ecosophia: (Default)
John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2020-08-20 01:59 pm
Entry tags:

The Root of the Madness

maniacIt occurred to me yesterday, while mulling over various symptoms of our ongoing national nervous breakdown, that there's a very simple explanation for it all:  a very large number of people in our well-to-do classes have accepted the New Age notion that they create their own reality, and taken the next step -- the step that leads to madness -- and convinced themselves that they create everyone else's reality too. 

Do you remember, dear reader, the aftermath of Trump's election in 2016? A great many of his opponents immediately insisted that those who voted for him could only have been motivated by racism. I originally put that down to Democratic propaganda, but it was more than that. When I pointed out to people who were spouting that particular line that they were wrong, and offered them a good deal of evidence that they were wrong, they didn't argue or challenge the evidence or anything -- they just got a thousand-mile stare in their eyes and insisted again that the people who voted for Trump could only have been motivated by racism.  It was eerie. 

It took quite a while for me to realize that these people thought that they, not Trump voters, got to decide why Trump voters voted the way they did. The reality that Trump voters are human beings, with their own values, needs, concerns, and motives, simply didn't exist for these people. The bleak economic landscape created by policies that benefit our well-to-do classes didn't exist for them either, and articles that talked about that harsh reality -- here's a recent one, and here's another -- made no impression, because that wasn't the reality they chose to live in. 

I had another brush with that during the debate I had here on Dreamwidth with Michael M. Hughes, one of the leading figures in the soi-disant "Magic Resistance." One of the points I tried to make in that discussion was that the magical workings he was teaching people to do were bunny-slope stuff, inadequate for the purpose he had in mind. His response was to insist loudly that no, they were powerful magical rituals. At the time I was baffled, because they weren't; there are plenty of technical details that you put into a magical working to make it powerful, and his had none of those; furthermore, he was limiting himself to techniques that can be used by complete beginners, which again is a pretty fair demonstration that we're talking about the bunny slope. I realize now that he seriously thought that his workings were powerful because he said they were.

Take a look across the battered and smoking wasteland of our national consciousness and you'll see the same thing over and over again: a good many members of the comfortable classes have lost track of the fact that they don't get to decide what the universe will be. Violent rioters and arsonists are peaceful protesters, for example; why? Because we say they are, that's why. 

I was about to write the words "that way lies madness," but we're much too far along the curve for that. A significant fraction of the well-to-do in today's America have lost their last fingernail grip on reality and are insisting that the universe is whatever they want it to be. Since reality doesn't know or care in the least what they think about it, this will not end well. 

Re: Any Functioning Adult

[personal profile] brendhelm 2020-08-20 10:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I have seen a couple Biden bumper stickers, but admittedly I'm pretty sure it was the same car both times, and if so it was definitely one with an Obama-logo bumper sticker on it prior.

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I’ve never encountered a Karen who spoke Spanish as a 2nd language, oddly enough. It’s just as well. If they found out there is no such thing as “Hispanic”—Mexicans are not Guatemalans are not Salvadorans are not Puerto Ricans and none of them are Cubans—they’d be horrified. And if they understood conversations they overheard in restaurants patronized by persons from the above countries, the liberal Karens, at least, would run screaming into the street.

Re: When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
JMG: "...in which the thinking mind erases the last connection to raw sensory reality."

uhmmm... I guess we're seeing aspects of that already throughout society.

Fear shuts down thinking and is a tasty morsel for some - we have a banquet going on for that just now. I can see what you're saying about the class thing, and recently we've been having conversations with people who definitely seem to be losing a connection to sensory reality.

Grand Mutation Survival Pack:

7 Lucky Mojo Hoodoo sachets - (reality is what you want it to be)
1 inflatable Sphere of Protection (with scented candle)
1 Selfie Tarot Pack (Just provide 72 pictures of you!)
1 You are divine (divination set)
3 Grand Mutation Gift Experience Cards (because you are worth it)

...Only $1618.03

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Several comments down from the original, this may be a little confusing; what I meant was really crazy was killing yourself over a guy who will perforce be gone in 4 years.

Re: Any Functioning Adult

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I've seen very few yard signs or bumper stickers out there yet. I have seen the BLM signs, and there are more Trump flags flying than previously. This might change the closer we get to November. I did see one bumper sticker I liked "Cthulhu for President 2020." I could go for that!

https://cthulhuforamerica.com/

Joy Marie

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Hello Open Space,

Glad you’re better!

