Thanks for this fascinating interrogation of thought, itself. The question may come to how do we break free of thoughts that restrict us? Is there a possibility that in the act of insisting on non-hierarchical relations, we start to dissolve attachment to our own thoughts by way of authentic connection with other humans? I wonder if the scaffolding of thought and the fear of letting go of attachment to our thoughts is an illusion? When our minds stop darting around, looking for thoughts, we feel a connection to the realm beyond thought -- some call it meditation and others call it prayer. Maybe it's in the knowing of the realm beyond thought that we can diminish our attachment to our own thoughts -- the kind of thoughts that perpetuation a system of oppression and war? Wish I had better answers.
Yeah, It'd be a nice mess to have answers for. I sometimes wonder if such a line of enquiry is of any practical value. Then I remember it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive and I have a sneaking suspicion that much of the reason that revolution nearly always becomes that which it revolted against is simply that - the people driving it, making decisions, holding on to power in the face of external threats etc are still driven by much of the same internal conditioning as they have fought so hard against outwardly.
In passing I heard a quote from a movie yesterday, a recent thing with Julia Roberts in it -
"It's real if it's real to you" or something along those lines.
If we're talking about which jeans someone likes, sure.... but...... this is pretty prevalent these days as a pattern right - like individual thoughts are now a building block in a personality, no need for letting them go! They are yours! They are you!
This is a really deep conversation. We attach ourselves to thoughts all the time. We believe them to be real. But they are not real. Our identities are not fixed. But we attach ourselves to the person we believe ourself to be, when we could also attach ourselves to the person we choose to become. It's a limiting factor and in some ways the general religious indoctrination of the Christian West that holds that "god" has created us - therefore we are fixed. For me this leads down a path aligned with power and that should be no surprise.
That’s exactly it - the image, fixed in the past, bound by norms etc that we can clearly see tilt towards the elite vision of life. It’s a brutal thing go through on an individual level - it just happens so slowly and relentlessly we barely notice and yet look how it rebounds! possibly ;)
Precisely the kind of conversation that i need really. Wars have that sports commentary thing that totally saturates, vital as a small indie percentage of it is, that I find so overwhelming. Considering it’s dominated by some twisted thorn of brutality against innocent, demonised, degraded and ripped off peoples. So taking a slower moment to think about something fixed for a while is good, particularly if related to potential root causes… or solutions.
It's hard to think through things because thinking is happening at our conscious level and not at the level of change. I think we need to do the kind of thinking that is actually getting in the thick of it and trying to make change IRL. I feel like it's in the struggle that we change our material conditions and therefore our thoughts. Working on something that touches on this now. :)
Wow. Seems like you’re attempting to explore/explain the vast whole of human interaction from an intimate starting point.
Allow me to offer some conversational feedback by way of historical analysis.
By way of anthropological study, our earliest, small scale societies were matriarchal: essentially egalitarian, peaceful, cooperative, loving and lacking in sexual anxiety.
The need for war was absent.
Here, men and women were considered ‘equal,’ with their relative gifts maintaining a general balance of power; I.e., women exercised considered collective authority, while men usually played the role of ‘chief’, (the ‘strong protector… leader’); where, it was not unusual (or considered unhealthy) for such a strong leader to have more than one wife.
Yet out of this relatively free… loving social fabric SOME chiefs were able to manipulate the marriage system, (by which the all-important dowry, the male promise to provide for the mothers children) so that this central stream of social wealth increasingly gathered into the hands of a single chief; and at a certain point, this morphed into Patriarchy, a CLASS society with a single leading family rising above the rest.
This CLASS society bears within it an ugly imbalance, oppression and discord, which the ruling class attempts to overcome by expanding outward; that is, by WAR, by oppressing and exploiting other societies; where, it’s the historical tendency for 1 patriarchal warlike society to (eventually) infect and dominate ALL the surrounding peaceful, matriarchal tribes; such that, they disappear altogether, with the history books erasing even their memory.
From here, ever greater empires unfolded… the rule of kings and queens; and with greater technological power, larger ‘empires’ still - even as we moved beyond ‘the tyranny’ of monarchy into ‘liberal democracy.’
In short, sports fans, CLASS society lies at the core of the war-whore-corridor; where ego and greed for ‘more’ feeds into an inherited social/historical construct… not of our own making.
Yeah, I don't think things have been this mental the entire time. In fact, they were probably rosy for a lot longer than they've been batshit.
And I suspect that was because we had a much more balanced relationship with our ego and thoughts. But somewhere along the line....
It's really interesting, things like architecture have pointed to this egalitarian nature of many of our smaller societal attempts - reasonably large settlements with virtually identcial buildings and structures - indicating flatter structures etc than we have.
And while I think we all have our own personal thing with thought, it is also a dynamic that we all experience, just subjectively, but the thing itself is pretty universal as a defining feature of humanity. So, personal indeed, but also intensely universal.
