it. Go where, exactly? When this shit goes down, and it’s going down, it’s taking the whole world with it….because in case anyone forgot, the entire Globe is pretty much interconnected at this point. I say blow the whole goddamned thing up and get it over with. It’s beyond melodramatic, at this point. My only wish is that I’m at ground zero when the bombs go off so that my family and I can instantly evaporate and not even know what hit us.

They are not protesting endless war, nor America killing innocents with unmanned drones, nor environmental damage of war, nor spreading depleted uranium with expended ammunition, nor starting a war in Libya without Congressional authorization, nor propping up tyrants and dictators. They aren’t concerned about corrupt legislators, or Glass -Stegall, or a “national security” budget run amok.

Bullshit. We protested, and continue to protest, all those things at/from the occupation in Freedom Plaza in DC. Every last one of them.

We have written about them, repeatedly, on our website, and solicited input, and held workshops or teach-ins or whatever the hell you want to call them, and publicized them, and agitated about them, and gotten into spineless Congresspeople’s faces about them, and gotten arrested for it, and done umpteen interviews about them.

No, we can’t change the world overnight. You’re right about that. So let’s all just throw up our hands and go to a disco.

Back in the early 1970’s. I admired a young woman who about a year behind me in high school. She and some her mates were independent thinkers, a bit brash, and outspoken. She was different in one respect though. She did not take up with the Helen Reddy faction of feminists—she did not march or roar. I thought is was a contradiction given the times, and I ask her about it. She said she liked her independence and she did not like marching songs.
I thought it might be dangerous to be independent and outside of a group with whom she had so much in common, and I told her so. She explained she preferred to confront harrassment and discrimination once face-at-a-time. She pointed out that when she hitch-hiked, she did not feel it necessary to look helpless or attractive, or anything in between—but she did carry a really long hat-pin.

I have observed “movements” for many years and wondered at the erosion of their effectiveness (if the media is any guide—and I suspect it is one, but not the only one.)

I am not sure movements need to inflict pain and chaos, grab headlines or stop traffic. I admit they are more jarring to everyone’s sensibilities, and the media eats it up. I think geezers like me who did try to do something about Vietnam have also realized whatever we did, however influential it may have seemed, was only a skirmish. Given what we know today, we can see very little has actually changed in the circles of government or commerce as a result of that particular movement.

I think the Occupy “movement” is a kind of re-think about what constitutes effectivness when you need political change in America. It may lead exactly to where Ian thinks it needs to go.

But it may also lead to a broader, less obvious and obtrusive shift as well. Maybe more people will find ways to meet the problem face-to-face, one-at-a-time. Perhaps we will all locate the hat-pins we need to prod our way to our objectives.

just watching this movie about Temple Grandin, this autistic woman, who could feel herself into suffering animals in the slaughterhouses.
(dangerous analogy, I know)
But anyhow, this courageous woman induced significant change.

Count me impressed.

Maybe our situation is not so different at last.

My theory is this:
Everybody is everybody else’s sense-organ.

This broadens consciousness, increases responsibility and mutual respect.

The individualistic view, aka rational man or homo oeconomicus does the opposite.
It presupposes that every societal particle is complete in itself.
This is a dangerous and WRONG presupposition!
OK?

So, changing our perspective, or virtual position within a net of mutual influence, would do some good.

As a notorious bonehead and potential hermit I feel not challenged by that at all.
I am just a more punctuated knot in the web of mutual influence.

Is this helpful?

*What is the proper attitude to take in regard to the victims of propaganda?*

Caution, depending on who they are. Victims of propaganda can be dangerous to one’s health/life.
They’re the ones turning in friends and family to the authorities.
Lamo setting up Manning being the latest example.
Victims are an entire discussion in itself…

@groo – this is very helpful. I (and I think this is a baby boomer trait) tend to be the sledgehammer (shouting “lies”) instead of patiently and carefully looking for the weaknesses to do the Overton and skillfully, quietly chip away. One of my teachers, Yogananda, taught that “Environment is stronger than will”. It takes an extraordinary will to go counter to the mass hypnosis we often find ourselves in. Watering holes like this site have immense value in this regard, particularly back during the Bush years when it was so hard to find others who questioned the Official Story.

