By Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog
Recently, in a comment on this site, Amarynth wrote, “There is no deep understanding. What there is, is not sustainable.”
Amarynth was referring to people who profess understanding of Russia’s cause in the ongoing conflict, but who do not have sound understanding of the basic issues at stake.
Use of the word “sustainable” in conjunction with “understanding” got this author thinking. Do we sense a hint of “eternal” here, perhaps?
More recently, there have been a few lively comments, initiated by Michael Hudson, about whether “Empire of Lies” or “Empire of Hate” is the appropriate description of the ruling dispensation in the west.
At this juncture, the present author cannot resist chipping in with the little he thinks he has understood of the teachings of Gautam Buddha and Jesus Christ. The teachings make very good sense. They are deep, generally applicable – and sustainable. One hopes that they can offer the right approach to understand the psychological malady which is currently on prominent global display.
Every human being seeks durable happiness – that is, a way out of what bothers or pains him. One of two things can happen to an individual: (1) the drive towards happiness finds healthy expression, in a healthy society, or (2) the drive is thwarted. The root of evil is that thwarted drive, followed by egotistic doubling down. Taken to an extreme, this thwarted drive, repeatedly doubled down, leads to limitless misery. Worse still, those who have given up on finding durable happiness truly hate those who have found it.
An “evil” person is one who knows he is down – and going down further! – but continues aggressively regardless, shamelessly ready to take multitudes of others down as well. The person is saying, in effect, “If I cannot have peace, I will see that there is no peace anywhere”; like scorching the earth.
What are the forces that thwart the drive towards happiness?
What else but fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, lack of discipline, ignorance et cetera … all of which may be grouped together as “inner maladies”. Naturally, there are precipitating stress factors in the environment, arising from the competitive nature of economic activity and from intra-tribe relations.
To a person without deep understanding, “the tribe” is the primary bestower of identity – but also a source of much anxiety and stress. The fears gripping an insecure person certainly include the fear of losing one’s connections or one’s place within the tribe. The life of a “free” individual is not easy, and therefore a “tribal blanket of (false) security” is tempting. The price of that false security is the real risk of being manipulated by cunning tribal leaders.
This is true of all human beings, and therefore it applies also to “ruling elites” and to the so-called “emperor” as well. Such persons may boast of enormous power, wealth, fame … whatever; but they are also subject to the drive to find durable happiness; otherwise why invent phrases such as “promised land” or “thousand year reign”? Today it seems that many of the so-called “ruling elites” in the west have either given up cynically on finding durable happiness, or are in denial that their actions are leading to no good.
Thwarted desire lead to crime, whether local or global. We may apply a simple litmus test: Experience of true happiness leads to an impulse to share it with others; inability to share professed happiness is proof of hollow claims.
A person may claim ownership of trillions of dollars, or command over huge armies, or control over hundreds of puppet politicians. For what all these are worth, let us say he gets A+ assessment in these categories. In the category of durable happiness, however, F could well be the right assessment.
Trading durable happiness for power, wealth and fame is like trading a sweet water lake for a mirage. Is that a great achievement – or a delusion? From that delusion follow lies, hate and violence; in their wake follows defeat.
If the above description has some merit, then the global empire in question can be dubbed “Empire of Delusion” – or even, in its present teetering state, perhaps “Empire of Lost Causes”.
***
It goes without saying that fickle understanding is no understanding at all. Life is full of difficulties, challenges, changing circumstances – and much more. That is to say, suffering is an existential, noble truth. It makes perfect sense that sustainable understanding would help a person cope with the countless vicissitudes of life. This is no different from saying that a ship with ballast fares better in choppy seas than an empty shell of a ship.
But then how does understanding become durable? That is the key question. Why does one person have this quality while another does not?
Understanding becomes durable only when it shaped and chiselled – usually painfully! – by the very vicissitudes of life which necessitate the development of durable understanding. Necessity is the mother of invention, in the ever-open school of hard knocks. (That mixing of idiom was irresistible!)
“Ruling elites” succeed in creating a bubble isolating them from the school of hard knocks, also known as reality. Belief that one has reached “the promised land of milk and honey” blocks the development of understanding. Inevitably, with time, anxiety and insecurity take over, precluding durable happiness.