As always, many thanks for reading and feeding back.
https://walterrebel.substack.com/p/my-fellow-americans-you-voted-for?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6xjp3k
Thanks for this fascinating interrogation of thought, itself. The question may come to how do we break free of thoughts that restrict us? Is there a possibility that in the act of insisting on non-hierarchical relations, we start to dissolve attachment to our own thoughts by way of authentic connection with other humans? I wonder if the scaffolding of thought and the fear of letting go of attachment to our thoughts is an illusion? When our minds stop darting around, looking for thoughts, we feel a connection to the realm beyond thought -- some call it meditation and others call it prayer. Maybe it's in the knowing of the realm beyond thought that we can diminish our attachment to our own thoughts -- the kind of thoughts that perpetuation a system of oppression and war? Wish I had better answers.
Yeah, It'd be a nice mess to have answers for. I sometimes wonder if such a line of enquiry is of any practical value. Then I remember it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive and I have a sneaking suspicion that much of the reason that revolution nearly always becomes that which it revolted against is simply that - the people driving it, making decisions, holding on to power in the face of external threats etc are still driven by much of the same internal conditioning as they have fought so hard against outwardly.
In passing I heard a quote from a movie yesterday, a recent thing with Julia Roberts in it -
"It's real if it's real to you" or something along those lines.
If we're talking about which jeans someone likes, sure.... but...... this is pretty prevalent these days as a pattern right - like individual thoughts are now a building block in a personality, no need for letting them go! They are yours! They are you!
This is a really deep conversation. We attach ourselves to thoughts all the time. We believe them to be real. But they are not real. Our identities are not fixed. But we attach ourselves to the person we believe ourself to be, when we could also attach ourselves to the person we choose to become. It's a limiting factor and in some ways the general religious indoctrination of the Christian West that holds that "god" has created us - therefore we are fixed. For me this leads down a path aligned with power and that should be no surprise.
That’s exactly it - the image, fixed in the past, bound by norms etc that we can clearly see tilt towards the elite vision of life. It’s a brutal thing go through on an individual level - it just happens so slowly and relentlessly we barely notice and yet look how it rebounds! possibly ;)
Precisely the kind of conversation that i need really. Wars have that sports commentary thing that totally saturates, vital as a small indie percentage of it is, that I find so overwhelming. Considering it’s dominated by some twisted thorn of brutality against innocent, demonised, degraded and ripped off peoples. So taking a slower moment to think about something fixed for a while is good, particularly if related to potential root causes… or solutions.
It's hard to think through things because thinking is happening at our conscious level and not at the level of change. I think we need to do the kind of thinking that is actually getting in the thick of it and trying to make change IRL. I feel like it's in the struggle that we change our material conditions and therefore our thoughts. Working on something that touches on this now. :)
Wow. Seems like you’re attempting to explore/explain the vast whole of human interaction from an intimate starting point.
Allow me to offer some conversational feedback by way of historical analysis.
By way of anthropological study, our earliest, small scale societies were matriarchal: essentially egalitarian, peaceful, cooperative, loving and lacking in sexual anxiety.
The need for war was absent.
Here, men and women were considered ‘equal,’ with their relative gifts maintaining a general balance of power; I.e., women exercised considered collective authority, while men usually played the role of ‘chief’, (the ‘strong protector… leader’); where, it was not unusual (or considered unhealthy) for such a strong leader to have more than one wife.
Yet out of this relatively free… loving social fabric SOME chiefs were able to manipulate the marriage system, (by which the all-important dowry, the male promise to provide for the mothers children) so that this central stream of social wealth increasingly gathered into the hands of a single chief; and at a certain point, this morphed into Patriarchy, a CLASS society with a single leading family rising above the rest.
This CLASS society bears within it an ugly imbalance, oppression and discord, which the ruling class attempts to overcome by expanding outward; that is, by WAR, by oppressing and exploiting other societies; where, it’s the historical tendency for 1 patriarchal warlike society to (eventually) infect and dominate ALL the surrounding peaceful, matriarchal tribes; such that, they disappear altogether, with the history books erasing even their memory.
From here, ever greater empires unfolded… the rule of kings and queens; and with greater technological power, larger ‘empires’ still - even as we moved beyond ‘the tyranny’ of monarchy into ‘liberal democracy.’
In short, sports fans, CLASS society lies at the core of the war-whore-corridor; where ego and greed for ‘more’ feeds into an inherited social/historical construct… not of our own making.
I.e., ‘it’s in our nature, baby’
‘Always been that way’
‘Just the way things are’
Thanks for caring to share crapp
Yeah, I don't think things have been this mental the entire time. In fact, they were probably rosy for a lot longer than they've been batshit.
And I suspect that was because we had a much more balanced relationship with our ego and thoughts. But somewhere along the line....
It's really interesting, things like architecture have pointed to this egalitarian nature of many of our smaller societal attempts - reasonably large settlements with virtually identcial buildings and structures - indicating flatter structures etc than we have.
And while I think we all have our own personal thing with thought, it is also a dynamic that we all experience, just subjectively, but the thing itself is pretty universal as a defining feature of humanity. So, personal indeed, but also intensely universal.
As always, many thanks for reading and feeding back.