My parents were both pedants - literally and philosophically · I don’t mean that in the pejorative of someone constantly parroting things they’ve not reflected on deeply, though there is that, but that they earned a living as teachers, and were both very interested in learning the lessons this life offers in its myriad ways · learning and teaching, a combination that is almost paradoxically mutually exclusive, one from the other. I am currently experiencing a crisis in faith, for i had been raised with a rock solid conceit in the efficacy of scientific thinking; just now in history the most fascistic combine of corporate power and religious fundamentalism is doing all in its power to discredit the entire “age of reason,” and there is much to what they say. Science has provided the corporate laboratories limitless funds to create poisons based on fossil fuel extraction that are purported to be for the benefit of our species; psychology has been employed by the “military industrial complex” to devise ways to penetrate and undermine the will of the individual on an unparalleled scale and the entire computer technology has been subsumed into a deviant effort to peep on people without warrant or invitation in order to override the “1st law of salesmanship” - you cannot create motivation.
I would surrender if i could find someone brave enough or worthy to whom i could deliver my weapon of reason, but the enemy lacks gumption enough to step out from the shadows and say “it is my algorithm that has enslaved you,” or “it is my ad campaign that has captured your attention,” rather i am surrounded by surrogates of the ruling class proclaiming their fierce independent thinking all the while measuring their success by how many adherents they bring to the fray. It is on rare occasion i meet anyone willing to dialogue about the peril our world faces without them bringing all those who concur with their thinking as though that is foundation enough to believe what they say. We live in a world where coercion is the lingua franca, and if you can intimidate enough that should suffice - the old saw · “might makes right.” I say bullshit, i’m old and growing more feeble by the day, but unfortunately for the powers-that-be, i have less and less to lose daily from my outright defiance of the status quo.
The only advantage the ruling class possesses over me is the outmoded belief that i am responsible for whatever change i can accomplish - no retreat, no surrender · so to speak. But that ego oriented metric won’t last much longer, for what had once been the corral within which i have been kept docile; that irrational and impossible quest for approval and sanction dims daily. My mission is to distill language that cannot be twisted - to find logic that is impermeable to the legions of greed sucking the last resources of the delicate orb of moisture that has decanted our mysterious human elixir of misery and marvel; compassion and cruelty; of accomplishment and abysmal failure. I believe the solution lies in individual confidence - not the blustering foolishness of the business end of a weapon, but the conviction of each person that what they experience, whatever the valence +/- is of worth, and that each individual is not only expected but valued for contributing their best effort.
The capitalists have contrived this to mean “he who dies with the most toys, wins.” and nearly every person with whom i attended high school believes just that - my own semi-proletariate progressive, hipster doofus brethren are believers, as long as you adhere to what they tell you to adhere to. One of the profound ironies of the entire Ayn Rand epoch is the subornation of the individual to the will of the “one” - the one that got there 1st, the one with more “seniority”, the one with more friends on the “inside,” the one that won’t show him/herself to the light of open and transparent dealings. People have been trained to follow the leader to such an extent, that anyone who veers from leadership is a threat, rather than a fresh thinker, or new influence or fertilizer for growth. Those i meet where i live give great lip service to bonhomme, but in fact level enormous restrictions on who is “in” and who is “out.” This is nothing unique to where i live, for i have lived in 4 continents in 5 years. I am 65 and can tell you there is nothing unique about clustering for comfort.
Why the fuck do you think 2,000 billionaires are able to bullshit their way through the heist of the Holocene era - they picture in their heart of hearts · that they are worthy of 90% of the world’s wealth when in fact they are only worthy of 0.000028571429% . The great fiction of the conservative battle cry of “individualism” is its missing component - the golden rule · The ruling class interprets “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” as “those who have the gold, make the rules.” I’ve lived with these bullshit artists all my life - they were big shots in the high school cafeteria; big shots @ far too many art openings to say; and in every corporate environment i’ve ever been in where their only contribution was how many they could cow by bluster or bullshit; all the while the important work that was worthy of recognition waited patiently with dignity for a hearing - not from fear, but from correctness. If what you do is worthwhile there is no need to trumpet or bully, the work itself speaks. The ruling class has found if you are loud enough you can make bank on bullshit, all the while everyone in the room knows that you are no more than a naked emperor wearing an "empty suit."
the truth hurts, then you die.
jts 10/08/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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