politics is a sham

[Birdy]

I don't even know how to really say this.

But, it's stemming from a lot of bad news and loss and life reflection and watching movies like Eat, Pray, Love and contemplating what matters and what doesn't... in life.

How i look back at all the arguments, the opinions, the accusations of right and wrong and realize in my ripe 32 years that none of it matters. Politics is the perpetuation of the world's biggest lie that's been passed down from generation to generation since man time's existence. A lie that tells us how to live, how to behave, what to say and how to say it. It tells us that we're wrong, that we're not good enough and that we're far from perfect. Telling us that perfection doesn't even exist, when really... it does. It makes us strive to false ideals, never happy with who we are, always on paths to self-betterment, never content. It makes us judge one another, insist on our ideas and dismiss anothers.

And really, we sit back and for the most part, blindly let it. Instead of realizing that who we are is perfection, what we think is right and what we do today matters nothing to anyone but ourselves. The key to our individual happiness is saying 'fuck you world' and once we conquer ourselves, we save mankind. The self is what matters, everything else falls into place when you've got that balance.

So yah, i'm back on individualism, because life's short and i'm not one for living a lie.

[Birdy]

put that in your pipes and smoke it. :rollweed:

[SaggyBalls]

Just be careful you don't confuse it with Libertarianism again.

That's often how politics reels the individualists in.

[Birdy]

I kinda view libertarianism now like you're hanging on to the last few strands of bullshit because you're afraid to say fuck it and just be.

[Thorgnor]

That, and most Libertarians don't want to be called anarchists, even though they are. Just like the rest of us Republican/Democrats, except for the voters and the parties, and those who use identity to splinter, rather than foster.

Politics is a sham, but the sham is that a perfect world can be reached. I keep repeating this, but the word utopia means "no place". It can't exist. Perfection is the lie of Facism. That the ideal, of any 'thing', which we hold in our minds, actually exists outside of itself in the "real" or material, is perhaps the most powerful of socio-psychic illusions. Keep searching for perfection and all you will find is shortcomings. You're right about the being part, except being requires "identity"... I 'am'...

The problem is for me is that there is no such thing as a moment either. A moment is an 'ideal' type of time, where we can see all of what is happening. But this is an illusion. Time keeps on ticking. We can't ever see it all. There is no 'perfect' view. Only perspectives, infinitely flawed by the processes of proprioception. The Facist impulse, to lead or be lead, always erases the possibility of effective cooperation and our so-called "democracy" is not of people, it is of sovereignty itself. As long as we romanticize the 'individual' as if it were some ideal type of golem that can move through the world without wavering left or right, the longer we will find ourselves retreating from the real basis of society, and happiness itself, each other.

Edited December 9, 2010 by Guest

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

As long as we romanticize the 'individual' as if it were some ideal type of golem that can move through the world without wavering left or right, the longer we will find ourselves retreating from the real basis of society, and happiness itself, each other.

You're making me want to go back and read Adorno and Horkheimer again . I think they nailed it with the idea that identity is what enables us to be dominated, and that power is not so much something that we wield, but something that passes through us.

[Birdy]

Politics is a sham, but the sham is that a perfect world can be reached. I keep repeating this, but the word utopia means "no place". It can't exist. Perfection is the lie of Facism. That the ideal, of any 'thing', which we hold in our minds, actually exists outside of itself in the "real" or material, is perhaps the most powerful of socio-psychic illusions. Keep searching for perfection and all you will find is shortcomings. You're right about the being part, except being requires "identity"... I 'am'...

That's just it - it's coming to grips with your IDEA of perfection not actually BEING perfection. A ideal utopia of rainbows, unicorns, lollipops and flowery meadows doesn't, nor will ever exist. The ideal job, the ideal man, the ideal house, the ideal garden - all doesn't exist, BECAUSE your job is perfect, the man too, the house, the garden, the everything. Perfection is your state of being right now and tomorrow and the next day, all in correlation with everything surrounding you. Flowers and plants and toads and clouds are all perfect just the way they are, but mankind is the only in the universe that strives for this self-created idea that we're not perfect and we never can be. But WE ARE. We're in the here and now, who we are today is the epitome of perfection. In the world around us, what happens this second is perfect in comparison to everything around us. What happens in the next second, perfect, the second after that, perfect, and so on down the line. I AM perfect, and so are you.

The individual shouldn't be something we romanticize, because it's not something we're wooing or lusting after, or whatever. It's just us, in our rawest state, stripped of the lies society has been feeding us since breath #1.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

The individual shouldn't be something we romanticize, because it's not something we're wooing or lusting after, or whatever. It's just us, in our rawest state, stripped of the lies society has been feeding us since breath #1.