Second, your account reminds me of a notion I have, that man has an inherent need for the numinous, and fashionably atheist PMC types (not that I’m implying you were one), who refuse to admit that they need at least one god, unconsciously try to fill this need in the wrong ways, like dabbling in spiritual practices from religions they know nothing about. Many of these practices are highly sophisticated and deal with powerful forces. You can see where ignorant dabbling with such could get a person in big trouble, as you explained happened to you, regardless of the reason for the dabbling. It seems to me that the prevalence of such dabbling over the last 50 years may be a large factor in the increasing nuttiness of the PMC. What’s everyone else think?

—Lady Cutekitten

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Keep in mind the usual refrain in certain liberal quarters is always “I’m moving to Canada if {Republican} wins,” and no one ever does. The suicide comment is more dramatic but should be taken about as seriously as a statement of intent, like an NRA rally that’s full of toothless promises to overthrow the government.

Re: I want election week off work

[personal profile] robertmathiesen 2020-08-20 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm planning on doing that, too.

Realilty

[personal profile] revert2mean 2020-08-20 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm Australian and don't get to vote in this election, but I find unworkable beliefs very interesting. I'm the one from magic monday who says Merlin came to me in a dream and told me to drink carrot juice to cure my health problems. And I do believe that's what happened. I don't know much about ceremonial magic. I seem to have been born into one of these shamanic dreaming traditions, for whatever reason. (A debt that I owe, or a bet that I lost, as Jackson Brown would say?)

Anyway, after all these years I know a few things for sure. The dreamworld is the real world, it's just confusing to us. The hard part is functioning as a wife, mother, employee, consumer, investor etc. in this world while firmly holding all these beliefs no one else shares. The reason I can, though, is because those beliefs are true and I know they're true because they always work. The advice you get in a true dream will be the best advice you'll ever get anywhere and you should always follow it.

I can't help thinking all of these people should learn that their beliefs are not true because they don't work. Maybe certain individuals are working that out. Maybe these people have never had to judge their belief framework before.

[personal profile] robertmathiesen 2020-08-20 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
One of my all-time favorite films--so many good scenes in it.

Re: Any Functioning Adult

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
The mention of messiah upthread reminded me of something: Trump is hardly the good shepherd figure, and judging by the adulation given to people like the governor of New York despite his mis-decisions, there are many looking for someone who can play the part of a good shepherd, regardless of their actual performance in office. Barack Obama played the part; Donald Trump does not.

Walking through an urban Black middle-class neighborhood the other day that has a BLM sign painted on the street at its edge I saw a black bust with a MAGA hat on it in the window. I didn't think this represented a trend. I did think that at least one middle-class black person has had it up to here.

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Which is grotesquely ironic, considering that there are credibly allegations of rape against Biden, at least as credible as the allegations of the same that have been leveled against the Orange Julius. And that doesn't include Biden's long and well documented history of hair sniffing, groping and fondling members of the opposite sex onstage and other creepy sexual behavior.

This is a man who even many of my leftist Democrat friends call "Creepy Joe" in private, and he earned that nickname for a very good reason...

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I placed a small bet on Trump to win. I don't make the mistake of listening to pollsters now. I think I will be making some easy money in November.

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
And - to go back 19 years - "whatever nation the gods would destroy, they first convince to conquer Afghanistan."

Sepia Oracular Sheep.

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 11:41 pm (UTC)(link)
In that I’m entirely inclined to agree with you - though note that the “uncomfortable” classes are mostly politically disengaged!

If we think of America as composed of four classes - working (though frequently out-of-work) people, small property owners, credentialed professionals, and large property owners - the core of each party is the expression of the interests and outlook of a wing of one of the middle classes (conservatism for small property owners, liberalism for credentialed professionals,) with large property playing an ideologically flexible role to ensure its bread gets buttered no matter what. Each party also gets some votes from certain groups of ordinary workers (racial minorities, white Evangelicals) on the message that the other guy personally hates them, but without the promise of actually improving their condition.

When evaluating changes to these coalitions - and the changes are real and important (for instance the decline of organized labor, which was an important part of the Democratic coalition; collapse in church attendance among self-described evangelicals are currently doing strange things to the right) - it’s important to pay attention to the details rather than the showy exterior. Trump presents himself as a champion of the working man while his fellow billionaire, Mitt Romney, patently did not - but the people that voted for Trump were nearly an exact mirror of those who voted for Romney, except that there were more Romney voters. (No, really! It’s just that the Obama => Clinton dripped was greater.) So I think my major points of disagreement are:

1) The Democrats’ questions should be about voters who went from Obama to no one at least as much as those who went from Obama to Trump. (Some of this overlaps, some not.)
2) The Democrats are in fact on track to probably win in November. Of course we will see, but I’m not seeing macrodata (or even my own anecdata) that appreciable numbers of people are switching D=>R in response to Democrats being “too crazy” over baseline individual churn.
3) Trump has not broken with commitments that prioritize the middle over working classes. Tax policy, court appointments, and basic policy commitments all follow the basic bipartisan and/or Republican approach to these issues. Trump’s base is a middle class one. During the primary, however, he signaled a willingness to ally with the petit bourgeois base of the party over the bipartisan haute bourgeois on some issues (though note still how tax policy and judicial appointments are still friendly to a haute bourgeois agenda.) This, alongside a belief that he’s too erratic to manage the US empire, has caused a clear shift in support among the haute bourgeois towards the Democrats this and last cycle, who saw complaisant allies in Clinton and Biden.

