Scouts

Sorry----I was late n getting my next post posted----my laptop is broken so I am stuck temporarily using my android tablet and I am not used to not having a traditional keyboard. I aposlogize in advance if I go over anything that you answered in the next post, or rehash points you already agree to.

 

Ideally that makes sense. The problem is how to hold up those rights in a truly fair way--for example, marijuana---there are many people who believe it should be legalized, yet there are many who afraid of it's legalization and think that it would create more crime, death on the highways and so forth. Both sides are strong in their beliefs, and will legally fight to maintain them. Your point would support those who want to legalize it, because they would do it in their own homes----no problem. But on the other side there would be dissension because those people feel that when the stoners get high legally they will then get in their cars and kill the innocents taking away their rights. So it is easier said then done. We baby boomers did a great thing with the social change we brought in te 60's and 70's, but some of us didn't stop---we were so hell-bent on social change that we began taking away rights----smoking for example---while I don't smoke, I certainly understand the complaint of those who can't even smoke in a bar now, and have to stay outside 200 feet from the building or whatever.

And then there is still the problem of how you avoid a Police State----America is the land of the free---but we have the biggest prison population/national population in the world. I agree with Thedope's points in this regard too. But it was an old hippy concept that the police create hippies and hippies create Police---Bhagwan Dass wrote that.

What you have is not a bad concept at all----just achieving a fair level is hard---and objectivistic rationalism has failed miserably in this regard. I believe that the scouts you are talking about more often formulate the ideas, but the real social change is also a process of social evolution. Martin Luther King got the ball rolling, but it took several decades for real change---I think Archie Bunker (the TV show All In the Family) was instrumental in helping America begin to come to terms with prejudism--because he allowed people to laugh at it, which was a subtle way of breaking down that shadow element----for people to slowly see Archie Bunker in themselves---that's one of many changes that America had to overcome---and we still have work to do as a nation on both sides of the race line before MLK's dream becomes a true reality.

I can see your point on this---a good thing is that you limit the shadow development, but there is a cultural heritage that is lost. I exposed my son to numerous traditions and stories (and cuisines as well---of course we have travelled overseas a lot too). On the other hand, I was ready to march down to the school and complain if they taught creationism. Though his Judeo-Christian heritage (i.e. American or Western cultural context) is admittedly lacking---but I tried to be fair, and I have always felt that it was his own path to choose---whichever way he goes. We were fairly lenient, as I wanted to avoid creating hang-ups and shadow elements (though just trying to be like a significant figure of any kind is shadow development--every human has a shadow, but his shadow is far less than my sister's kids who were raised in a fundamentalist Christian setting). We have had many political discussions over the years, and my lessons have not been to force dogma or belief down his throat--but to get him to question----though inevitably much of my hippy liberalism was passed to him. He hears things and learns things and we discuss it, but I try to let him decide for himself.

But here too, a parent feels that it is their right to raise the kid the way they feel fit---a Christian, fearing for the very soul of their kids, will fight tooth and nail to raise their kid as a Christian----so here again is that tricky part over what is fair by the law. What is the individual's right. Personally I do not like religious indoctrination---but I would stand by a parent's right to raise a kid the way they see fit even if it is that indoctrination. Just as I would march down to the school to prevent the school from teaching creationism to my kid.

But how do we force this change---do we stand up and give speeches, right books, travel across the country to speaking engagements, speak at universities; or do we become politically active, start a political movement? Create our own army, burn down the Reichstag... Ok I'm half-joking---but these things an go different ways. I think taking the path of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche is the most ideal for Scouts---and later I will talk about why I think philosophers now will help change things later.

I will respond to this in a separate post.

Like I said, I am of the same spirit. Two years ago I quit my job to write three books---the first one I have worked on and off of for much of the past decade. I broke it up into three books. They involve my philosophy, the social change I see happening, and how I think we need to resolve the Post-Modern Crisis. In two years I have done far more travelling than writing, and my wife has always got me doing something else----but I am plugging along (hoping I don't have to go back to work----my wife is also very expensive).

Also I have to point out that one reason I am so cautionary today---and in this thread--is that I see a lot of scary things in today's America. An anti-individualistic ethic is circulating in new age circles and has even been surprisingly picked up by Native Americans in cases. Meanwhile the GOP and the religious right are an example of how far this country has shifted to the right, and as dissatisfaction over the economy and so many other things are going on America is more primed for a shift to fascism than I have ever seen. I am not a conspiracy nut---and I think that both the official and conspiracy side are filled with dissinformation----and I do not like dissinformation.