Ghostwheel PERMALINK
December 28, 2011
Hope people are still following this thread.
Stumbled across this quite by accident:
“There’s a simpler and more disturbing possibility, based on the 1950s research of Herbert Krugman. He discovered early on that television watching induces a shift towards right brain dominance in human primates.
_________

In so many words, I’ve know of this for longer than I can remember. I finally ditched the tube in 1994.
My generation (1945) cut their teeth on television. Best opiate I know and far harder to kick.
Television is only one aspect of Ameria’s problem; the rich have been indoctrinating us from kindergarten through high-school and into most colleges and universities.
TVs’ contribution is as a maintenance dose, so we never quite get off of the tit.
True change will only come from ourselves; but we haven’t figured that out yet; thus the politicking, rhetoric, and the myth of democracy and voting…

T-Bear,
have been inhalating quite some Schopenhauer the last couple of days,
and was surprised that eg Nietzsche mostly delivered only footnotes on him.
Or misinterpreted him outright.
Nietzsche tried to turn around Schopenhauer’s conception of the ‘will’, similar to Marx, who tried that with Hegel.
Marx/Hegel : undecided.
Nietzsche/Schopenhauer: Well. The old man got the upper hand, as far it concerns my humble opinion.
Having considered myself for a long time a younger brother of N., but now feel nearer to our both ‘father’ , which is Sch. .

Whitehead said about Plato’s legacy: Western Philosophy is only footnotes on Plato.
Well.

Schopenhauer actually is a different animal.

The American-English seem to have no good grasp what Schopenhauer was all about.
Looking through all the ‘quotes-sites’, I found 99% crap.
Cultural divide? (Teuton me)

One quote maybe worth mentioning:

“The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.”

A similar difficulty I have with Thoreau, a true American philosopher of the land.
Because we Europeans do not have such a land anymore for a long time, we do not understand him.
And probably the Americans do not have a good understanding of the Native Indian
worldview.
CG Jung had the firm belief, that the spirit of the native Indians would take over American belief, because it is so deeply ingrained into the land, that the conquerers had no chance to root it out, and finally are overtaken by this spirit of the land.

Well. This seems like the phantasy of a good mind.
I would not rule this out once and for all.

This is a difficult matter and takes maybe a couple of thousand years to work itself out.
Leave it to the children, and their children.
If there are any left.
Then the totems of consumerism compare to the totem of the land.

This worries me a lot.
It takes a lot of effort, to bridge the gap, and is reserved for some very few, who communicate, or -well- finally stop doing so.

Thanks T-Bear for consideration.

‘Beliefs’ are extremely difficult to tackle.

As a -ahem-Teuton I am wondering of this tune : ‘Riders on the storm’, which seems to me a genuine american Gospel in 100-fold interpretation.
I genuinely cannot understand it, but on the other hand I have the feeling that somewhere there the American soul must be.

celsius

I just happened to stumble over this gem:
“How Ernest Dichter, an acolyte of Sigmund Freud, revolutionised marketing”
http://www.economist.com/node/21541706

Seemingly it is the fate of every empire that some quacks rise up and program common belief.
It has an inherent logic, that the quacks, like flees jump from the sick dog to the healthier one.
Carl Schmitt (Germany), Bernays (Greater Austria), Hayek (same), Ayn Rand (Russia) come to mind.
Just an idea, which I am thinking about for a long time, not a rigid thesis.

The rural red staters partially resisted this programming, and developed their own insanity as an antidote.
Maybe best illustrated by the Amish, which erected a rigid wall around themselves.
Wonder if they even participate in presidential elections and that.

I wish, more native american indians would go back to their roots, difficult as it definitely is, and not engage in building gambling casinos as a source of profit.
Just to be ripped off by the Abramoffs of this world.

My ‘belief’ is foremost one in diversity, albeit on certain issues of universal concern I feel challenged to step in.
And there currently are quite lot of them.
Right?

Celsius,

thanks for consideration.
Difficult times.
We do our best.

Maybe best illustrated by the Amish, which erected a rigid wall around themselves.

Only in certain respects. That wall has many holes in it and those holes can fit many camels through it unlike the eye of a needle. The Amish are opportunists and take advantage of the outside world when it suits their purposes. If in doubt of this, visit Lancaster, Pa. and behold their exploitation. Buggy Rides for thirty to forty bucks a pop, for example.

