On Tuesday, Joe wrote Joe a letter. The recipient was Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus. The writer was an anonymous Joe whose wisdom and insight will never rise to the surface of our media swamp.
The writer was concerned about the rabidity of the antismoking campaign that first raised its head in the nineties. He saw it as a process of “denormalizing” of an act that had, up until then, been socially acceptable. A friend of his called it the “largest social engineering project in the history of the world.”
The bottom line is that social engineering has no place in a democracy. It is an exercise in social fastidiousness, and fastidiousness is the midwife of oppression.
As a member of a community, it is a given that I will see things I don’t want to see, hear things I don’t want to hear and smell things I don’t want to smell. If I scrub my life clean of these unpleasant things, I no long have a community; I have a sterile and gated place in which I live in dread of some impurity invading the sanctity of my isolation.
Now I hear the cry, “But, smoking kills!” Sorry folks, but the leading cause of death is birth. It is incorrect to say that the antismoking movement saves lives. It doesn’t! It simply delays the inevitable. For that matter, getting behind the wheel kills, but there is no movement to ban the automobile. The same is true of mountain climbing and skydiving.
The truth is that the most sacred thing we do is die, and it’s so goddamn sacred that we want nothing to do with it. But then, that’s true of everything that is sacred.
There are some historical factors behind the antismoking movement. Cigarette smoking has always been looked on as smacking of sin. In the twenties Lucky Strike cigarettes created a stir when it urged women to, “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” Cigars and pipes were okay, capitalists and professors smoked them, but, as Joe pointed out, cigarettes were associated with loose women and the lower classes.
When prohibition went bust, the Puritans doffed their clerical robes and slipped into a white lab coat. Yesterday’s sin became today’s health problem.
A corporatized state seeks to condition its subjects. That is the purpose of social engineering. It normalizes behavior the state approves of and denormalizes behavior it doesn’t. The behavior isn’t important; the conditioning is. In time, its subjects become use to being conditioned; they even feel uncomfortable if they are forced to think for themselves.
If a free society a free citizen has the right to choose his or her death, whether it’s lighting up or packing a parachute.
There are two spurious arguments trotted out by the antismoking crowd. One is that smoking increases the cost of healthcare. Hell, life is expensive; dying is expensive. There’s no getting around that fact. If cigarettes don’t kill us, something else will. If the health care costs were a real concern, we’d ban the automobile.
Then there’s the second-hand smoke canard. Yea, if someone is locked in a sealed with a smoker eight hours a day, seven days a week, it could be an individual’s health. However, incidental exposure is unlikely to be a problem.
If the state wants its subjects to live in a state of constant anxiety, it needs real and imagined threats, and second-hand smoke works will do as well as anyother.
Freedom involves the acceptance of risk. If we make a fetish of avoiding it we are no longer free.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Fictive Egos
When you get right down to it, the ego is simply the fiction we tell ourselves. It is an equal mixture of memories, emotions, dreams, aspirations and phobias. There is a certain utility to it in that it gives us a degree of continuity from day to day, but it is no more than a tiny boat that floats on the surface of our souls.
It is from the soul that the deeper emotions—grief, euphoria, terror—come. Emotions coming from the soul move; emotions coming from the ego flap in the breeze of the superficial.
When someone proclaims that they are going to “reinvent” themselves, they are committing an ontological fallacy, for a subject cannot be its own object, so whatever change is effected is shallow. Real change is possible, but that comes from the outside whenever trauma produces a fundamental change in our fiction.
The ego becomes problematic when it is given a reality it doesn’t deserve. Once the ego is reified it begins to erect thick walls with which to protect itself. The walls are especially thick because the ego is aware of just how ethereal it is. Everything outside the walls is seen as a threat to its fictive existence, so it is quick to lash out and inflict pain. It is an ego that clings to labels, both the labels it hangs on itself and those it hangs on the Other that it sees as a threat.
Reified egos thrive best in individuals with no core but the Self, where the soul has been lost down a nihilistic sinkhole. The Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani[1] points out that if we deconstruct everything except the ego, we are left with a crypto nihilism that can only be filled with noise and toys.
If the individual ego is problematic, the collective ego can be downright deadly. The collective ego is a product of the group. Nation states choke on them. The walls they construct are not only thick, they are armed as well. Most groups find it challenging to operate at an eighth-grade level. The nation feels more comfortable at a fourth or fifth grade level.