I am a hippy, but I followed Jerry Rubin's advice in the late 70's and spent much of my career in the stockmarket---not as a greedy broker---never had to compromise my ethics----but when it comes to the economy, the credit crisis, the markets--people are so stupid, dissinformed, and----I could go on. (ps Romney would have ruined the economy and helped himself and his rich buddies immensely). Popular ideas right now are recipes for disaster----I predicted the Japanese crash and economic fallout---we have a lot of lessons to learn from their mistakes. And yes---I predicted the market turn in 2007, and jumped back in in March 2009, and so forth).

These are scary times---but I have long admonished the youth for not standing up and defending their freedoms. I welcome the OWS Movement (I cringe at their economic concepts of today's America-----but they understand corporate power and the danger better than just about anyone else in America). So I am supportive of activism---I am just afraid of the current socio-political climate------hence all the cautionary tales of fascism and extremism.

I urge everyone to FOLLOW THEIR PATH! IT'S YOUR TRIP MAN, AND WHEN LIFE IS DONE, YOU WERE EITHER TRUE TO YOURSELF, OR DIED A NOBODY!

 

Let me speak to the last comments first---yes Thedope pounced quickly. In view of the scary environment we live in, and the fact that activism so often leads to extremes I certainly understand his points. I think we should stand up against injustice, but we must strive to do this in a non-judgemental way, in a non-reductionist way---or at least in a reductionism that is benign as I referred to earlier. MLK and Gandhi are good examples. In fact, this was part of what made the hippy movement so great----we did not force Marxism or fascism onto America---most of us were very apolitical. There was a book, Beyond Marx or Jesus, by Jean-Francois Revel (?) I think----I have it somewhere. He was hated by the European Marxists because he recognized this value of the hippy movement, and the revolution it implied. I would like to think American activism would follow this path----but times were unique in the 60's and 70's. And the hippies were, I believe, Nietzsche's ubermensch----they were after all extremely Dionysian in nature. I can argue that they appeared as Apollonian forces were taking over at the Zenith of the American Empire---the excess rationalism of which would have carried us to ruin. But they breathed new Dionysian life into the culture, and carried America to a new zenith as we re-entered the establishment. (I think Nietzsche's true genius lies in his identification of the Dionysan-Apollonian dynamic, and his embracing of the Dionysian forces).

Now speaking on our differences regarding spirituality and what you refer to as regression, I understand your point as it is based on a materialstic perspective (i.e. not essentialist).

But psychologically mankind has long played out a Return-to-paradise archetype. It is a hidden theme in every religion. When I returned to America in '96, I went out to a nightclub and watched these people dance to Trance---a monotonous fast-paced drum beat----most of them drunk, many high on ecstasy and what not----and I suddenly realized---this could just as easily be a jungle tribe, or a Goddess cult festival before the dawn of civilization, or a paleolithic cave. The beat was the same, the dancing was the same, intoxication... The difference was, these were working stiffs in modern America oblivious to the subconscious play that was being acted out.

I think there is a drive, a cultural dynamic that pushes us towards our roots. This drive has always been present, but it is much stronger today, because it is in the face of the Post-Modern crisis that it becomes truly relevant.

If we use up our resources, experience total economic and social collapse, poison our world beyond repair--then the survivors will be forced to return to our hunter-gatherer past. I hope not. On the other hand---the hunter-gatherer has much to teach us about being true to ourselves, about being whole again, about individuality as a natural dynamic, rather than the industrialized concept of individuality in a commoditized world (to borrow from Marx).

Organized religion is regressive in the sense you are referring to, because it is based on the dualistic ethic of the Planter cultures. Western Religion is a duality of good and evil, friend and foe, male and female. Eastern religion is a duality of earth (female, karmic existence) and heaven (male and transcendence)--(-some people will not like me stating this, but...).

The hunter-gatherer and those early planter cultures that still exist with pre-institutional belief systems do not follow religion. The traditional Lakota (Sioux) who follow the Red Road do not follow a religion--except for those who are also Christian. They do not care if you are atheist or Buddhist, or devil worhsipper, or a Bible toting Christian. If you want to join in their rituals---fine as long as you show respect, if you don't want to---they don't care at all----they have nothing to convert you to. (If you imitate them, that is a different story----you are give the option to participate with them because they know the danger of their ways, or they will insist you stop before you hurt yourself or someone else). An example of what I am talking about is that in all of the Native American languages---well over a thousand when you add in dialects, there is not a single word for religion-----not even a concept.

