i'm one with the universe and you're not: group and individual
Ever wonder if the much-discussed division between the individual on one hand and the collective group on the other is a false division, a false dichotomy?
It seems fairly obvious to me that we are all interconnected with the people, things and world around us, and that what we do usually seems to come back to us through some sort of cause and effect. Therefore, i would claim that there is no point in trying to separate oneself from the universal oneness, or to harbor illusions of making one's personal separate consciousness immortal, because we are irreversibly part of the universal oneness just as a consequence of being alive, and there is no other way to be.
At the same time, those individualists who still feel uncomfortable with this should not dispair. Taking some vocabulary from certain turn-of-the-century British heroin-addicted brewery heirs, I think it might make sense to talk about the idea of the "True Self". According to this theory similar to that of Rousseau, we can say that whatever it is that gives your True Self its jollies is in line with everybody else's True Self anyway. The stuff you think you want to do that goes against other people is probably not your True Self, in this idea. I don't have any more proof for this than certain British heroin junkies did, but I figure it's about as good as any a way to trick yourself into doing what's best for you and everyone else in the long term -- and I do believe it is better in the LONG long term to be moral.
(i'm using some relatively esoteric terms here, and i hope you don't mind -- i got the "True Self" stuff from the crazy-ass Thelemites -- not that i'm into that, don't freak out. i've just been poking around the net looking for religious perspectives on individuality and the whole.)
Now, you may think the True Self stuff is a bunch of bullshit and that only the regular old self -- which has desires contrary to others -- actually exists. Okay, whatever -- i can't argue metaphysics that well. But for me personally (so to speak), Buddhism and personal experience have both shown me that following this normal everyday self after its every passing whim and screech for immidiate indulgence is not going to make me happy, and is not my idea of a viable religious-philosophical path.
At any rate, i figure that even if there is no such thing as a True Self out there on the astral plane eating Doritos with Aiwass, then i still don't see why we people can't find some balance between what we all want to some degree that we're all -- not really "only sort of happy," that's not what i mean -- but satisfactorally happy, to the extent that whatever other things you want can be forgotten about. Most of the stuff we want is not stuff that we actually need to live, and only the necessary stuff will be too insistent on our desires. Even if nobody really wanted to, as it turns out, reality all by its fucking self makes us compromise with each other and with certain external factors anyway, in terms of getting what we want.
If one's True Self -- or however you think of it -- does not truly desire anything (at least to a pressing degree) that would stand in the way of anyone else's True Self (and again, i can't prove this is true, but i figure that some balance can be achieved) then how is that different that being absorbed into the Right-Hand-Path Brahma-plasma that all the Randians are so scared of?
i had an idea a while ago. i think maybe the Buddhists and others are right -- that the individual ego, or self, is indeed the thing that most hampers one's own freedom, and that to be truly free, one must be free of this ego. However, i wonder if maybe the only person that can free one from one's ego is oneself.
By this i mean, only you can free you from yourself. No government or religious hierarchy or any outside authority (to use everyday, samsara terms) can get rid of the atman-monkey riding on your back but you. i am drawn to this idea because it's paradoxical, which means i don't understand it, and since i don't understand it, i can pretend i do. Or is that paradoxical?
After you have been liberated from all outside tyranny and oppression, the single most oppressive force acting to keep you enslaved -- unhappy and with your full potential unrealized -- is yourself. But while authorites have tried to save people from themselves -- or at least pretended to while fleecing them -- that doesn't work. When you've been freed of everything else, there is still the chains of yourself, and paradoxically, only you can break them.