The deadliest national ego of them all is one that believes its ego is at the top of the food chain and that it has a moral obligation to convert all other national egos to its particular fiction. The most disruptive force on the face of the earth is national ego with a mission. Lesser egos are given a simple choice: convert or face the consequences, consequences that range from marginalization to death.
National egos produce toxic policies. The deadliest emerge from a roomful of old men (old refers not to age but to the strength of the steel in which the ego is trapped). Blood flows when the old men believe that this collective ego would be irreversibly damaged should it lose its “credibility” or appear “weak.” So, sabers are rattled, drones are put in the air and the fanged god of destruction stalks the earth.
All for a fiction.
[1] Religion and Nothingness
It is from the soul that the deeper emotions—grief, euphoria, terror—come. Emotions coming from the soul move; emotions coming from the ego flap in the breeze of the superficial.
When someone proclaims that they are going to “reinvent” themselves, they are committing an ontological fallacy, for a subject cannot be its own object, so whatever change is effected is shallow. Real change is possible, but that comes from the outside whenever trauma produces a fundamental change in our fiction.
The ego becomes problematic when it is given a reality it doesn’t deserve. Once the ego is reified it begins to erect thick walls with which to protect itself. The walls are especially thick because the ego is aware of just how ethereal it is. Everything outside the walls is seen as a threat to its fictive existence, so it is quick to lash out and inflict pain. It is an ego that clings to labels, both the labels it hangs on itself and those it hangs on the Other that it sees as a threat.
Reified egos thrive best in individuals with no core but the Self, where the soul has been lost down a nihilistic sinkhole. The Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani[1] points out that if we deconstruct everything except the ego, we are left with a crypto nihilism that can only be filled with noise and toys.
If the individual ego is problematic, the collective ego can be downright deadly. The collective ego is a product of the group. Nation states choke on them. The walls they construct are not only thick, they are armed as well. Most groups find it challenging to operate at an eighth-grade level. The nation feels more comfortable at a fourth or fifth grade level.
The deadliest national ego of them all is one that believes its ego is at the top of the food chain and that it has a moral obligation to convert all other national egos to its particular fiction. The most disruptive force on the face of the earth is national ego with a mission. Lesser egos are given a simple choice: convert or face the consequences, consequences that range from marginalization to death.
National egos produce toxic policies. The deadliest emerge from a roomful of old men (old refers not to age but to the strength of the steel in which the ego is trapped). Blood flows when the old men believe that this collective ego would be irreversibly damaged should it lose its “credibility” or appear “weak.” So, sabers are rattled, drones are put in the air and the fanged god of destruction stalks the earth.
All for a fiction.
[1] Religion and Nothingness
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Deep Thought
We like to believe that as a civilization, we are too advanced to buy into fairy tales and myths, that we are simply too intelligent to believe there is a place where there are mountains made of pickled kielbasa and hardboiled eggs down which torrents of draft beer pour to the music of naked nymphs dancing on dew drops.
Or so we think.
Yet, there is one myth our oligarchs cling to that is taking us down the tubes, and that is an irrational belief in the existence of a free market where rational players make decisions based on rational self interest and in doing so benefit not only themselves but society in general.
Mob psychology is not rational. And that is what rules the market, not rational self interest. The current economic debacle came about because of the irrational belief that computers and arcane mathematical formulae had neutralized the boom and bust of the marketplace.
Then there was the merger and acquisition mania in which companies plunged into debt to buy other companies in the belief that by tweaking the numbers on a computer screen it could turn their red ink into black.
Of course, we must not forget the dot.com bubble. That was back when it was gospel that online shopping marked the end of the brick and mortar store, a belief that overlooked the fact that brick and mortar stores had survived the introduction of catalog shopping quite well.
But, it’s more than mob psychology. It’s also a matter of dysfunctional interpersonal relationships. If a boss tells an underling to do something totally irrational and counterintuitive, the very same supervisor who controls the underling's promotion and pay, then it is likely the underling will find a way to rationalize the bosses irrationality.
Idiocy, once it has passed through the underling’s matrix, becomes rational policy, especially if it can be quantified.
In all fairness, this is not a phenomenon found only in the corporate world. We see the same phenomenon at work in Afghanistan and Congress.
Then there is the ultimate madness found in the shadow of an emerging bubble, and that is the death-dealing four words, “It’s different this time.”
Personally, I prefer naked nymphs dancing on dew drops.
Or so we think.
Yet, there is one myth our oligarchs cling to that is taking us down the tubes, and that is an irrational belief in the existence of a free market where rational players make decisions based on rational self interest and in doing so benefit not only themselves but society in general.
