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Post by Dan Dare on Oct 13, 2022 9:33:33 GMT
I've often said before that, come the revolution, the first institution we will recapture (after the BBC) is the teacher training colleges, followed by the universities.
The latter are particularly important since, as Gramsci noted, hegemonic control of the levers of power derives from the psychotherapeutic management of the attitudes of the prospective cognitive elite. It doesn't really matter what sort of pabulum the normative 'culture' feeds to the proles to keep them in a semi-stupified state, it is the cadre which gets everything done in a political sense.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2022 10:00:06 GMT
This is true, no matter how many may trumpet the wonders of the people. Mandela used to say it was the power of the people that created change and effected justice, but in truth he was one of those typical historical and even mythical loners, what would be a hero in the Germanic tradition, who places himself as a sacrifice upon the catafalque of tyranny. A few others followed him and were slaughtered by the powers that be, but they will be forgotten and the hero will be remembered. It doesn't seem to matter much, ironically, what the hero did. What seems significant is whether or not any changes for the people ensued. So Hitler is remembered for rising up for the restoration of German pride (and the genocide of his perceived enemies) and Churchill is remembered for fighting him because he went too far. The rest of the hapless hordes who fell into graves during this period are forgotten, or remembered en mass. The horrors that attend these events seem repetitive over time.
Humanity learns little and seems not to care much about details and acts. Humanity loves heroes. The problem with heroes is whether or not they are good for business in the long run. Whether they are capable of achieving things without violence and savagery. Or the creation of feuds. There are, if one looks back, few good monarchs or leaders or emperors. Most are bastards and get worse as they obtain more power and less criticism through their developing strength in a bond with the military and the police. Their elites oppress the masses. This just causes a repeat of what went before.
Do you have any solutions to this dilemma, Dan?
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Post by Orac on Oct 13, 2022 10:31:41 GMT
I think Heroes are the antibodies to a crisis. The social body creates when systems fail.
The best ideologies create peace and plenty, but this situation also represents an opportunity for the spiteful or the parasitic. We end up with a cycle of building and co-operation, followed by parasitic attachment, and then collapse.
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Post by Dan Dare on Oct 13, 2022 10:40:15 GMT
No handy solutions Vanna except to say that in general I'm a fan of the Great Man theory of history. As we know little of substance gets accomplished by committees, focus groups or flocks of sheep with PPE diplomas.
The only problem is that for every Friedrich der Große you get an Adolf Hitler and for every Mandela you get an Idi Amin.
In general though I'd imagination revolution is the only way forward for the West, perhaps preceded by the sort of collapse Magrathea alludes to. It wouldn't take much to get things going, once things get dire enough.
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Post by Bentley on Oct 13, 2022 11:46:13 GMT
The undermining of the nuclear family and Christian church doesn’t help. It allows children to be brought up by the state and indoctrinated into what ever the state wants them to believe .
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Post by jeg er on Oct 13, 2022 12:46:40 GMT
The undermining of the nuclear family and Christian church doesn’t help. It allows children to be brought up by the state and indoctrinated into what ever the state wants them to believe . As opposed to the Church, you mean? |
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Post by Bentley on Oct 13, 2022 12:55:41 GMT
The undermining of the nuclear family and Christian church doesn’t help. It allows children to be brought up by the state and indoctrinated into what ever the state wants them to believe . As opposed to the Church, you mean? No . The influence of the church is only in proportion to how much the nuclear family allows it . If you undermine both the nuclear family and the influence of Christian religion then the only major influence is the state . |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2022 14:23:17 GMT
No handy solutions Vanna except to say that in general I'm a fan of the Great Man theory of history. As we know little of substance gets accomplished by committees, focus groups or flocks of sheep with PPE diplomas. The only problem is that for every Friedrich der Große you get an Adolf Hitler and for every Mandela you get an Idi Amin. In general though I'd imagination revolution is the only way forward for the West, perhaps preceded by the sort of collapse Magrathea alludes to. It wouldn't take much to get things going, once things get dire enough. Yes, I think I can sense revolt already in certain things that have been happening and in the way some have been brave enough to speak out.
It's important in the volatile times not to allow the Hitlers and Adi Amins, Robert Mugabes and Pol Pots, Stalins and self styled emperors to take advantage and crush the real thing in its birth canal, replacing it with a monster.
Opportunity knocks for psychopaths at times like these. If things are bad enough the masses don't think and give their allegiance to who and whatever looks like it will stop the rot.
I believe fervently that heroes are born and not made. Something in some people is capable of causing them to suddenly rise up and act. It's not something you can train for, it's something inherent. As though Nature places this there for just such a moment. This is possibly why these folk often get executed or discredited before they can do any damage to the status quo. Bastards tend to live forever, but heroes often die young. Occasionally someone manages to avoid the heretic's fire and change the path of destiny for a nation or a group. It's all to play for ...