At any rate, i don't like government or authority too much -- although i'm holding off on proclaiming myself an anarchist because of the suspicion that some of this necessary evil might in fact be necessary. And no, I don't particularly want the "mob" or "herd" to keep me from doing things I want that don't hurt anybody. I never said the masses weren't stupid -- it's just that we're all part of the masses, and we're all about equally as stupid when you look at every part of the IQ test. Most of the time, though, I've noticed that "mob" actions to keep free-spirited individualist hippie mallgoths (not too much unlike myself in spirit) from burning the flag and smoking weed while having sex with same-gender partners -- or to keep black people from voting, to use a more important example -- there usually is some sort of small, elite group or elite individual behind the whole oppression. I can't say this is always true in history, but I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a "poor-majority-oppressing-the-Nietzschean-minority" without some other Nietzschean minority egging the majority on.
I could probably write a whole damn book about why elitism in general is wrong. Or, if "wrong" rubs you wrong", we can use Buddhist terminology more digestible for nihilists -- let's say "unskillful", not to mention irrational. No, I do not think we should keep down individuals' natural talents like Diana Moon Glompers in the story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut I just think that no one can be trusted totally with deciding for the course of another's life, and that we have no neutrally objective way of deciding who should be the Nietzschean god-kings fit to rule the sheep. Because of these considerations, we must allow each individual to have as much say over his or her own life as socially possible, with some sort of democratic-ish compromise taking place in whatever situations where we must act collectively or interact with others' personal space.
But what if the "sheep" are not fit to rule themselves after all? Well, I would ask this: if you aren't going to feel good enough about most people to let them rule themselves, then why would you care about them enough to try to rule them for their own good? If you would rule people with an iron fist, you are at least misanthropic enough to leave them alone and let them ruin their own lives. If you care enough about them to want to rule them for their own good, then (a) you would let them rule themselves, and (b) you wouldn't be under the elitist-crowd-hater umbrella anyway. Why would such an altruist wuss let people rule themselves? Because said wuss would not consider him- or herself up to the task of ruling them -- 'cause after all, nihilists as well as bible-thumpers and jaded half-buddhists are pessimistic about human nature, including one's own. And if you're not pessimistic in this way (though i think one should be pessimistic) then one would believe in democracy for the old lefty reasons.
Suffice to say that it doesn't seem to make sense to uphold individualism for the blessed Ubermensch few and then turn around and say that, since nature doesn't care about individuals, we should feel free to eugenically prune the societal tree anytime the philosopher kings think that some random so-and-so has bad genes to blame for falling short of the Zaranthusra/Fountainhead ideal. Triage will be triage as far as utilitarian necessity goes in dire survival situations. This, however, does not mean kill the cross-eyed guy.Oh, yeah; since when is any society in the world at large primarily controlled at present by the power of sheep keeping the Zaranthusras down? Seems to me like we have plenty of elitism in society as it is. Or if you think it's not elitist enough, you probably would agree that most people are selfish enough. Whether you think that's good, bad or indifferent, widespread selfishness does not denote that the masses have been kept from embracing Nietzschean dreams by christian ideas like Nietzsche thought.
Speaking of Nietzsche and company, it should be noted that his nth-generation acolyte LaVey admitted that his own whole Halloween setup was just Ayn Rand with spooky rituals - you dress it in a suit and call the devil God, and you got yourself a Republican think-tank. You might not think that's bad, but think - nobody can function going through life without any delayed gratification, which is really what any rational right-hand-path "abstinence" is all about. The same with forgiveness versus revenge: sure you can defend yourself if your life is in danger, and in some select cases it might be judged expedient to retaliate to stop further attacks. But on the whole, an eye for an eye really does make the whole goddamn world blind, not to mention fucking up the middle east with all the religious-war shit I thought Nietzsche and co. looked down on.
In the end, I'll just go back to my Ninja-Turtles-level understanding of the yin and yang and say, hey, it's a balance of opposites. Individuals need each other, and the "collective" -- to whatever extent it exists -- needs individuals to make it up. And I still like the idea that no one can free you from yourself but you.
-----
"Of old there were certain things that realized oneness:/ The heavens in realizing oneness became clear;/ The earth in realizing oneness became stable;/ The numinous in realizing oneness became animated ... Thus for something to be noble it must take the humble as its root;/ For something to be high it must take the low as its foundation."