This gets back to this concept of multiplicity. The pre-planter concept of individuality is also a multiplistic ethic. Before the white man came to the Americas, it was actually pretty heavily populated with people--so the argument that there were only a few people is wrong. I also don't want to perpetuate the Noble Savage (which is a form of prejudism in its own right), but generally speaking they were healthier, happier, and lead a more peaceful existence than did the Europeans. There were battles and skirmishes, there was VD, Central America was well on its way of developing institutions and religion, but they were still living a life better than the so-called civilized Europeans.

I too think we are approaching a new paradigm---No I am not talking about regressing to a tribal lifestyle. I sincerely hope the tools of our future include a quantum computer rather than a sharpened stick.

So how do we break free of the dualistic machinations of our ancestors? Part of that is happening around us----the rise of the feminine. On the surface it seems merely a drive to equality. But social change affects both the collective consciousness, and that of our own. An instrumental step in the process of losing part of our self, (alienation from the subconscious) and more importantly, the over-inflation of the ego-shadow complex was the rise of the masculine. As one Jungian psychologist put it, under the goddess life was seen as if under the moon---lots of shades of grey. But under the God, it was in the light of the sun with a stark contrast between the black and white. This is an example of part of the social evolution that I see helping carry us to the next level of human development. It needs scouts to prod it along, teach organize, whatever...

But if you still see essentialism, or anything that implies the spiritual, as regressive, then you still have the serious problem of resolving the Post-Modern crisis which is cultural in that we do not have unifying truth (global-culture-wide) to guide us forward, and personal in that modern individuals are faced with an existential crisis of alienation, value, and identity, whether they choose to bury it under the never-ending search for happiness, or not---a state of affairs that rationalistic objectivism has carried us to.

 

First, let me say I agree with you on a good many points. In the post where you mention the difficulty of deciding how to rear children the way I am suggesting: I am not against exposure, just indoctrination. If people who have religious, or spiritual, outlooks are so confident in them, then what's the problem with leaving the question open to their children? My mom is Christian, and sometimes takes my oldest daughter to church with her, if she stays over Saturday night. I don't get huffy about it; but when my daughter asks me if I believe in God, or if I believe what Ma-maw believes, I tell her no, and I ask her what she believes. She seems to like the idea of Jesus. That's cool. Let her grow up thinking about it, not being told it is a fact. Now, for disagreement:

There is no way that Nietzsche would have thought of the hippies as the Ubermensch. Sorry. Yes, there was a Dionysian aspect, but that's where the comparison ends. Nietzsche's Ubermensch wasn't happening in a hundred years. He was very emphatic that it should take a thousand or more. Seriously. He makes these points saliently. That's a minor contention on my part, and not of much importance to my over-all point. I'm not preaching Nietzsche like scripture here, just indicating him as probably the closest to my own point of view, and so I may tend to use him a lot more than others.

I don't see anything that implies the spiritual as regressive. I see the unwillingness to step out of what I earlier referred to as the "mystic cave" as regressive, and the "return to paradise" archetype is a malevolent egregor/meme of sorts in this respect, though it always wears a big smile, and today maybe some cute Mickey Mouse ears. We move towards the spiritual as much by using our hands and legs and mouths as by using our minds. Drug addiction is a very minor example of the consequences of this over-emphasis on returning to paradise, though it is the one most heavily and unnecessarily persecuted. New Age spiritualism is a bigger example. Organized religion is the most poignant. Fanatical political ideologies to me are almost identical to organized religion in this respect.

However, I should make the point that, like you, I am fine with what any individual seeks for themselves. One can find all sorts of interesting things in all sorts of strange places -- that's what scouting is! -- but somehow people need to learn that they should take from these places, and shouldn't let these places take from them, or, if you please, shouldn't let these places compromise their individual autonomy. This realization is, to me, the next big collective step, if that makes sense.

On most points aggressive contention is unnecessary, and I see an America where it is too often used to no effect. However, violation of the fundamental civil liberties needs to be aggressively contended, and so few people see that. People are still too busy arguing over their particular prejudices. Feminism has become a sexist movement, and there is some question as to whether or not non-white races will be the minority much longer. They're outbreeding us and breeding into us! Awesome!