What’s interesting about the Eye of the Needle myth is how it was interpreted in later years to water down its poignancy……meaning, since Constantine usurped the Christian movement, it now became the purvey of the wealthy, and you can’t have Jesus saying that there is no place for wealthy people in the eternal afterlife. That wouldn’t do.

dont like that smiley!
I’m serious!
My goodness!
Embarrssing!
Ha.

groo PERMALINK
December 30, 2011
celsius

Seemingly it is the fate of every empire that some quacks rise up and program common belief.

__________

Yes, and the religions of the planet are probably the most egregious programmers followed closely by governments. The Tao and Buddhism are excellent tools against the undue assault by the religions of the world. Governments are another story, however.
Not to start an argument or go off topic, but; the Tao and Buddhism are not religions (I have no sway over what people do with things) because they have no gods, beliefs, heaven, hell, or other trappings of religions. They deal with the nature of existence and show the way for an understanding of our natural world. (Sorry if that’s an over simplification)
I think skepticism and doubt are our most powerful allies.
But understanding the individual, inner, landscape is most necessary before attempting to tackle the never ending stream of programming directly aimed at keeping us off balance and to discourage any form of critical thinking. Religion and government are antithetical to the serious pursuit of a healthy inner life.
In my clumsy way; I’ve tried to answer you and express my own ideas of the view as I understand it at this time.
You ended with; “Right?”
I don’t know; am I right? I don’t know.
I’m always in awe of the people who go through life so cock sure of themselves; that has never described me…
Cheers

@ 233ºC, groo

You both might consider belief in another way, much like the Arabs considered the zero in their math, a placeholder, something to keep a category open for further understanding when the subject was realized to be incomplete or adequate information not available, and yet to be able to construct something cognizable, e.g. something is still where one left it or someone’s condition was improved but you are not for sure. Used in this manner, the unstated understanding contains uncertainty containing change when the subject becomes more complete.

Another form belief can take appears when belief is used to complete and satisfy information or understanding and curtail further change should more or better understanding become available. Best example may be the belief in Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s earth-centred universe over two millennium before Copernicus introduced an improved belief, supported by mathematical calculation, and conforming with observed facts far better and simpler than its preceding theory.

The dangerous form to which you refer happens when beliefs are constructed and adhered to that propose the implausible, the irrational or the inconceivable, usually as a means of suspending disbelief in some scheme; religions certainly qualify, but throwing the baby (beliefs) out with the bathwater isn’t the profitable way to understanding.

Formerly T-Bear, Celsius,…
–sorry, this is going to be somewhat longish–

I think/’believe’, I’m/we debaters here are aware of the intricacies of ‘belief’, and therefore concentrated on some of the darker sides.

Mentioned Ernest Dichter was a funny type of a quack, who had a point of sorts.
Mainly that, some 80% of motivations (eg for buying a good) are unconscius.
The ‘belief’, that has to be implanted in the consumer, is, that his decision is the best one.
This is done by by massaging the Unconscious, because it is the dominant part.

To call this a ‘belief’ is quite debatable.
The situation is quite asymmetric: the advertiser/corporation knows about this set of human weaknesses, the consumer is just an object, which has to be shaped/programmed
accordingly.

This is from an enlightenment perspective (which one could term a ‘belief’ also) deeply embarrassing.
One says: Exploit the weakness
The other: Heal the weakness, by first making them visible.

See Veblen in his ‘Theory of the Leisure Class’. Veblen the humanist put the issue on the table for us all to inspect.
Same Vance Packard, who was a fierce opponent of Dichter in the 50’s.
He saw quite clearly, to what this would lead: ‘Status competition’ via consumer goods.
————
Jump:
Karl Rove = Bush’s brain, an evil programmer of all sorts of ‘beliefs’.
Even worse: A gardener of the fragmented minds of those poor chaps called authoritarian followers.