Daodejing Chapter 39
It seems fairly obvious to me that we are all interconnected with the people, things and world around us, and that what we do usually seems to come back to us through some sort of cause and effect. Therefore, i would claim that there is no point in trying to separate oneself from the universal oneness, or to harbor illusions of making one's personal separate consciousness immortal, because we are irreversibly part of the universal oneness just as a consequence of being alive, and there is no other way to be.
At the same time, those individualists who still feel uncomfortable with this should not dispair. Taking some vocabulary from certain turn-of-the-century British heroin-addicted brewery heirs, I think it might make sense to talk about the idea of the "True Self". According to this theory similar to that of Rousseau, we can say that whatever it is that gives your True Self its jollies is in line with everybody else's True Self anyway. The stuff you think you want to do that goes against other people is probably not your True Self, in this idea. I don't have any more proof for this than certain British heroin junkies did, but I figure it's about as good as any a way to trick yourself into doing what's best for you and everyone else in the long term -- and I do believe it is better in the LONG long term to be moral.
(i'm using some relatively esoteric terms here, and i hope you don't mind -- i got the "True Self" stuff from the crazy-ass Thelemites -- not that i'm into that, don't freak out. i've just been poking around the net looking for religious perspectives on individuality and the whole.)
Now, you may think the True Self stuff is a bunch of bullshit and that only the regular old self -- which has desires contrary to others -- actually exists. Okay, whatever -- i can't argue metaphysics that well. But for me personally (so to speak), Buddhism and personal experience have both shown me that following this normal everyday self after its every passing whim and screech for immidiate indulgence is not going to make me happy, and is not my idea of a viable religious-philosophical path.
At any rate, i figure that even if there is no such thing as a True Self out there on the astral plane eating Doritos with Aiwass, then i still don't see why we people can't find some balance between what we all want to some degree that we're all -- not really "only sort of happy," that's not what i mean -- but satisfactorally happy, to the extent that whatever other things you want can be forgotten about. Most of the stuff we want is not stuff that we actually need to live, and only the necessary stuff will be too insistent on our desires. Even if nobody really wanted to, as it turns out, reality all by its fucking self makes us compromise with each other and with certain external factors anyway, in terms of getting what we want.
If one's True Self -- or however you think of it -- does not truly desire anything (at least to a pressing degree) that would stand in the way of anyone else's True Self (and again, i can't prove this is true, but i figure that some balance can be achieved) then how is that different that being absorbed into the Right-Hand-Path Brahma-plasma that all the Randians are so scared of?
i had an idea a while ago. i think maybe the Buddhists and others are right -- that the individual ego, or self, is indeed the thing that most hampers one's own freedom, and that to be truly free, one must be free of this ego. However, i wonder if maybe the only person that can free one from one's ego is oneself.
By this i mean, only you can free you from yourself. No government or religious hierarchy or any outside authority (to use everyday, samsara terms) can get rid of the atman-monkey riding on your back but you. i am drawn to this idea because it's paradoxical, which means i don't understand it, and since i don't understand it, i can pretend i do. Or is that paradoxical?
After you have been liberated from all outside tyranny and oppression, the single most oppressive force acting to keep you enslaved -- unhappy and with your full potential unrealized -- is yourself. But while authorites have tried to save people from themselves -- or at least pretended to while fleecing them -- that doesn't work. When you've been freed of everything else, there is still the chains of yourself, and paradoxically, only you can break them.
At any rate, i don't like government or authority too much -- although i'm holding off on proclaiming myself an anarchist because of the suspicion that some of this necessary evil might in fact be necessary. And no, I don't particularly want the "mob" or "herd" to keep me from doing things I want that don't hurt anybody. I never said the masses weren't stupid -- it's just that we're all part of the masses, and we're all about equally as stupid when you look at every part of the IQ test. Most of the time, though, I've noticed that "mob" actions to keep free-spirited individualist hippie mallgoths (not too much unlike myself in spirit) from burning the flag and smoking weed while having sex with same-gender partners -- or to keep black people from voting, to use a more important example -- there usually is some sort of small, elite group or elite individual behind the whole oppression. I can't say this is always true in history, but I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a "poor-majority-oppressing-the-Nietzschean-minority" without some other Nietzschean minority egging the majority on.