And you know what: I'm all for mixing up the races. Let's all make brown children, or whatever kind anybody wants, as long as the breeding is consensual. No Problem. A close reading of Nietzsche will show that what the Nazis (particularly Nietzsche's sister) misinterpreted to be an advocation of eugenics in their ass-backwards, in-bred sense was actually an advocation of cross-breeding on Nietzshe's part. There is one very telling passage in Beyond Good and Evil where he talks about positive aspects of the Jewish culture and how the Germans could benefit from mixing bloodlines! Far from anti-semitic!

I may be over-reaching here, but it seems to me that what Nietzsche was advocating was the idea that to weed out all the crippling strains of slavish mock virtue (that smiling egregor with the recently donned Mickey Mouse ears) cultures need to breed between each other, be with each other, and discard what is useless and keep what is useful, or as he says, revaluate. In a way he was anticipating good genetics being a result of right variation, not eugenics.

And that brings me to my last point, about this "non-judgemental" thing. Sorry. Subjective individual autonomy forbids non-judgement (or non-attachment) in any but the delusional sense. Judgements have to be made. Maybe we're just wrangling with semantics here, but just like you worry that my philosophy might overstep the bounds into violence -- and I worry about people misinterpreting it that way! -- I worry that yours will underperform and keep us in a collective state of slavish stupidity wherein the "scouts" aren't even free to move in any wider area than their own prison cells.

I suppose where you and I might be in accord is on the point of not forcing other people to live according to one person or group of persons judgements, and to me that comes right back to the retaining of civil liberties -- the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, were they restored to their proper significance, might help with this -- and individual autonomy.

 

I only have time for a quick comment---let me say you are right on Nietzsche's Ubermensch, what I should have said (and what I have said in the past) is that they come the closest to Nietzsche's ubermensch. Perhaps a proto-type if you will. They certainly did not perform for mankind as a whole, the purpose he foresaw of his ubermensch----in the grand scheme we were a passing bump in the road, before most of us moved on to the next stage of our lives. But I do believe there was more than just the Dionysian dynamic. In many regards the hippies were a good model of Nietzsche's Will to Power. Certainly more true to the philosophy than the twisted version of National Socialism. We each obeyed our inward potential, strove towards individual authenticity, and through intense striving (true to ourselves) acted out our Will to Power. The movement was most certainly a reshaping and re-examining of values, which in Will to Power fashion were laid down and put into play. One of my favorite social commentaries of the hippy movement was written in the classic. Despite the peaceful non-combative nature of the hippy movement---it ruled the scene. The Counterculture (I forget the exact title): "...spontaneous individuality."

 

I thought to allude to your statements rather than address you directly but then I thought why contribute to the illusion that I have nothing relevant to say to you regarding our situation.

What makes you free from all manner of cultural indoctrination to the point that you can educate free from indoctrination?

Do you find insects palatable? If you don't it is likely not because of experience, it is because of the cultural practice of instilling taboo. In this way your powers of observation/distinction have been usurped to the point that it unlikely you would even experiment with eating insects. This is because neural pathways have been grown which transduce stimulus in the same way every time to produce a consistent model of the world you see and also importantly, the world you expect to see . The world you see is significantly influenced by the world you look for.

Because of the level of our educational methodology and the fact that any child is equal to any virtue we become inhibited in the way we apprehend phenomena.

There is a saying that unless you become as little children you cannot enter into heaven. Simply unless you have an open inviting mind you cannot apprehend nature as it is. Knowledge is material and flows freely into an open mind, that is why children to a certain age learn language so easily.

"I have the uncluttered mind of a tot."

We have conditioning we need overcome and the reason it is useful to do so is this, the quality of information in, is interdependent on the proper calibration of our measuring devices. We use microscopes and telescopes to extend the acuity of our vision.

We also find that to get a better view of the heavens we need position our light gathering device beyond the ambient light interference of civilization.
We send telescopes in obit around the earth above the influence of distorting atmospheres.

In the same way we can hone our light gathering device, (the eye is the lamp of the body), by the journey into the wilderness. Coming up against and going into our most elemental unadulterated states. The journey into the wilderness is not a withdrawal from life but from light pollution in order to refine our vital senses.

If the eye be sound the whole body will be full of light, no more ignorance. We are in the beginning and the end, our only measure device. To teach free of indoctrination requires and open mind.