Deep understanding is rooted in non-conflicting truths recognized within oneself. A simple example of a conflict precluding deep understanding is provided by the label “white supremacist”. Such a person would probably have many talents – such as bravery and mechanical ingenuity, for example. Due to some thwarted desire, however, the person also feels hatred towards people of other backgrounds. His assessment of people of other backgrounds is distorted by that inner hatred. Tribal loyalties reinforce the inner conflicts, which in effect become the tribal calling card.
In fact the universe is infinitely mysterious, more full of wonders that we can possibly imagine. The universe we know about today – from the scale of nanometers to the scale of millions of light years – seems infinitely richer than what the ancients had explored and discovered.
But the ancients had certainly not missed the mystery, the wonder and the awe of the universe. Being free from the conflicts of our modern age, the ancients had probably experienced the mystery, the wonder and the awe of the universe more profoundly than we do today.
The hubris of science – and fake science! – underlies the modern mentality, which is a mentality sans a working mind. Inner conflicts are suppressed, while the hubristic march to “ever more progress” creates increasing misery.
***
Actions of “the western ruling elite” today seem to be caused by desperation, not by wisdom rooted in understanding. However, any such “ruler” – no matter how high and mighty – cannot deny in the heart of his heart the inner pain of conflicted understanding, of self-deception. The individual is usually too ignorant or too proud to admit to any inner malady, even as lackeys are hired to reinforce the deception. Instead of correcting course, he gambles further with debt, power, cruelty, exploitation, war – the entire playbook.
No option is off the table – but, at the same time, no option will work!
Some seem to believe it is smart to “fake it till you make it”. But this means that if you don’t make it, the fakery never ends! But in fact no person can hide his fakery from himself. Faking oneself results in madness, extreme cynicism or nihilism, the latter cases followed inevitably by senility and painful death.
What does all this indicate? Unsustainability in the extreme.
Moral choices have been faced by mankind over millennia, or perhaps longer, perhaps even in prehistoric times. Today’s situation may fundamentally be no different from those in earlier times – but with one huge difference. With the spread of knowledge and technology, people around the world get a “ring side” seat to truly understand the goings-on and learn.
Let us hope people of the world learn the right lessons – even as the school of hard knocks is working rather furiously to make us learn!
Denial of the existential, noble truth of suffering is the great lie. Durable understanding helps in coping with suffering – that is, the many challenges and vicissitudes of life. Shallow misunderstanding seems to rely only on tightly shutting one’s eyes and muttering a tribal mantra from rote memory.
Why do historians miss all this? They may record that Gautam Buddha or Jesus Christ lived and taught in a particular era, in a particular place … and so on and on with myriad details. But do historians grasp how the profound teachings of these great men enhanced human understanding of the deepest, the most vital truths? Do historians get it that the teachings of prophets and saints are based on deep understanding of human psychology?
Example: The profound observation that “Man does not live by bread alone” is brought into especially sharp relief today because a war is being fought in the world’s best wheat-growing regions! A simple-minded person may rightfully ask, “What are they fighting about? Don’t they have plenty of everything?”
Curiously, this profound observation – which is an eternal truth – has no so-called “academic merit” today. Any “academic” assessment of its merit would first get into the question of the number of refereed research publications Jesus Christ had to his credit! The academic world of economists, historians, political theorists et cetera is today totally cut off from real life, having turned itself into a modern, self-serving Tower of Babel.
Durable understanding lies deep, deep down in the human heart; the experience is profound – but extremely difficult to articulate. Understanding which is thus rooted – grounded! – is unshakable in the face of arguments, temptations and adversity. It is this deep understanding – and not wealth, power or sense pleasure – which gives value to human life.
***
Earlier we referred to “hate”. In any given instance, is it more accurate to say that “X hates Y”, or that “Devilish hate has gripped X by the most delicate part of his anatomy”? In other words, is X a purveyor or a victim of hate? Or both? Can X be a purveyor of hate without first being a victim of it?
We can definitely say that X is not a rational human being. A helpless victim and a purveyor of hate – or greed, or lust – while definitely being dangerous to others, is in fact also a miserable, pathetic creature.
