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Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:49:58 -0700
Subject: Re: a brief comment re: Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
From: RADICAL PRESS <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>,
<•••@••.•••>
CC: <•••@••.•••>
Dear Richard, et al,
I thought that Diane Harvey's comments on liberals and
conservatives might help to elucidate a bit further the
sometimes vague notions surrounding these seemingly dualist
descriptions of the human character. The following excerpt
below is therefore given.
In Peace, Light & Undying Courage,
Arthur Topham
Pub/Ed
The Radical Press
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The Golden Road to Unlimited Totalitarianism - Part 3
Which 'One World'?
By Diane Harvey <•••@••.•••>
6-4-00
Excerpt:
"Beyond the unfortunate confusion surrounding basic dualities,
the forces of totalitarianism are busy generating entire
fields of false dualties. These are innumerable, but a sample
will reveal the entire level at which these are operating. The
next magnitude of human life and thought, beyond the basic
effort to reconcile divine dualities, is the entire social
fabric of the world. This is patently a madhouse, and the best
of all places to manufacture fresh, undetectable, and highly
diverting insanities. As long as we are caught up in the
levels of phony dualities, we are completely removed from all
possibility of any effective struggle against the forces of
totalitarianism. Because these are smiling contentedly behind
both sides of every pair of manufactured opposites. It is
crucial for us all to start observing, analyzing and
ridiculing these absurdities into the oblivion they so richly
deserve.
Let's start with what this looks like in a single part of the
lunatic asylum: the field of politics. The false polarities
offered here are two crude blocks of unexamined, unrefined,
undigested feelings and thoughts wrapped up for us in two
giant plastic To-Go packages. Our so-called two-party system
is currently nothing but mental junk food: McPolitics for the
masses, ready to go, with fried nuances on the side. So many
of us think we are, we must be, either a Rebuplican or a
Democrat. I respectfully suggest we are not yet seeing, in
sufficient numbers, behind the masks. Who donates money to
both sides, and how much? This money represents the crooked
smiles on the faces behind the curtain which covers both
sides. I suggest that we have unwittingly been devoured by the
deliberately concocted and sustained illusion that these are
real choices between two real forces, one of which must be
good and the other evil. Of course, false polarities are
always based on a genuine seed of truth, or they would never
work at all. They hook us in a spot of deeply real idealism,
and take off from there into the mess of extrapolated,
pre-chewed, assumptions. What's the reasoning behind our
purchase of either of these giant concrete blocks of used-up,
pre-owned Politics To-Go? The answer is: reason does not enter
into it. This is about taking our genuine, exceedingly
important interest in government, and diverting it into
pointless false channels. This is still working well. A
tremendous amount of our national attention, time, passion,
and money is carefully channeled to run off in these two bogus
simulations, until it all dribbles away eventually, unseen, in
the desert of Business As Usual.
It is certainly not our own best thinking and well-rounded
reasoning about that causes us to ingest such indigestible
wads of false polarities. The actual source of our
poorly-reasoned attachments to either of these wholesale
half-truths is a cleverly designed fishhook. We are hooked
into believing in one or the other of these two monumental
clown acts in one of two basic ways. Most of us are
imbalanced, and therefore characterized by an innate
psychological bias toward the either/or of liberalism or
conservatism. We have no idea of what sorts of genuine
energies and useful forces are embodied in either one of these
terms, but nevertheless, this does not prevent us from eagerly
accepting one label. We rush to identify ourselves with
half-a-harlequin. It is so difficult to consider everything in
one's own mind, and so easy to sink oneself in a huge gob of
glossy mob thoughtforce instead. It's so relaxing to not have
to think through each and every little thing. The attraction
of received "wisdom" is how wonderfully simple everything
becomes. It's so much easier to be a Republican or a Democrat
than to actually be responsible for dealing with each facet of
life oneself.
The source of our hapless devotion to either of the two
parties presently making royal fools out of us all, is, as
always, something within us that is real. Liberals have been
hooked by their heart-centered feelings in relation to the
suffering of human beings and all other forms of life. The
essence of authentic Liberalism is the love of humanity and
deep respect for all life. Genuine Liberals really do feel
that factual essential connection between us all, and if we
can't see the value of this to the human race, and to the
planet as a whole, then we have a serious blind spot. Liberals
can identify with the great ideal of our common human ground.
Liberals innately understand the fact that we are all in this
together. It is from this root core of truth that the rest of
their unrealistic and relatively brainless agenda-nonsense
proliferates.
Conservatives have been hooked by their mental appreciation
for common sense, and the fact that we are each responsible
for our own behavior. Authentic Conservatism is an innate
awareness of the necessity to preserve what is good, and to
build on the foundations of the past. If we can't see the
value to the human race of this type of bias when it is
genuine, then we have a serious blind spot. They have seen the
Tragedy of the Commons, and they understand the grim realities
of our present stage of evolution. They have no trouble
understanding that there are people out there who like to hurt
other people, and they consider this, quite rightly, as of
more importance in the moment than the causes of such a
condition. They know that the source of strength is personal
and family integrity. From this core truth, the rest of the
unrealistic and relatively heartless agenda-nonsense
proliferates.
As constituted presently, exaggerating in order to make a
point, liberalism is the political philosophy of a mindless
heart, and conservativism is the political philosphy of a
heartless mind. [my underlining for emphasis. a.t.]And does
this not in fact represent what each side accuses the other
of? Each side is right in this accusation, as a generality,
because totalitarian forces have managed to entice so many
human beings into becoming half-a-loaf in this way.
Furthermore, if pure forms of liberalism and equally pure
forms of conservatism were actually able to manifest in the
political arena, they could never annihilate one another. They
would however be able to continue to refine their arguments,
perhaps even into the realms of meaningful dialogue, which
would enrich us all. And one can even imagine, however
shocking this seems at first, that these representatives of
the head and the heart of the body politic might even conceive
of working in concert, each doing what it is best suited for.
What a concept: the heart and mind working for the good of the
whole.
Just as these two ersatz political avenues for genuinely
crucial differences have ingested our real energies, so have
many other equally degenerated forms of true opposites. Every
field of human endeavor we can think of is bottled up in two
equally idiotic, stupifying, pickled and plastic-wrapped
McSides. The original source of differences, the people
leading with their heads, and the people leading with their
hearts, has been focused and crystallized downward into
dangerously dumbified one-dimensional nattering. Politics,
education, science, economics, art: all tending to the endless
iteration of a threadbare monoculture. These forms of our
civilization pretend to have life, but it's the spurious kick
of the galvanized dead frog.
Our enshrinement of stupidity is the result our collective
unconscious collusion with the forces of totalitarianism,
spread around everywhere, in everything by now. Stupification
has worked and has good results: we barely know anything is
wrong here. We no longer have any idea of what a living
culture might look like. We can hardly conceive now of a free,
robust and healthy civilization, even for our own country. We
fondly imagine that the stock market is the indicator of a
nation's health: and that is a telling shameful contrast with
our national origins. We don't, as a people, even see anything
degraded about this. And we certainly abdicated even the
slightest interest in what the Creator might have in mind on a
planetary scale. Therefore, adding it all up, it looks at the
moment as if the Golden Road to Unlimited Totalitarianism is
the only highway built into the future which includes everyone
at all levels."