But if the light in you be darkness, (if it is right to fight against or reject phenomenal nature because nature is not right), then how great the darkness. Induced perpetual ignorance.

What program/s have you undertaken to cleanse the windows of your perception?

 

Oooops----darn android---"Despite the peaceful non-combative nature of the hippy movement----it ruled the scene."----was supposed to go before the sentence with the quote------that was not part of the social commentary but a comment on the Hippie's Will to Power.

 

Your windows are not so much dirty as they are completely covered so that the outside world cannot be seen, and that is worse than having dirty windows.

 

What would you like me to see? A distorted view is not an accurate view. I once apprehended the world the way you do now.

The thing is cultural conditioning creates a set mind or mindset through which all new information is filtered and filed into a rough and ready standard to quote a certain aspiring thinker. The problem is the nature of condition.

Apart from our biological condition, all conditions we face are conditional on the way we parse things linguistically or symbolically. The word condition, at it's root means to speak with. These conditions are purely abstract but we insist on them as though they were values inherent in phenomena.

The difference between the way I apprehend things at this point, having gone through extensive intensive mind training regimens, and you is, that I don't imagine a world that should be in place of the one that is. I have before and after empirical results to compare these perspective to.

The premise of this thread is that new paradigms cannot appear If you don't not venture beyond what you are certain of. I found myself questioning everything I had ever beheld in life and I was never really convinced that I should do this until I had totally run out of survival techniques and had hit rock bottom. I had nothing to loose but loved my life all the same and thought there must be a better way.

If you had an opportunity to diminish the effects and occurrence of criminality in the world, in your lifetime, would you apply effort toward that aim?

We first dream of peace and then awaken to it.

 

I see the line the violation of our civil liberties must be contended.

I see the fact that the violation is not possible if they don't have something you want. That is you want goods and services and to get those you indenture yourself to manufacturing for the consumer market.

Liberty, mastery of the conditions of life, is the ability to pick what you conceive as your vital interests up, or lay them down, at will.

I make a conscious choice of home, not relying on the norms of traditional culture, I choose all phenomenal nature barring none. If you bulldoze my current dwelling, I will be no less at home.

Teach your children well. The discontent of youth is not the native environ of the youthful spirit but rather it is symptomatic of a kind of indigestion brought on by a diet of sour grapes as they see the many lives led in quiet desperation in contravention of promise.

 

I see you're still posting to me, but I am not reading your replies. Your attempt to force me into a corner has failed. Your attempt to take me to account has failed; and take this from someone who knows: their is no greater proof that someone is a dissociative neurotic than when they are asked by someone else to be left alone and they refuse to do so. It bears your insecurity wide open for everyone to see, because if you were really so easy-going, so in-fucking-tune, a shrug and a good day would suffice. So:

*shrug* Good Day.

 

If anyone feels there is even a correllation here between what dope is doing and the original point of my thread, let me make a distinction: when I talk about scouting, and aggressive contention and indignation, I am most certainly not indicating the kind of histrionics on display here, especially under the guise of mysticism pretending not to be mysticism. I don't chase people down and hound them. I speak my peace. Those who are open to discussion both learn and teach. I have learned a lot on these forums over the years, and the most important lesson I've learned is to accept when people are done talking to me, or, to put it another way, that I will not learn much by talking to myself.

 

No need to explain osiris. Dope is in her own little high haven.

 

I grasp your point, now. I'm currently reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra for the fourth time, and I thought it sort of synchronistic that the chapter I was on today was "On The Tarantulas". I won't quote it, but give you the interpretation I wrote in my notebook after meditating on it:

"On the one hand we see Nietzsche denouncing the preachers of equality; on the other we see him supporting the rights of humanity to battle out its inequality equally. "Level the playing field," this says to me.

The preachers of equality are not those who start the movements for equal rights -- they are the ones that latch onto those movements with a soul-sickness to avenge the wrong personally committed upon them. I see this as a concern for myself, and I guard against it. I haven't any need for vindication, though, so much as a need for freedom to roam, and the heartfelt desire to ensure this freedom for others. Tarantulas are a part of the landscape. It can't be helped."

Also, I always felt that this chapter (in Book Two) was a sort of anticipation of the Nazis, whose real deepest motivation always seemed to me to be to avenge themselves on the world for the failures of the German Empire to materialize through WWI. Maybe that's a reach. Certainly not the whole story, but it seems a part of it.