As another famous and profound observation goes, “They know not what they do”. But certainly it is still necessary to oppose their untruth, and also to recognize that rational engagement is impossible. In India, a war with such an underlying dynamic was known as dharma yuddha – “war of truth”.
An essay by Patrick Armstrong (here), and the comments made in response, show that wisdom and truth are universal. For the wise, there are no boundaries such as Zone A and Zone B. Such boundaries exist mainly in the minds of the ruling elites, hell-bent on grabbing all that they can. On one side of the boundary, they will cruelly exploit people in one way; on the other side, they will cruelly exploit people in another way. Whatever it takes! Only the legalistic framework of exploitation changes across boundaries.
From the observation above, “They know not what they do”, the part about forgiveness was left out. Why so? Because, if one believes in the universal laws of karma, one must also accept that these laws are unforgiving. The huge eruption of power-lust, cynicism and greed which occurred about two thousand years ago, and lasted centuries, caused violence and destruction whose tragic effects continue even today.
What consequences will the present, tragic re-eruption of power-lust, cynicism and greed have? We do not know – but it seems that the consequences may again span centuries. My country escaped the huge cataclysms of violence and destruction back then. This time around, that may not be the case.
“What are the forces that thwart the drive towards happiness?”
#1: Greed.
Fear!
You stole the word from my mouth! Fear of not keeping up with the Joneses, fear of letting one’s family down, fear of old-age deprivation, fear of being an “also ran.” Having the whole world in one’s hands, and then panicking as the tide goes out again, as it always does.
Agreed. “Death comes – why worry?” ?
While this world is clearly being deffrientated between good vs evil, we listen to opinions of the human psyche. The thesis is saying: ” forgive them they know not what they do”.
India is saturated with gurus/swamis preaching,with a beggar bowl in one hand. India is run by Hindu nationalists, backed by ” wannabe white” oligarchs. It has always been a breeding ground for racists, and Muslims and Chinese are the main beneficiaries of this hate.
Racism equals hate, and people who hate can never change. It must be stamped out by force,as I did here in Toronto 1976, when “paki – busting” was the norm. Ghandhi never liberated India from British occupation and neither did Mandela in South Africa or the Zionists in Palestine . It was force and that is what is needed in Ukraine, and that is what will win.
The zillionaires few that control the West are oblivious to self- recrimination for they are just plain evil. In any case, what is the use of trying to understand evil, by saying that these people don’t understand their inner self? They understand that it is about control over this planet. Again! Evil is evil, except if you into Hollywood movies.
P.S. India now with the Zion overthrow of Imran Khan, might feel emboldened to jump with their “fence” position and go with their racist white bosses, but it will be a fool’s errand. It is Russia and China that you are up against, and this is war.
I am absolutely sure that the top strategists in Moscow — with VVP the first amongst them! — look upon “rulers of the west” not as “evil”, but as seriously flawed human beings whose flaws must be studied coolly in order to exploit those flaws and achieve Russia’s strategic objectives. Use of the single word “evil” for a person or persons precludes that cool-headed approach. I hope that the top strategists in India will also do that, if indeed they are not doing that already. FM Jaishankar does inspire hope.
As a 57 year old citizen of the USG’s so called “United States of America” I can attest to the fact that some of us very clearly see the beast for what it is.
The same beast truly responsible for the current situation of war against Russia is also at war against the majority of the people living in America and obviously humanity as well.
Indeed I completely agree.
The secret is that they are dividing everybody up against each other, while they silently finish each one of us off at a time.
One only has to think how you would behave and compare your actions j5142if you had a neighbour living next door who continuously terrorises you, throws garbage your way, poisons your pets and abuses your wife and kids; you notify the authorities who do nothing so you will eventually pay them a vist to sort things out.
One can’t criticize Russia for their response when the perpetrators are the violators and seem to be immune.
Im in with the universal and truth which is God, many good thoughts. But because of exactly that, the word “sustainable” for me becomes an ugly new-speak word.
I know it is used in MSM and in International Organisations all over, and therefore the word is used generally also by the public.
You dont define the word “sustainable” in your article, but use it to explain matters related to the word, and in Amarynth’s case I would use the word “lasting” instead. “Sustainable understanding” is ugly………:-D.
Ohh those academics and intellectuals.