Mob psychology is not rational. And that is what rules the market, not rational self interest. The current economic debacle came about because of the irrational belief that computers and arcane mathematical formulae had neutralized the boom and bust of the marketplace.
Then there was the merger and acquisition mania in which companies plunged into debt to buy other companies in the belief that by tweaking the numbers on a computer screen it could turn their red ink into black.
Of course, we must not forget the dot.com bubble. That was back when it was gospel that online shopping marked the end of the brick and mortar store, a belief that overlooked the fact that brick and mortar stores had survived the introduction of catalog shopping quite well.
But, it’s more than mob psychology. It’s also a matter of dysfunctional interpersonal relationships. If a boss tells an underling to do something totally irrational and counterintuitive, the very same supervisor who controls the underling's promotion and pay, then it is likely the underling will find a way to rationalize the bosses irrationality.
Idiocy, once it has passed through the underling’s matrix, becomes rational policy, especially if it can be quantified.
In all fairness, this is not a phenomenon found only in the corporate world. We see the same phenomenon at work in Afghanistan and Congress.
Then there is the ultimate madness found in the shadow of an emerging bubble, and that is the death-dealing four words, “It’s different this time.”
Personally, I prefer naked nymphs dancing on dew drops.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
up and down, down and up
There was a time when the circle ruled life. Life was a cycle of seasons, of birth, growth and death in which life was returned to Mother Earth’s womb only to be born again.
Now, life is reduced to the straight line, the linear progression moved by the energy of its own momentum. At one time the line was called progress, and it was believed it was carrying us towards the heavens.
However, one can only have a destiny if one has a past. But, the further we move along the line, the more the past fades into the mist of oblivion. Life is reduced to a tiny laser dot whose linear movement lacks both a past and a future.
We mistake this movement for progress and believe that all change is good no matter how much destruction it leaves in its wake. As it moves, the dot believes that it is ascending when, in fact, it is descending.
Rather than a linear ascent, all historical and cultural movements inscribe a Bell curve, with an ascent, an apogee and a descent. Technological progress is no different, and we could well be riding the descent segment of the curve.
Initially, technology contributed to civilization, making life easier and more comfortable, conquering disease and lifting us out of the morass of superstition. But as with all other historical phenomena, technology peaked. Once this happened, technological innovation became destructive with the costs far outweighing the benefits. One could argue that we passed over the apogee with the splitting of the atom.
Many technologies that were benign at their inception have soured and threaten our quality of life. The internal combustion engine was great at first. Now it generates pollution and, instead of motoring pleasure, it is generating resource wars. Our dependency of plastics consumes too much oil. Petroleum based fertilizers have seen the rise of monoculture and the gradual depletion of our top soil.
Technology was a booster rocket that lifted us out of the quagmire of primitivism. But once spent, it becomes deadweight that must be jettisoned. Failure to do so will have us plunging back into the quagmire.
One could argue that the profound technological progress, the progress that made a real difference in our lives, happened between 1820 (railroads) and the 1940s (splitting the atom). Everything since then is simply the combining of existing technologies. A computer is simply a typewriter, a calculator and a television hooked up together.
New technologies do effect change, but the change is increasingly superficial. Will the fact that I can play videos on my cell phone really improve the quality of my life, especially if, thanks to the same cell phone, my boss has me on an electronic chain 24/7? Finding my way with a GPS instead of a map may be easier, but does it really contribute to my quality of life? No matter how many improvements are made to the television set, the content remains as bland as ever.
In the grand scheme of things, our technology will barely register as a cosmic fart.
Now, life is reduced to the straight line, the linear progression moved by the energy of its own momentum. At one time the line was called progress, and it was believed it was carrying us towards the heavens.
However, one can only have a destiny if one has a past. But, the further we move along the line, the more the past fades into the mist of oblivion. Life is reduced to a tiny laser dot whose linear movement lacks both a past and a future.
We mistake this movement for progress and believe that all change is good no matter how much destruction it leaves in its wake. As it moves, the dot believes that it is ascending when, in fact, it is descending.
Rather than a linear ascent, all historical and cultural movements inscribe a Bell curve, with an ascent, an apogee and a descent. Technological progress is no different, and we could well be riding the descent segment of the curve.
Initially, technology contributed to civilization, making life easier and more comfortable, conquering disease and lifting us out of the morass of superstition. But as with all other historical phenomena, technology peaked. Once this happened, technological innovation became destructive with the costs far outweighing the benefits. One could argue that we passed over the apogee with the splitting of the atom.