Hope these comments won't be too far out of context for you. You can probably find this chapter on the net in a search engine, if you're interested in pursuing it that far.

 

thedope is a he. I continue to address these views not particularly for the edification of osiris, but for those others who are involved in the conversation.

I come on strong with osiris in this thread only, for the purpose of inducing strong and predictable reaction to serve as living example of the principles I speak about.

Osiris suggests I misrepresent myself and in so condemning what I say feels justified in ignoring it. Since he ignores me I feel to use him as example, is benign being unlikely I would hurt his feelings.

 

He, she, same difference. The mind knows no gender.

 

I like that. The penis however is not a very delicately discerning instrument.
You have heard the saying, led by his dick.

 

Minds cannot attack other minds but we can share our thoughts.*


*posted for posterity

 

Come on now! Your jumping ahead of me---now everything I just wrote will be redundant and mundane! LOL ;-)

Well---I will still post it for its other points and to share with others. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a fascinating book. and filled with some very insightful symbolism---was that a decrepit little man that rode on his back later in the book, as I recall?---such great symbolism of the Shadow.

What you said is probably better than what I spent the whole evening working on----many interruptions to take care of my wife suffering from the flu, running to the store, etc. But I tried to get the same point accross. I think I have atleast 3 copies of that book---1 I bought, and 2 that were part of collections of Nietzsche, that I bought for the other material.

You are probably right on the tarantulas--he was watching the collapse of the Bourgeoisie Empire of Europe begin around him, focussed mainly on the German side of it. My own theory (building on Nietzsche) is that the Apollonian forces especially take control when a culture begins to sense its finite nature, and the vibrancy of its younger growth (the Dionysian) is losing steam. Consider the extreme rationalism in the latter days of Ancient Greece, and Rome. Hitler's Germany in many ways modelled this Roman rationalism, and symbols of strength. I think World War II was Germany's last hurrah attempt to grab for and recreate that empire through an Apollonian attempt. I watched this go on in the last company I worked for---a very good, very customer- and employee-focused brokerage firm, but they have past their zenith if they stay on their current path. I think this dynamic appeared in the 1950's in America, and has reappeared today.

Anyway---I will now post the other stuff I wrote.

 

As an archetype, the return-to-paradise archetype is simply an unconscious drive that plays out in various ways through man's actions, myths, and so forth. In the club scene I described, I would say that the people were drawn to the experience for reasons they did not even understand. I'm sure that if you asked most of them about getting back to the garden, you would have gotten blank stares. But I think subconsciously they were feeding what could be described as an instinctual impulse. Perhaps where you are having a problem is the fact that it is so exploitable----unfortunately exploitable especially by New Age crap. I certainly agree with you on new age spirituality, organized religion, fanatical political ideologies---with the exception that if the religious things have a meaning to a person--that's their trip. I just urge them to dig deeper, where hopefully they will break through the dogma and dualistic crap.

The New Age is a symptom of, and the result of the Post Modern Crisis. It is a search for meaning in a meaningless world. But unfortunately a meaningless world is by definition a nihilistic world. Since the time I was a young teenager, I knew I could easily create some New Age idea, or cult, or whatever--if I had no scruples, and did not care about people. I would have gotten very rich, had a lot of sex, sold a lot of books---maybe even have them drink the Grape Koolaid (only I sneak out the back door). It is sad how much exploitation and scandal is out there.

But there is also a genuine search for meaning, and this is part of what I was referring to at the end of my post about having to resolve the Post-Modern Crisis---this is the same problem that gave birth to existentialist philosophy, only it is more widespread, and felt today. But as I also pointed out in an earlier post, we make this search for meaning as people of the Modern Age with a newly framed global perspective on life. So New Age spirituality is a hodge-podge of shallow ritual, stripped of cultural context, often jumbled together with other similarly bastardized rituals. Then it is forced into a post-Enlightenment rationalized framework, and packaged as religion to be sold to the masses, who are all fully programmed in the group ethic of modern civilization (a legacy of the planter culture), and only see reality from a dualistic viewpoint. Spirituality and religion are both a cultural as well as spiritual phenomena, and I think that quite a bit gets lost when the cultural contexts are stripped away. On the other hand, religion is an institution, and it therefore has the goal of growth and power. It achieves this through manipulation. The rise of the institution and the beginning of a true group ethic occurred together in the planter cultures. