The following quote is from Howard Bloom's book, "The Lucifer Principle:"
"Hans Morgenthau, the political theorist, has said that men don't willingly accept the truth about human nature, and especially about political nature. The aim of politics, Morgenthau says, is not to make people better or to alleviate their misery. It is to increase the power of one man or group of men against the power of another man or group of men. Morgenthau says our enemies are never as bad as we make them out to be, and we are never as good as we think. We're convinced we're moral. And we know damn well that our enemy is only out for power and resources, but has no morals at all. Yet we, too, are out for power and resources. And our enemy, like us, has a moral sense. He uses that moral sense just as we do, says Morgenthau, to narrow the aperture of his consciousness and ignore his lust for power.23 Hidden by the positive attributes of political and religious movements is the rapacious desire to redistribute resources, removing a chunk from their superorganism and adding it to ours. Marxists have a slogan: "Property is theft." They explain that capitalism is an excuse for plunder. It allows the property-owning classes to rob the workers of the fruits of their labor. But under Marxism's sophisticated arguments about the dialectic principle in history lies another form of thievery. For Marxism's implicit message boils down to something like this: the dirty capitalists have cornered all the goods. They hoard the tools of production, and they end up with most of the riches that result from industrialization. Those filthy bastards, let's knock them off their sacks of greenbacks and divvy up the loot."
I think that quote is sufficient to illustrate the idea I'm trying to communicate here. What do you think of this?
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Hypocritical self-rightiousness | Forum
Shawn
Sep 27 '14
We communicate on using two separate channels simultaneously -- conscious and subconscious. We always do it, it's just fundamental to how our brain works.
With that in mind I ask : what's the difference between being hypocritical and lacking self-awareness?
Chapter Head JamesSTL
Sep 27 '14
I think that body of text borrows heavily from two points that Nietzsche (along with Hegel, et al) postulated:
1 - Man holds an innate will to power.
2 - Christianity is a slave religion used by the oligarchies of history to subjugate the masses.
To become awakened to these facts it to open a flood gate. There is no going back.
There is no use in trying to enlighten people who are happy in slavery -- who have a need for slavery. Who are truly fulfilled by it.
The anthem of enlightenment and freedom is out there for those willing to grasp it. Those who do not will be used as the slave resources they choose to be.
The Forum post is edited by JamesSTL Sep 27 '14
Suki
Sep 27 '14
The "lacking"? can one exists without the other? can we be hypocritical without being self-aware about it? can we be self-aware without having to be hypocritical at some point in our lives ?
With that in mind I ask : what's the difference between being hypocritical and lacking self-awareness?
"I think, there for I am" is where the ego cultivates its own representations of reality, it remains structurally incapable of loving anything but the image it has of others.
self-awareness, conscious, lies between a lying, hypocritical ego; and since ego is subjectivity, it can produce a lack of empathy, i am simply incapable of going through your mind and experience what you see and feel when looking at the blue color.
Shawn
Sep 28 '14
@Suki: I'm unclear on what you mean by "self-awareness, consciousness, lies between a lying, hypocritical ego."
It seems as though another something should be there, if self-awareness lies between ego and...?
Suki
Sep 30 '14
Shawn,
I meant "lies in". If we see from a certain point of view, the ego ispictured as a tight construction of concepts, values,experiences, memories, defining a boundary between the inside (subject,me) and the outside (object,not me), filtering information from the outside to accept the only compliant; and projecting its own conceptual forms on the outside, so that the world is experienced only through the image it sees. Conscious is a point within, maybe without dimensions, or maybe i just can't define it or picture it. it brings me to a question: is conscious impersonal? without thoughts and morals?
I meant "lies in". If we see from a certain point of view, the ego ispictured as a tight construction of concepts, values,experiences, memories, defining a boundary between the inside (subject,me) and the outside (object,not me), filtering information from the outside to accept the only compliant; and projecting its own conceptual forms on the outside, so that the world is experienced only through the image it sees. Conscious is a point within, maybe without dimensions, or maybe i just can't define it or picture it. it brings me to a question: is conscious impersonal? without thoughts and morals?
Chapter Head
Chapter Head JamesSTL
Sep 30 '14
Also, this comes to mind....
"Socialism is the idealistic misjudgment of human nature." - Freud
But you are quite right.. "power" is certainly dependent on perspective. The superficial artifacts of wealth often hold little tangible value, save for a projection of status. One could argue that such materialistic grandeur is a trophy of sorts to true expressions of power.
Human nature is not always the most rational of systems. When the choice comes between idealism and realism, I will always side with realism.
To the pursuit of greater understanding and earthly fulfillment!
Chapter Head JamesSTL
Sep 30 '14
Ok one more thing...
Despite the distaste for "greed", one must only look at the necessary ingredient that competition contributes to the manifestation of innovation. Competition is the spirit behind evolution itself.
"Greed", and its big brother Tyranny, are a sort of runaway behavior, a fanaticism, which is usually discontinued only after it has caused enough damage to stimulate a counter-offensive in others.
Checks and balances... The Universe tends to right itself, eventually.
The Forum post is edited by JamesSTL Sep 30 '14