Many technologies that were benign at their inception have soured and threaten our quality of life. The internal combustion engine was great at first. Now it generates pollution and, instead of motoring pleasure, it is generating resource wars. Our dependency of plastics consumes too much oil. Petroleum based fertilizers have seen the rise of monoculture and the gradual depletion of our top soil.
Technology was a booster rocket that lifted us out of the quagmire of primitivism. But once spent, it becomes deadweight that must be jettisoned. Failure to do so will have us plunging back into the quagmire.
One could argue that the profound technological progress, the progress that made a real difference in our lives, happened between 1820 (railroads) and the 1940s (splitting the atom). Everything since then is simply the combining of existing technologies. A computer is simply a typewriter, a calculator and a television hooked up together.
New technologies do effect change, but the change is increasingly superficial. Will the fact that I can play videos on my cell phone really improve the quality of my life, especially if, thanks to the same cell phone, my boss has me on an electronic chain 24/7? Finding my way with a GPS instead of a map may be easier, but does it really contribute to my quality of life? No matter how many improvements are made to the television set, the content remains as bland as ever.
In the grand scheme of things, our technology will barely register as a cosmic fart.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Language
Language is a whore willing to sell her services to the highest bidder. And like a whore, she stalks the corridors of power looking for well-heeled Johns. She is welcome there because the corridors of power have much to hide.
There, language glorifies violence, concealing the gore-drenched blade with the velvet prose of God, freedom and glory. She gives evil and corruption a moral veneer. She sees the glory of destiny in the running sores of society.
In her delicate fingers slime becomes a silver thread, evil becomes sophistication and stupidity becomes down-home earthiness.
Language is the duct tape that muffles the goddess; she is the venal methane that fills the air when policy farts.
But like any whore, language will be just as quick to slit power’s throat as to fuck it. Allow language to slip the collar of “That’s the way things are,” and she becomes a threat to the status quo. She creates manifestos that inflame the masses. She can loosen the tongue of the goddess and spread the contagion of love and compassion.
She can cast her burning spotlight on the suffering of strangers. Socrates knew what he was doing when he condemned poets and singers for they can destabilize a “just” society.
This is the subversive language that is marginalized and buried beneath the inarticulate shrieks of indy rock racket confined to sweaty clubs where the walls shake as they keep the music’s subversion confined and isolated from the masses less the masses join the shriek in a chorus of dissent and protest.
Outside the club there is only the silence of acquiescence. And it is in this silence that the power’s language sings her seductive song.
There, language glorifies violence, concealing the gore-drenched blade with the velvet prose of God, freedom and glory. She gives evil and corruption a moral veneer. She sees the glory of destiny in the running sores of society.
In her delicate fingers slime becomes a silver thread, evil becomes sophistication and stupidity becomes down-home earthiness.
Language is the duct tape that muffles the goddess; she is the venal methane that fills the air when policy farts.
But like any whore, language will be just as quick to slit power’s throat as to fuck it. Allow language to slip the collar of “That’s the way things are,” and she becomes a threat to the status quo. She creates manifestos that inflame the masses. She can loosen the tongue of the goddess and spread the contagion of love and compassion.
She can cast her burning spotlight on the suffering of strangers. Socrates knew what he was doing when he condemned poets and singers for they can destabilize a “just” society.
This is the subversive language that is marginalized and buried beneath the inarticulate shrieks of indy rock racket confined to sweaty clubs where the walls shake as they keep the music’s subversion confined and isolated from the masses less the masses join the shriek in a chorus of dissent and protest.
Outside the club there is only the silence of acquiescence. And it is in this silence that the power’s language sings her seductive song.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Unchanging Change
All is well in the kingdom. The nation’s CEOs, CFOs, defense contractors, homeland security contractors, hedge fund managers, investment bankers, developers, pharmaceuticals, lobbyists, big oil and all of the other pathologically driven power brokers riding America earthward need not fear.
Obama is turning out to be the Petri dish in which the toxins that are draining America of its vitality are cultured.
The triangulating centerism that believes in nothing and stands for nothing will continue in all its humdrum glory. Jobs will continue to be shipped overseas, unions will continue to be broken, the middleclass will continue to shrink, America will continue as the world’s only rogue state, the poor will be kept off the welfare rolls and capital will continue its upward movement towards the apex of the pyramid.
Best of all, the Beltway will continue to be a sewage processing plant as open trenches pump raw effluvia from the country’s power centers to the K Street processing plant where it is recycled into the sanitized campaign contributions that oil the corrupted gears and wheels of a government that is little more than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporatist State.
Sure, we got our hopes up when Obama started preaching his Gospel of Hope during the campaign. For a brief moment it looked as if the fresh air of change was wafting over the country. Fortunately, there is an iron rule that governs politics: Bullshit’s stench trumps fresh air every time.
Now the stench is so pervasive that our media has the public convinced it is smelling perfume.
Obama is turning out to be the Petri dish in which the toxins that are draining America of its vitality are cultured.
The triangulating centerism that believes in nothing and stands for nothing will continue in all its humdrum glory. Jobs will continue to be shipped overseas, unions will continue to be broken, the middleclass will continue to shrink, America will continue as the world’s only rogue state, the poor will be kept off the welfare rolls and capital will continue its upward movement towards the apex of the pyramid.
Best of all, the Beltway will continue to be a sewage processing plant as open trenches pump raw effluvia from the country’s power centers to the K Street processing plant where it is recycled into the sanitized campaign contributions that oil the corrupted gears and wheels of a government that is little more than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporatist State.
Sure, we got our hopes up when Obama started preaching his Gospel of Hope during the campaign. For a brief moment it looked as if the fresh air of change was wafting over the country. Fortunately, there is an iron rule that governs politics: Bullshit’s stench trumps fresh air every time.
Now the stench is so pervasive that our media has the public convinced it is smelling perfume.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The Other Shoe
The timing is precious. We are within days of learning the extent of Obama’s Afghan escalation; the banks are sitting on trillions in bailout money; more bailout money may be needed to continue the illusion of their solvency. Where, we ask, will the money for all this come from?
And, finally, the other shoe has dropped.
The Associated Press headline says it all: “Obama eyes domestic spending freeze.”
Well, not quite all. An across the board five percent reduction in domestic spending is waiting in the wings.
Note: there is no mention of cutting military spending. If anything, the domestic cuts and freezes are needed to help fund Obama’s Afghan escalation. However, no mention of this was made in the AP story. That is because our military budget resides in the Ark of the Covenant,, and a curse is laid on all who dare tamper with it.
The fear is that foreigners will stop financing our red ink, and this could prove detrimental to our statistical recovery. The 2009 budget year ended on Sept. 30 with a $1.42 trillion deficit. (Converting dollars to seconds of time, each trillion equals 37,000 years.)
There is some mumbling about raising taxes, but it’s just that. White House budget director Orszag said, “I’m not going to get into the mix between spending and revenues.” The golden rule for any politician who wants to stay in office is, “Cut; don’t tax.”
With every passing day, it is becoming more and more obvious that Obama is simply a Bush lite. The only change we’ve seen coming out of the White House is an increase in articulation.
Bush tried and failed to “reform” Social Security. Could it be…?
People are being turned out of their homes in droves. Unemployment is rising. Retail sales are down. The Fed’s bailouts are inflating another asset bubble. States are being forced to slash their budgets. And in the face of all this Obama has the balls to escalate an unnecessary war while the nation bleeds.
Shakespeare’s Puck said it all: “What fools these mortals be!” Especially if they hold elected office.
And, finally, the other shoe has dropped.
The Associated Press headline says it all: “Obama eyes domestic spending freeze.”
Well, not quite all. An across the board five percent reduction in domestic spending is waiting in the wings.
Note: there is no mention of cutting military spending. If anything, the domestic cuts and freezes are needed to help fund Obama’s Afghan escalation. However, no mention of this was made in the AP story. That is because our military budget resides in the Ark of the Covenant,, and a curse is laid on all who dare tamper with it.
The fear is that foreigners will stop financing our red ink, and this could prove detrimental to our statistical recovery. The 2009 budget year ended on Sept. 30 with a $1.42 trillion deficit. (Converting dollars to seconds of time, each trillion equals 37,000 years.)
There is some mumbling about raising taxes, but it’s just that. White House budget director Orszag said, “I’m not going to get into the mix between spending and revenues.” The golden rule for any politician who wants to stay in office is, “Cut; don’t tax.”
With every passing day, it is becoming more and more obvious that Obama is simply a Bush lite. The only change we’ve seen coming out of the White House is an increase in articulation.
Bush tried and failed to “reform” Social Security. Could it be…?
People are being turned out of their homes in droves. Unemployment is rising. Retail sales are down. The Fed’s bailouts are inflating another asset bubble. States are being forced to slash their budgets. And in the face of all this Obama has the balls to escalate an unnecessary war while the nation bleeds.
Shakespeare’s Puck said it all: “What fools these mortals be!” Especially if they hold elected office.
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