I understand Celsius’ assessment of religion in this way:
Just an example:

The Catholic priests in the middle ages had this habit of ‘Ablasshandel’, where eg the believer on his death-bed gave half of his property to the church, which guaranteed him a place in heaven. This made the Church the biggest owner of land in southern Germany, besides the Nobility.
Quite a feat, right?
This ended abruptly around 1803 with the socalled secularization, which affected approximately 30% of all the land.
Maybe this throws out all those chaps who donated, out of heaven, because all this property is not in God’s hand anymore.

To make this work You have to install an elaborate and ‘belief-system’ to endure the the centuries, and keep Your adversaries in check (the nobility).

This does not mean that I want to throw ‘beliefs’ out of the bathtub together with the bathwater.
Buddhism in its form of Taoism and some others is mostly free from follies and trickery.

First: Know the foundations of your beliefs (the axioms one chooses for his life, so to say).
This obviously is the tricky part.
You can do it only one or two times in life, not more often.

Anyway

Happy new year to all here, in interesting times.
We have quite some work to do.

Morocco Bama,

here we end in a serious assessment of everybody’s (and every society’s, scvience, religion…) fundamental working, which is a set of axioms.
I prefer this to the more amorph term ‘belief’.
There has been a longish discussion around 1900.
Eg Frege ‘Sinn und Bedeutung’ = ‘sense and meaning’ 1892
Mauthner’s ‘Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache’ critique of language ca 1902, unknown to the English.
Wittgenstein: ‘Glaube und Gewissheit’ = ‘belief and certainty’

and others.
Sorry, when sounding overeducated. It should’nt and is not intended to be.
What worries me, is that the intellectuals at that time underwent a deep crisis, whereby the idiots prepared for WWI.
Not that intellectuals and philosophers have recovered since then.

The other side was not lazy, developed an impressive arsenal of propaganda, mind control and modes of distraction for the common man.
Here we are.
Losing the battle, as it seems.

Anyway.
Thoughts hopefully worthy a dec 31, 2011.

All the best.

Petro,

…
We do indeed need to behave “as if true” – to hold place-holder hypotheticals – in order to consider reality at all.

Agree.
But this is not a selling point for the lot of us.

As the good Doctor John said:
“The city that care forgot”.

What does it mean?
Even Music is sort of an abstraction.
All we say in the internetz is an abstraction.

Well, what we do, is something less of an…

Albeit the good Doctor, together with the good Eric Clapton, does a good job of making the abstract sort of feelable.
Secondary emotions, with a ‘real’ feel.

The problem lays in language it seems, presuming belief and faith are synonymous when they are only congruent; one applied secularly, the other to the more ecclesiastical realm. It helps to know that distinction when using some words, or at least use those words more accurately as to intent.

Aforementioned was an interesting hour being acquainted/reacquainted with Schopenhauer, reference given. In it reference was made to Kant’s distinction between “phenomena (what appears to a perceiving mind) and noumena (things as they are in themselves [intellectual constructs of the mind])” as the medium of consciousness of the world, i.e.”perceiving the world as an “idea” or “representation” (Vorstellung)”. This applied to belief was basis of those remarks. No need was foreseen to continue into the realm of faith but would have been completing to do so. No edit function requires modification of the final paragraph to:

The dangerous form to which you refer happens when beliefs are constructed and adhered to that propose the implausible, the irrational or the inconceivable, usually as a means of suspending disbelief in some scheme; religions certainly qualify, but throwing the baby (beliefs) out with the bathwater isn’t the profitable way to understanding. This hazard strewn form of belief a.k.a. faith entraps most minds into a terminal belief beyond the ability of rational reality based perceptions to reach, remediate or rescue as most of those afflicted go to their graves carrying intact their acquired beliefs, only the rare few escape the fate.

Schopenhauer presciently indicated a significant level of awareness of the unconscious mind and the role it plays in the thought process (will) but was never called upon to address the devious utility the knowledge could be put, e.g. propaganda, marketing, and other forms of persuasion. But that is another subject.