‘To a person without deep understanding, “the tribe” is the primary bestower of identity’
I disagree fundamentally about this. It is the primary bestower of identity to those who obey the rules of a tribe growing up. Tribes always exclude a significant minority and that minority have contempt for tribes because they associate it with unprincipled bullying and violence for no good reason whatsoever.
Tribes are not intrinsically good, they are merely groups with rules. The rules can be good, indifferent or plain evil. They can enforce racism (and frequently do). They can enforce unthinking obedience to a tribal ‘leader’. And do often.
I spent seventeen years growing up as an outsider both in my family and in my own country. I had no concept whatsoever of being a member of ‘the tribe’. I lived abroad from 17 to 18, still obviously ‘an outsider’, but this time ‘the tribe’ showed more humane qualities.
So no, the tribe is merely a bestower of identity to the obedient.
Free thinking is anathema to a tribe in many places.
If tribes are ‘not intrinsically good’, does that mean they are intrinsically bad? You seem unwilling to be clear on this. I’m not surprised, if you consider where such a judgement leads. Are not those who stay tribal, who do not become tribal outsiders like you did, necessarily bad or inferior to yourself?
With respect I say that, as you allay; “Russia should look on their proven Arch- enemy as somewhat flawed”, rather than see them as wanting to destroy them? Should China regard India’s move to join the “white” club Aukus, as a movement to bring them some Hindu spiritual enlightenment unto the Chinese people?
Do you have any idea that they see India as an alligned threat to their well being, and will tear you apart if necessary, just like the bosses offshore, in those floating coffins off the South China coast.
I remember well in 1961 or thereabouts Nehru went to war against China, fresh from their help of the western forces. The bloated belief was that “we had the backing of the west”, even though they had enslaved you for hundreds of years. The Chinese wracked by WW2 beat the living hell out of you, and did the same to your international community in the Korean war.
They now have thousands of unanswerable missiles and fuel, food , logistics, and money. The Chinese people are 90+ percent for the Russian people as clearly stated by their netziens. But please tell me any other country that listens and acts on the behalf of their people?
P.S. it might be better if M.K. Bradhkumar( Indian punchline) get a hearing on this website.
A few very simple points — not exactly “rocket science”:
1. Change “somewhat flawed” to “highly flawed”. More accurate!
2. I do not think and write on behalf of the Indian government, or any so-called “international community”, or any other human being for that matter.
3. It is alright to have high regard for the Chinese. I see no problem with acknowledging strength where one sees it. Indeed one should!
4. As far as I understand, it would help any human being, when faced with an implacable foe, to analyse the latter’s shortcomings and weaknesses. This applies to all the nationalities on the planet.
As a scientist I agree with every word of this author except the last line in this passage:
“In fact the universe is infinitely mysterious, more full of wonders that we can possibly imagine. The universe we know about today – from the scale of nanometers to the scale of millions of light years – seems infinitely richer than what the ancients had explored and discovered.
But the ancients had certainly not missed the mystery, the wonder and the awe of the universe. Being free from the conflicts of our modern age, the ancients had probably experienced the mystery, the wonder and the awe of the universe more profoundly than we do today.
The hubris of science – and fake science! – underlies the modern mentality”
Modern man is no less aware of the mystery of our singular existence than his ancestors were; the human race has not changed in so short an evolutionary timespan as the 30,000 years that have elapsed since Cro-Mangon man painted a Sistine Chapel in his cave-of-worship. Nevertheless, I submit that science has shown us that the universe is even older, ever grander and even more mysterious than was guessed by all the religions.
“The Universe is not only stranger than we imagined; it is stranger than we can possibly imagine” — Sir Arthur Eddington, mathematical physicist.
I definitely appreciate your point, fellow PhD.
The point I tried to make is that experiencing the mystery, the wonder and the awe have no necessary link to the number of scientific theories one has learnt, or papers published … and so on. The presumed knowledge of a scientific theory can generate an attitude of knowing it all, winning awards, fame, position … and so on — which detracts from humbly experiencing the mystery, the wonder and the awe of existence. If a person is trying too hard to be awesome, can he not miss that which the universe offers? I have gathered this impression from listening to many famous physicists. How could Eddington know how a sensitive poet experiences the universe, for example?