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Post by Toreador on Oct 14, 2022 6:26:04 GMT
I've often said before that, come the revolution, the first institution we will recapture (after the BBC) is the teacher training colleges, followed by the universities. The latter are particularly important since, as Gramsci noted, hegemonic control of the levers of power derives from the psychotherapeutic management of the attitudes of the prospective cognitive elite. It doesn't really matter what sort of pabulum the normative 'culture' feeds to the proles to keep them in a semi-stupified state, it is the cadre which gets everything done in a political sense. I know I've said this over in the other place but teacher training colleges became what they are since the 1960s Labour government decided to overhaul the education system. It took a time to see the results but by the 1970s they were very apparent and they're even more apparent now. Back around 1989 I had a discussion with a Tory politician who asked me what I thought should be their priorities. The prime one was to overhaul the education system by taking it back to pre-Wilson times. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2022 6:32:16 GMT
I agree that the educational system has collapsed into perilous levels of reduction, dumbing down and establishment ideology. Whilst some things needed to go, throwing the baby out with the bath water has and will cause a tragic drop in capabilities combined with an intractable woke mentality that will impact on every sphere of learning, skills attainment and, eventually, the capability of a civilization to maintain itself.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2022 9:33:22 GMT
I don't know about the future of politics but the future itself for the west looks grim and that is caused solely by sheer stupidity. I am not an especially keen Fox News fan but I do admire Tucker Carlson's intelligent and feisty reports on it. Here is one to set the teeth on edge of everyone who thinks Europe is going to survive its own folly with regard to the Green issue and the war in Ukraine.
Enjoy.
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Post by Cartertonian on Oct 16, 2022 12:38:58 GMT
Bentley wrote:
Yes and no. It has been challenged, questioned and criticised, but that is what happens in academia and such challenge does not necessarily equal it being discredited. All academic theories are subject to challenge, questioning and criticism – that is what academia is for. We are not here to establish absolute truths. Even the tenets of hard science are themselves still only theories. One day, Einstein will be found to have been ‘wrong’, (he already has been in some areas of physics) but he won’t be ‘discredited’. He will continue to be vaunted as a visionary in physics who showed later researchers the way toward a better understanding of our universe.
The triune brain theory sits at the centre of a century old (arguably much longer) and similarly ‘triune’ battle between neurology, psychiatry and psychology. Ergo…
However you want to describe the human condition, there is no doubt that the empirical evidence shows that we can use our higher intelligence to improve humanity’s lot…or to simply advance the interests of our own tribe. In politics therefore, everything hangs on with which tribe one identifies. The principal divide in politics is less about ‘capitalism vs socialism’ than it is about ‘individualism vs collectivism’. The scourge of politics is that it propagates ‘sub-tribes’ who erroneously believe that their views should dominate everyone in the larger, main tribe. To achieve that, they resort to the sort of things Vanna mentions above, to impose their will on the majority.
Thus as I said, "...the empirical evidence shows that we can use our higher intelligence to improve humanity’s lot…or to simply advance the interests of our own tribe"
The question is, who's tribe are we in?
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Post by Bentley on Oct 16, 2022 12:46:31 GMT
The Triune brain is as relevant as the belief that we only use 10% of our brain or that we have a soul. There simply is no real evidence to support it other than it’s a nice neat explanation. I’m no expert and I have read other articles debunking the ‘ theory’ but here’s a neat article thebrainscientist.com/2018/04/11/you-dont-have-a-lizard-brain/ |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2022 13:35:32 GMT
The problem with assigning a higher intelligence, for want of a better term, to humans is that there is little evidence of this higher order of ethically based thought and action in the behaviour of the average human. The average human is obsessed with feeding, fighting and fornicating. Finding shelter and making things comes next as a way of extending the existence of any particular family group. I see nothing especially highly intelligent about this. Among these average groups there sre the unusual ones who are creative, empathic and seeking. But they are not the norm. They possibly cause great leaps forward, but are still not the norm.
This is why and how politics seeks to control those who think on the first and second levels of responding. The third level doesn't feature in this and is often considered to be a nuisance factor in human groups rather than of great benefit and enhancement regarding evolution in terms of moral comprehension or scientific discovery. The average human isn't really bothered with these higher order things. Anyone who has lived among groups of ordinary humans will be able to vouch for this. Humans are untrustworthy and hard to fathom but, ironically, easy to understand if one takes off the rose tinted specs and sees them as feisty well adapted animals living in a world of chaos and peril. Their inventiveness and staying power is quite phenomenal in the face of these challenges. Of course, there have been the tragic disappearances of groups that could not manage to think their way out of a paper bag. Their bones are testimony to this failure.
Survival is what drives humans and greed is possibly one of the motivators for the seeming evolution of complexity over simplicity that characterises human existence today. The adaptation of religions and ideologies to the mutual benefit of the group and the express comfort and longevity of the control elite is how things have managed to look so spectacular when in fact they were simply operating inside contexts that motivated workers, flunkies and slaves with a set of rewards and punishments. Few have ever considered questioning this basically oppressive setup nor challenging the barbarity that has been inflicted on millions in the name of something considered good. Few have dared to question this interpretation of "good". So humans would therefore be mostly still in the herd instinct phase. Not lizards but not gods either.