P.S. interesting links

Apparently Carl Sagan said that the reason we haven’t contacted/been contacted by aliens is because species with advanced intelligence kill themselves off; in so many words.
At this juncture, I’d have to agree; it ain’t looking too good for us…

It’s something I have followed with great amusement and interest over the years, because on my journey of introspection and migration from tentative yet earnest “believer” to the Catcher In The Rye skeptic I am today, I have taken an increasing interest in cosmology….because it still fascinates me to this day what we are, what this is, and where it’s going. I know I’ll never find the answer….but I’ll be damned, considering it and pondering it is wonderful mental masturbation so long as I don’t take myself too seriously….or take anyone else too seriously, either. And that’s where the amusement factor comes in. As you know, Cosmologists are changing their theories once a year, or more, now, and I believe that is due to the Singularity. As knowledge increases exponentially, theoretical extrapolation of possibilities manifest that were previously hidden in plain sight. So, speaking with such orthodoxical confidence and assuredness in such matters reminds me of the Vatican and their dogmatic interpretations of the character and intent of the God they have created in their image.

I believe I have posted this documentary here before, but I will deposit it again for purposes of illustration. Every orthodoxy has its priests….it clergy….it’s dutiful strategic and technical administrative teams that secure, spread and perpetuate the “faith.” I this documentary, especially the third part I have linked to, make a great case for this.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8945702810854373085

In regards to Carl Sagan’s comments, and what’s being discussed here in this late part of this thread, I’m having a similar discussion on another blog, and I’ve had this to say. I think it’s pertinent.

Yeah, I lived through 1968 as well, Arthur, but since I liken us to trees, it’s part of me now, and you, in one of the inner rings. Yes, we’re in the process of creating a new outer ring, but that new outer ring creation will be influenced in some way by the totality of experiences that have led to the creation of all our rings.

And to that point, yes, that’s one reason it appears impossible to create a new System….because the old System has scattered an eternity of seeds ubiquitously across our psyches so that when the old System collapses, and it will, in its ashes, like a Phoenix, it sprouts again from the seeds it strategically distributed. Getting past this eternally perpetuating mechanism will be a significant milestone in social evolution. It seems impossible at this moment, but I believe that’s just the seeds of the old System talking.

Considering what I just said, and reviewing some of the more recent comments, for any one with an OPEN mind, who’s really the apathetic and cynical ones?

@Celsius – that Jim Walker link was an excellent read. Thank you.

By all this I again want to hint to two opposing trends:
a) exploiting the weaknesses of the human mind/human condition for some absolutely despicable, egotistic motives,
b) healing this condition from a very improbable position.

groo, I’m going to give you a stack of links that you may find interesting. John Michael Greer refers to thaumaturgy in the following posts – which is a term for the sort of manipulation you refer to here. I find the subject fascinating myself – I hope you don’t mind the links. (You can search for “thaumaturgy” if you want to jump to the relevant passages).

(Fingers crossed on the HTML).

Pluto’s Republic
A Lesson in Practical Magic
The Trouble with Binary Thinking
Aristotle’s Secret
Bringing It Down To Earth

btw,
if anybody believes that the Russians are NOT part of Greater Europe:
Ofcourse they are.
I mentioned some arguments already:
Chekov was first buried in Baden-Baden, small town in Western Germany.
I visited his grave some 3 years ago.
As a national ‘treasure’ he was transferred to Russia.
Transferring a body is the highest ambition of any national character.
OK?
Now to the German-Russian relationship:
Tolstoi was a deep admirer of Schopenhauer.
Here it goes the other way round.
If ‘I’ had to choose between the American soul and the Russian soul, well, folks, ‘I’ would have some difficulty.
This is not that I would prefer Putin over Obama.
Those are phony bums, to be clear.
But if it is about something akin to a soul, I prefer the Russian soul.
It is deep and decent, despite the fights we have recently.
The reason why this is, is, I suppose, a mode of exchange.
A mode of giving and forgiving.
The Americans were heroes in their times, after WWII.
They could have been the gratest souls ever.
The beacon. The shining city. Whatever.
But they spoiled it. TOTALLY.
Maybe this sounds embarrassing to quite a lot of You, but the Russians have a character, which I respect.
Deep down in the American soul is the American Native soul, which I also respect deeply, but not this assortment of fools and fraudsters, who nowadays inhabit Washington City.
The ancient national character of the US is buried somewhere deep in the rural centre, and has been hijacked by the coastal ‘outbacks’.
Yes. They are the modern outbacks of stupidity and superstition and fraud. They dare call them ‘blue’!
The socalled centers of innovation.
Financial here (upper East), technological there (southern west).
Both are bankrupt.
The center also, because it became a desert of industrial pseudo-agriculture, which basically destroys the land on a big scale.
Sure, I do not make any friends here, by saying this.