Agreed. That sense of wonder, awe – and humility – seems to be innate, and drives our strivings.
“To lose a childlike sense is to be, in a way, dead” — Einstein
“Some go into science to get ahead in a career, some for sport to compete in mental ability, some for social reasons because knowledge is power; but science can no more flourish on such extraneous motives than a jungle can consist only of creepers. Some trees must stand on their own to reach up for the light” — Einstein, speech in honour of Max Planck.
6 years ago. This guy got it exactly right.
https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4
“There’s an ancient illusion. It’s called good and evil.”
“Everything good is the transmutation of something evil: every god has a devil for a father.”
“Every high degree of power always involves a corresponding degree of freedom from good and evil.”
“Whatever harm the evil may do, the harm done by the good is the most harmful harm.”
(Friederich W. Nietzsche)
“Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law” ?
Nice reply.
But no, it’s not going to be the “whole of the law”, because if it does, then it means recessing again into the “good and evil” paradigm.
Every free thinker who creates his values knows that those values are not universal. This is the first problem.
The second problem is about “do what thou wilt”, because there is no fixed nor certain meaning of “will”: it’s just an unclear metaphor and possibly an illusion. The German philosopher was very adamant on the fact that “will”, just like “ego”, is a “posthumous construction”, and definitely not something whose meaning can be taken for granted.
My pleisure. Interesting thoughts on your end – thank you for sharing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley would beg to differ though.
The Prof 3 days ago.
https://youtu.be/oR-yS6kULXw
Mr. Jotwani,
I understand where you are coming from, but I will note that your characterization of the situation is incomplete.
The actions by the US and its foreign vassals are not irrational – they are not the outcome of simple moral decisions divorced from objective reality.
Dr. Michael Hudson has estimated the benefits of the USD/Washington Consensus international finance framework as benefiting the United States to the tune of $1 trillion a year.
From my own, much more modest examinations to date, I note that the Eurodollar market adds around $15 trillion to the US dollar monetary mass – an expansion of 40% or more to the monetary base of the US – which both enables the United States to finance its trade deficit, outsize military and domestic spending via enormous money printing. Add in the foreign central bank holding of US Treasuries and the base expands to 50% – and is still not the full extent of the benefit to the US of the USD/Washington Consensus.
As such there is a coldly rational, economic self interest basis behind US actions beyond just the sales of arms and defense budgets.
In turn, vassals such as Europe and Japan are also understandable. While Europe is dependent on Russian energy – it is far more dependent on the American market for exports, particularly Germany. On top of this, there is clearly some feeling in the European bureaucrats/oligarchy that they have successfully captured (or at least share) social cohesion with their counterparts in the American oligarchy/media/political classes. Japan in turn has been relying on the US for decades to balance out the otherwise very negative demographic and resource equation vs. China and Russia.
As such, response to actions by the US, EU and Japan must also take into account, and address, the overarching and varied self-interests driving at least some of the destabilizing activity.
Nice informative comment.
But if it only could be referred to self interest as you describe, maybe the world could live with it. The problem is this interest goes hand in hand with a destructive demoralisation, hypocrisy and lie culture no normal human being can live with.
Do you see the same militarisation, thrill killing of the vulnerable, and Abu Ghraib culture in China or Russia? No!
Therefore the difference refers to the lack of moral compass in EU and US/UK and therefore the excell sheet and budget issue is NOT valid and accepted as an excuse.
It is possible to prosper and have human dignity and “interests” without waterboarding and headchoppers.
I would posit that the abuses you describe – which are absolutely abhorrent – are secondary outcomes of the economic (and thus social) dominance, and are not the drivers.
The same behavior can be said of at least some British during its Empire era: abuses in Africa and India were legion.
As such, you are mistaking cause and effect: the cause is the ongoing effort to maintain economic dominance when the underlying drivers have ceased – the US at the end of World War 2 was literally 50% of the world’s economy.
There is a short gain for the USA, in regards to some money in LNG and weapons, but the inflation, shortages and all consumer goods will intimately cause irreparable damage. The Japanese are not relying on the USA, nor indeed Europe. It is China, for therein lies the heart of manufacturing.