As for the left of the Democratic Party, the Sanders wing, they did in fact mobilize a greater amount of working-class support in the primary than their rivals, and since I’m in that wing myself obviously I’d say that we have more of a grip on reality (but I would say that, wouldn’t I? Not very good evidence.) But note that this is also mostly a professional class phenomenon: it is the segment of the professional class that wants its primary alliance to be with workers rather than with the haute bourgeoisie. This would be a huge realignment, but by failing the primary we also failed the proof of concept that we could pull it off by mobilizing enough disaffected voters. Similar left-populist movements in the developed world (Podemos, Syriza, Corbyn’s Labour) also failed. So obviously we have our own strategic choices to review.

Sorry if this is overlong, or either obvious or obviously wrong, but I figured there wasn’t a tweet-length way to signal both my agreement and disagreement. (And I do think decreases in sanity levels do have something to do with how, yes, comfortable types of all ideological persuasions find themselves confined to literally tweet-length expressions.)

(When you get to the level of individuals this schema becomes useless, of course.)

(Anonymous) 2020-08-20 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
The Democrats do look cursed. Joe Biden is almost senile, Kamala Harris got zero support in the primaries and isn't a "real" African-American, Bill Clinton and Hunter Biden adress the Dem convention, they want to sue and disband the NRA, they still deny Antifa even exists, and by banning QAnon they make everyone talk about it...

I never seen such an inept campaign. Can they even pull off vote fraud at this point?

Oh, and that covid thing.

TIDLÖSA

(Anonymous) 2020-08-21 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
The results of the election will clarify nothing except that the democratic process in the United States is broken beyond repair. Regardless of which candidate wins, the losing side won't accept the results, and with good reason.

The anguished meltdown of our nation's 200+ year experiment in democracy will continue.

"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold...."

(Anonymous) 2020-08-21 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
She doesn't want one accused (but never convicted) rapist in the White House, so she's going to vote another accused (but never convicted) rapist into the White House.

If that's the marginally less crazy option, I'd hate to see the marginally more crazy option...

[personal profile] syfen 2020-08-21 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
Are you also noticing how many people aren't voting for a candidate or ideology, but against the other candidate or ideology?

May this fevered maddess break soon...

Regards,

Syfen

(Anonymous) 2020-08-21 12:42 am (UTC)(link)
It's very telling that the guy kept talking about how *comfortable* that book is. Dead giveaway that he likes it because it supports his prejudices.

(Anonymous) 2020-08-21 01:04 am (UTC)(link)
Can you point me to the debate with you and Mr. Hughes? I'd be interested in reading it. Was it on Magic Monday, or elsewhere?

(Anonymous) 2020-08-21 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you-I have a recent example of just this kind of madness: I work in an organization with a very deep 'social justice' perspective. It's a sort of typical regional social service agency. In a recent meeting (attendance not required but encouraged) focused on how our organiztion can increase equity and respond to recent Black Lives Matter events, our assistant director-so someone who manages and leads the organization-stated "I've come to see that white supremacy is the foundation of this county-so I'm hoping for a revolution. Hopefully not a violent one...". I was shocked that they would say such a thing, and also at the ignorance of imagining that any revolution would not be violent (at least for someone!). I didn't challenge the remark since to do so seemed dangerous. Needless to say, I'm plotting my escape... I've voted democratic or green in every national election for the past 40 years, and won't be doing so this time.
open_space: (Default)

[personal profile] open_space 2020-08-21 01:16 am (UTC)(link)
>> You hit him!

<< Well, that is what you are supposed to the isn't?

hahaha

Re: I want election week off work

(Anonymous) 2020-08-21 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
I work nights in a hospital in a college town. It's going to be ugly.

Re: Any Functioning Adult

(Anonymous) 2020-08-21 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
There's one 'any functioning adult' sign down the street from me and while I've seen a few Biden and Trump bumper stickers, no lawn signs from either campaign have sprouted yet. It's still early though.

I attribute a lot of the behavior I've heard about to simple narcissism. But whether it's the narcissism of the individual or the culture they're embedded in is anyone's guess.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662

Magenta Nocturnal Filbert/JLfromNH

Page 3 of 11