Sounds like a Buddhist koan - the "original face before you were born".

But by "society", do you mean parents? And what about the friends and strangers who do their best to teach us that we should be learning, improving ourselves, and making up our own minds about the things that affect us? It doesn't seem to me that our socialisation is all about control and repression.

[Birdy]

I don't think it intends to be about control or repression, but that is what it achieves. So remove malicious intent from the equation, and the answer is yes - parents, but also friends and strangers - because unfortunately, this is a cycle that's been going on for a long, long time - longer than i would ever care to trace my family tree (and i like that kind of thing).

I have more to say... but gotta run.

[Booche]

Do unto others like you want them to undo you.

[Birdy]

Yup.

Er... anyway... our parents, teachers and friends tell us that we should be learning because ______ or we should be improving ourselves because _______? Because there's always something better out there to become and that we can always be more. The downside of this is the creation of the idea that what we are today isn't enough to be happy or content with. Lesser things have caused chronic depression on a good day and world wars on a bad day.

If i were to get a life sentence tomorrow, I don't want to be depressed thinking about what i've yet to achieve, but rather, think 'fuck yah' at what i've done.

[ollie]

If i were to get a life sentence tomorrow, I don't want to be depressed thinking about what i've yet to achieve, but rather, think 'fuck yah' at what i've done.

I believe those were Charles Manson's exact words just before entering prison.

[Birdy]

um..... sweet.

[Thorgnor]

As long as we romanticize the 'individual' as if it were some ideal type of golem that can move through the world without wavering left or right' date=' the longer we will find ourselves retreating from the real basis of society, and happiness itself, each other. [/quote']

You're making me want to go back and read Adorno and Horkheimer again . I think they nailed it with the idea that identity is what enables us to be dominated, and that power is not so much something that we wield, but something that passes through us.

Yes sir. Benjamin's angel of history is weeping for your immanent return

[ollie]

um..... sweet.

Ha, ha, ok I'll stop beating around the bush. Where do bad people fit in with this concept of perfection?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Or, conversely, good people?

(I actually prefer Gandhi's way of framing it - there aren't bad people per se, just people locked into bad [i.e. violent, coercive, etc.] ways of doing things - for which a tweak of conscience is the best and only solution.)

[SaggyBalls]

Do unto others like you want them to undo you.

Who've I gotta blow to get a drink around here.

[Birdy]

Bad and good people, the million dollar question!

Truth is, i don't know.

But i believe bad people are *created* and this one of the driving forces behind such a creation. And i've taken flak for it before, but still sticking to my theory of mankind being inherently good. So if that's true, than this theory works, and voila! Issue in world peace.

hahah

Or something close to. Maybe.

[Booche]

But i believe bad people are *created* and this one of the driving forces behind such a creation.

Yeah, good idea. You should probably just leave the frontal lobe out of this discussion.

[Birdy]

Bad people and mentally ill people aren't one in the same... and far more of who we consider 'bad' people, are actually mentally ill.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/200912/crime-brain-disorder

Edited December 10, 2010 by Guest

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

The point is valid, but I have to say that Psychology Today is a bit of a rag, and I wouldn't trust them for good science. When I think "mentally ill", I tend to think of someone benign who has a hard time coping with the bullshit around them (of which there is a bewildering amount, and it stuns me sometimes to think about how most people deal with it).

And fwiw, I'd have to say that some mentally ill people are just on some irretrievably bad paths, (by which I mean I can't imagine anyone being able to get them to be self-aware of their own badness), which is the only way I can "get" the category "bad people". I mean, to take something at hand, what do you do with the Tori Stafford story? Somebody'd have to be pretty fucked up to do something like that.

[timouse]

Or, conversely, good people?

(I actually prefer Gandhi's way of framing it - there aren't bad people per se, just people locked into bad [i.e. violent, coercive, etc.] ways of doing things - for which a tweak of conscience is the best and only solution.)

utah phillips riffs about coercive combinations being the biggest thing to deeply screw up society. government, police, even your job and the landlord/mortgage company, these things are all coercive and as gandhi said lead good people to make bad choices.

the good news is society is untenable and unstable and will be collapsing for your amusement soon. until then, seek voluntary combinations and learn how to get by without government. 2012 and the big whatever will be here before we know it :chug:

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

:chug:

I heartily endorse the points you have made, and the action in which your emoticon is engaged.

[ollie]

(I actually prefer Gandhi's way of framing it - there aren't bad people per se, just people locked into bad [i.e. violent, coercive, etc.] ways of doing things - for which a tweak of conscience is the best and only solution.)

Do you think someone like Charles Manson can be saved with a "tweak"? Let's talk real world examples. Sounds awfully simplistic to me.

[Davey Boy 2.0]