This summer, Europe will be economically destroyed, and North America will be soon behind. Do you really think that great America that destroyed scores of countries, with impunity and leading their fellow racists in Europe now, would could do to Russia, if they could? The answer is Nothing!
Thanks to America, Europe is finished. Do you really think that all your allies can only do business among our superior “white” folks, and where is the minerals going to come from: Mars?
This is a fight against good vs evil, as it always was, except that you are going to loose forever.
P.S. PHDs are a dime a dozen. I have 2 siblings who are qualified by the highest universities in USA, but they are idiots. I see Russia & China plotting a way to provide for the rest some assistance to the hunger that the west has caused. That is all that matters to me.
Its the precursor empire to antichrist. I live in a city and if it goes to full blown war and i die because of russian weapons, i forgive in advance because my government serves satan
Mr Jotwani,
Thank you for a lucid, and (I believe) deeply compassionate essay. Marvelous.
During this spring many Europeans are likely secretly dreaming of living life in peaceful Asian or even Latin American country than in toxic brainwashing EU reality of 24/7 hate. I don’t feel Finland to be my fatherland. No more. That all was pure illusion. Future looks so dark and so grim. Now I do understand what 21st century modern fascism really looks like.
Be patient, be forgiving, hold your ground and look to the east.
“Some thoughts on sustainable understanding”
Since change is a constant sustainable understanding is never an option, and initial and subsequent understanding at best incomplete.
That some believe that sustainable understanding is possible as a function of resort to belief to bridge doubt to attain projected wishes, such as “Stop the Empire’s war on Russia” or “Russia has need of/wants a short war” or “Russia is losing the propaganda war”, are very useful in matters of useful foolery, and to a greater degree in increasing noise/signal ratios, thereby in interaction increasing the probabilities of those so inclined remaining in wonderlands of belief precluding understanding.
One problem, as I see it, is that the West has abandoned the notion of ‘absolute moral truths’ in favor of a relativism which excuses any action so long as it results in a desired outcome. However, the West also faces a paradox when it then tries to label certain governments or nations as ‘evil’ (a value judgement), since by the precepts of moral relativism ‘evil’ and ‘good’ lack any objective reality. Worse still, in some (Western) cultures, the very existence of an objective reality is denied altogether. In such an intellectual milieu there can be no possibility to identify any absolutes (not just those of ‘good’ and ‘evil’), facts don’t exist, and ‘truth’ is whatever one believes it to be from minute to minute. In this worldview, what is ‘good’ or ‘evil’ is merely what I, at a given moment, deem them to be.
I take a different view: namely, objective and understandable criteria to define ‘good’ and ‘evil’ do exist, and a clear, humble understanding of those criteria can help one to identify good behavior in one’s own life, while discarding ‘evil’ behavior–and to effect change ‘for the good’ in one’s own society.
A clue to those criteria lies in the fact that, over millennia of time, innumerable societies have described their own apprehension of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in remarkably similar terms, and those societies which encourage ‘good’ conduct in their cultural, economic and political systems have tended to be more durable than those which don’t. I’m deliberately avoiding too much elaboration on this topic, but I’ve found that studying different civilizations in an impartial manner does provide startlingly similar insights into what each considered to be ‘good’ or ‘evil’. And those criteria have tended to be constant across historical time and physical geography.
So an ecumenical study of various civilizations past and present is, to me, a good starting point for identifying those behaviors which are objectively ‘good’ or ‘evil’….
Just my tuppence!
Eric, I had made just such an attempt in my last ‘foray’, here:
/of-skirmishes-wars-and-parasites/
Hi « Tocayo » (same first name),
I agree with your statement.
The west new trend seems to be the washing off of people’s bearings, dissolution of solid ground.
Cognitive dissonance is a key ingredient in the protocol to confuse people and make them «choose»
to be hypnotized, mind-controlled. It is a way out of responsibility.
Yet, as the author mentioned, there is the law of karma. It keeps it real.
I did appreciate that article.
I am having a hard time to get into the “evil and good” thing, as if I were too tired.
We have both in us, and so, we have “free-will”.
I find “taking responsibility” the most difficult thing to do.
That tired feeling, I sense, has to do with the temptation to just liquefy in oblivion.