One other comment. I’ve been a volunteer (as in always unpaid) political activist for around 40 years, including being tear gassed and jailed, prior to being drafted to Vietnam, and afterwards many a time, and worked on Carter’s first and successful presidential campaign — was offered a job in the West Wing, which I declined, always worked as a technoid when possible, only interested in progress, not really politics or political theater, per se.

But for forty years, I’ve been almost futilely attempting to warn my fellow Americans (Ameritards???) that offshoring of jobs was a bad, bad thing (one of the three main tools for dismantling the economy and wealth transfer, obviously), and to this day there are still waaaay too many who don’t get it!

Yes, most definitely, the sports-watching, lazy-brained populace, whose primary educational input is TV or movies or sports or similar bilge, are to blame…..

Not that I cherish the remnants of the German ‘soul’ over others.

I have some deep diving to do.
Therefore I talk a lot about affairs >100years ago.
It is not that I think, that ‘we’ -as collectives- have been in our right minds ever.

It is about a loss of connection.

What makes me glad, is, that on a lot of places people realize this loss, not quite aware, what it is.

There is a recitation of all 200 fairy-tales, the brothers Grimm collected.

It goes over 3 days by three women in free speech.

Not reading them out of books.

Telling them, as the mothers did to their childs.

Now, is that not a powerful sign of change?

So all intelligent beings have to wonder whether between the two is a manovering-room?…

Is the universe causally closed?
Then we should all be Buddhists, and immediately stop all action.

I have something to say to that (not particularly original, of course). The noisome mind contemplates (“wonders”) what it is like to be silent. From such a perspective, it looks a death, and one sensibly rejects what seems to be nihilism. The truth is, the noisome mind cannot imagine what that state is like, it can only project from its tumultuous condition, and what it imagines is nothing like the fact. There is life in silence, but that “knowledge” is only nonsense if one is not inhabiting it.

There is value in the turning of the “wheel,” even if it can be intellectually characterized as a closed system.

Incidentally, groo – I agree with what you said about the American (U.S.) “soul” vs. the Russian (“European”). It is interesting to note, however, how much of our country’s educational institutions, and social policies, were shaped by the Industrial Age titans’ fascination with the 19th Century academia of Europe, particularly Austria (from Freud to the military). I do not say this defensively, since we really had nothing to claim as our own before then, such was the hodge-podge mosaic of post-Revolutionary America “philosophies,” shaped as much by the indigenous people that were conquered (as Jung noted) as by the reactionary attitudes of the fleeing pilgrims.

I say it because what we are grappling with now (and what’s infected the globe), is the lasting legacy of the successful efforts of “elites” in suffocating a true democracy still in the crib. Using disciplinary tools and methods imported from Europe. (Not that they wouldn’t have invented them anyway, I imagine.)

The Revolutionary War is just a label for the history books. It hasn’t happened yet. I’m confident that it will. And since it will probably be “global” this time, it just might take.

(I’m well into a bottle of wine, so pardon me if I am not being as clear as I’d like to be.)

For: groo

I don’t know if it will help your search but Robert Fisk of The Independent has this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-shocking-truth-that-killing-can-be-so-casual-6286254.html

Your tribe isn’t the only one whose inheritors have ghosts to bury and spirits to disseminate; this happens with all tribes regardless of how far up the ladder of civilization they climb; there is no one cause nor are there exact tipping points which send tribes into the maelstrom of cultural insanity and wanton killing. However probable there is a common thread involved in all cases, the probability is most likely to have two characteristics. One is the construct of their world has belief as a foundation. The other has the lie, the falsehood as the currency for social and political power. An Irish barrister, a Peter Charleton wrote of his professional experience in “Lies in a Mirror, An Essay on Evil and Deceit”, ISBN 1-84218-101-7. In the book, it is related that the common thread to criminal behavior also had those characteristics as well when carefully analyzed. Between belief and lies is a fog that obscures the cardinal directions to being human, whether as a tribal member or as an individual. Hopefully this will contribute some light into your enquiries.