I could probably write a whole damn book about why elitism in general is wrong. Or, if "wrong" rubs you wrong", we can use Buddhist terminology more digestible for nihilists -- let's say "unskillful", not to mention irrational. No, I do not think we should keep down individuals' natural talents like Diana Moon Glompers in the story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut I just think that no one can be trusted totally with deciding for the course of another's life, and that we have no neutrally objective way of deciding who should be the Nietzschean god-kings fit to rule the sheep. Because of these considerations, we must allow each individual to have as much say over his or her own life as socially possible, with some sort of democratic-ish compromise taking place in whatever situations where we must act collectively or interact with others' personal space.
But what if the "sheep" are not fit to rule themselves after all? Well, I would ask this: if you aren't going to feel good enough about most people to let them rule themselves, then why would you care about them enough to try to rule them for their own good? If you would rule people with an iron fist, you are at least misanthropic enough to leave them alone and let them ruin their own lives. If you care enough about them to want to rule them for their own good, then (a) you would let them rule themselves, and (b) you wouldn't be under the elitist-crowd-hater umbrella anyway. Why would such an altruist wuss let people rule themselves? Because said wuss would not consider him- or herself up to the task of ruling them -- 'cause after all, nihilists as well as bible-thumpers and jaded half-buddhists are pessimistic about human nature, including one's own. And if you're not pessimistic in this way (though i think one should be pessimistic) then one would believe in democracy for the old lefty reasons.
Suffice to say that it doesn't seem to make sense to uphold individualism for the blessed Ubermensch few and then turn around and say that, since nature doesn't care about individuals, we should feel free to eugenically prune the societal tree anytime the philosopher kings think that some random so-and-so has bad genes to blame for falling short of the Zaranthusra/Fountainhead ideal. Triage will be triage as far as utilitarian necessity goes in dire survival situations. This, however, does not mean kill the cross-eyed guy.Oh, yeah; since when is any society in the world at large primarily controlled at present by the power of sheep keeping the Zaranthusras down? Seems to me like we have plenty of elitism in society as it is. Or if you think it's not elitist enough, you probably would agree that most people are selfish enough. Whether you think that's good, bad or indifferent, widespread selfishness does not denote that the masses have been kept from embracing Nietzschean dreams by christian ideas like Nietzsche thought.
Speaking of Nietzsche and company, it should be noted that his nth-generation acolyte LaVey admitted that his own whole Halloween setup was just Ayn Rand with spooky rituals - you dress it in a suit and call the devil God, and you got yourself a Republican think-tank. You might not think that's bad, but think - nobody can function going through life without any delayed gratification, which is really what any rational right-hand-path "abstinence" is all about. The same with forgiveness versus revenge: sure you can defend yourself if your life is in danger, and in some select cases it might be judged expedient to retaliate to stop further attacks. But on the whole, an eye for an eye really does make the whole goddamn world blind, not to mention fucking up the middle east with all the religious-war shit I thought Nietzsche and co. looked down on.
In the end, I'll just go back to my Ninja-Turtles-level understanding of the yin and yang and say, hey, it's a balance of opposites. Individuals need each other, and the "collective" -- to whatever extent it exists -- needs individuals to make it up. And I still like the idea that no one can free you from yourself but you.
-----
"Of old there were certain things that realized oneness:/ The heavens in realizing oneness became clear;/ The earth in realizing oneness became stable;/ The numinous in realizing oneness became animated ... Thus for something to be noble it must take the humble as its root;/ For something to be high it must take the low as its foundation."
Daodejing Chapter 39
posted by jlhart7 at 7:01 PM
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