Time to be quiet and walk in nature.
Time to feel.
Time to accept the suffering and be grateful.
One love, one Heart!
I
These people with unlimited weath and self entitlement have nothing else to do with their time than to figure out how to ” the the world”. They have no worries where there next meal is coming from or the money to buy them out of whatever calamity they have orchestrated to amuse themselves.
“Power is the greatest aphrodisiac.” Henry Kissinger
Nice thoughts, thank you. Only an important remark: Jesus is not a “saint” or a “prophet”, but God Himself.
«To a person without deep understanding, “the tribe” is the primary bestower of identity»
Another deeper understand of this is that group membership bestows a competitive advantage: individuals can compete as such, but they also compete as groups, cooperating within a group and competing with other groups, because ganging up as a group on individuals or smaller groups works well.
“… the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production.
Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production.
With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase.
Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature.
But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity.
Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis.
The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.”
Karl Marx, Capital: Volume 3, Ch. 48: The Trinity Formula
Marx writes of “… blind forces of nature …”. Possibly, in his day (as in ours!), uneducated people were ignorant of the processes of nature, and hence the phrase. We must always remember, however, that people elsewhere had lived settled, happy and highly civilized lives for thousands of years before Marx chose to waste his life over books. Yet the ancients did not say what he is saying here. Nor did they wait for Prophet Marx to appear and tell them how to live. They developed amazingly accurate calendars, either solar or lunar. Metallurgy, agriculture, transport, architecture, water management … so many arts were mastered. Marx should have spent a few years as a farmer or mason. The arrogance!
Karl Marx was a Jew and wrote about the impoverished, the poor, the suffering, and so did Orwell, Dickens and so many others. Mao-Tse- Tung did the same thing. I never read Marx or Mao, but I do know what they stand for.
A world free from slavery, and I have never read their books, but I know what they say, as I know you. The west under the control of the Zionist cabal is coming to an end, and this talking only for the western brainwashed. A feel- good, a way out, so to speak.
The world has radically changed and get use to it!
I have no doubt about Marx’s shortcomings. I wish the “Communist Manifesto” had never been written.
However, I find Marx’s “Trinity Formula” brilliantly illuminating. An excellent point of reference for educating those curious, but ignorant of the process of expanded reproduction required for our survival in the here and now.
“I have no doubt about Marx’s shortcomings. I wish the “Communist Manifesto” had never been written.”
It almost wasn’t – it was written almost at the last minute as a kind of journalism pamphlet to inform an ongoing “revolution” – a kind of agitprop have you remembered this list.
It was turned into a kind of devotional text to address a “perceived problem” outlined in Mr. Lenin’s What is to be done – the bit about the working class only being capable of trade union consciousness – which also informed the production of The short course history of the Russian Social Democratic Party (B) by Mr. Stalin and associates.
When Progress Publishers were discussing the construction of the complete works of Marx and Engels in 1971 and subsequent it was suggested that The Communist Manifesto be put in the journalism volumes, but after discussion that was deem to be in context an unnecessary provocation.
The unwillingness to learn from mistakes, yours personally and those known by studying history, signifies a lack of intelligence. Prideful man is not God.
When western politicians and pundits demonise Vladimir Putin and Russia (or any other target), you often see the hate twisting their faces. But their efforts to turn their victims into demons always backfires, literally. For they are the ones acting like demons, with demonic faces, and turning themselves demonic. Their behaviour rejects and ruins the possibility of dialogue or peace; when one sees sub-human demons, you seek to destroy them, not dialogue with them. They become demonic warmongers and haters, precisely the identity applied to their targets. What actual demon could possibly disapprove of such behaviour? So, my question to you concerns your naming of Paki-bashers, white South Africans, Nationalist Hindus, and a few others always berated by leftists. Do you want to demonise them,and persuade us to do the same?
Scientifically, there is no such thing as a “demon”, which is simply a word people use for those whom they fear and/or dislike intensely. So definitely I would not wish to “demonise” any human being. If I fear and/or dislike someone, I will simply keep a safe distance. Nothing else. The beautiful thing called “life” must be respected in all its forms. Intense fear and hatred for person B may make person A even more “demonic” than B. This is how war hysteria and even political hysteria is built up.