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Post by bancroft on Oct 16, 2022 21:00:52 GMT
Groups, like tribes or nations, will find common beliefs about the world and others and evolve these into rules and laws that affect the group concerned. Children will obtain this information at an early age and through their experiences they will either learn what is valid or of value and keep this and what is irrational or unacceptable and junk that, or they will simply believe whatever is convenient and unlikely to get them rejected by the group. Not all individuals will be prepared to swallow narratives without question, but the majority will, and do. And they do to this day when they have far more opportunity to test group beliefs out on the real world. There are still people who will say that Africans can't swim because their bones are too heavy for them to float, or that theft and lies are okay so long as you're not doing this to your own people, etc. After a while, people stop questioning things and just go with the flow, staying in the good books of their various authorities and not making waves that will single them out for punishment by the group and its elders, and these punishments can be very harsh and have often included execution and torture in a number of grisly methods.
When these sort of punishments become a part of any ideologically driven system or world view, the group becomes complicit in the machinations of the few. This is a fact of human life. The process can continue for centuries and is ongoing in the so-called modern age by groups who have absolute control over their members by means of fear.
This has an impact on education. It has an impact on liberty and it creates a mindset that begins to close instead of open to anything that is outside of the ideological wrapper. Whether the wrapper is religion, racism, or philosophically oriented world views, the developing humans begin to get squished by its restrictions and can end up becoming fanatical in order to defend them against the impinging facts of the real world outside that wrapper. And to please the authorities so as to avoid punishment and shunning. Some leave, but they can never return, as is the case with those who are placed on lists of perceived traitors to the group, some of whom are murdered by envoys from the mother ship. Humans are a dangerous species because they can use their intelligence to do stupid things and they can bury their compassion and empathy to do savage things not only to other humans but also to the world itself. The rewards of flouting one's better judgement are legion among leaders who have taken the gold and shown their dissenters the iron fist. This characterises human history so doing something about it seems a lost cause.
One also has to bear in mind that the opposite phenomenon of becoming compliant and acquiescent to different ideologies can be just as destructive. Humans are presently into people pleasing, political correctness and generally genuflecting to new gods and beliefs in the west. This is clashing not only with monotheistic and monolithic belief systems elsewhere but it is also eroding and will finally erase much of what was keeping the west from disintegration. (As Baff mentioned above.)
So politics tends to turn up as the perfect way to fix things. But whose politics? Politics always seems to belong to some belief system or ideology. It seldom exists as a governing principle for efficient administration. It tends to act as another wrapper for crushing adversity and shoving dissent over the cliff.
I once long ago made a thread, no longer visible or perhaps extant, on PoFouk called "Quo Vadis Politics" in this regard. So I'm asking again, where is politics going to lead people if all it seems capable of achieving is war and grand theft of everything from resources to taxes? What is going to happen when politics shows its teeth and "democracy" becomes a farce? Some would say democracy is already a farce and others might add that it has always been a farce. Yet others might suggest that politics is a dream of those who follow an idealistic view that humans can be more than mere animals and warlords.
My question is, can humanity take the leap over the hurdle that groupthink has created in the form of politics? Is politics any kind of a solution to human problems if it is going to continue to stare aggressively at rival groups over a spiked fence of its own making?
The problem is that in order for anything to work wonders among the masses, it needs to be free of the ambitions of those who lead the people to their doom or their dream. If one assesses it from a historical perspective, politics fails to do what politics is expected to do in almost every occasion of its interference in governance. Even monarchies have crumbled and fallen to greed and petty rivalries. They have slaughtered one another and caused the slaughter of millions through history.
Question is, for me, how to stop this. Can it be stopped? And if someone finds a solution to the human condition will this create Shangi-la or Hell? And, as The Time Machine revealed, sometimes Shangri-la is Hell. It all seems dependent on how people think about what is happening to them at the hands of others.
Every day I see people do unwise things because they believe something fundamentally about others and the world that is basically a chimera of their own wish that everything be good and true. They shun those who have been assigned the label of "not good" and they fall into the honey traps of those who pretend to support them and like them. It's tragic to observe but there is not much anyone can do about the fact that quite a lot of people are extremely gullible and will believe anything that sounds genuine. They will burn the witches in various ways because they see heresy in everything that doesn't chime with their own idea of Shangri-la.
This is leading the west to dissolution, not greatness. This is causing the west to appear mentally deficient and weak. This is opening up potential for invasion and control from other groups.
You can't mention this as you will be set upon by angry saints who are on the lookout for dissenters. You can say the emperor is naked but you will ultimately probably regret saying it. And you will regret saying it because you drew attention to yourself and became the target of the halo polishers of the Company of Saints. This is just a new religion that has no gods. It is just as full of injunction and criticism as its predecessor. It is as nasty and bullying as all the absolute creeds that have painted themselves into corners.
So, I would suggest that the fault lies not in politics, dear Brutus, but in ourselves, to misquote Shakespeare and that there doesn't seem to be much anyone can do about it. Unless a determined effort not to be the placid victim of dogma can be effected without replacing the one dogma with another dogma and starting all over again.
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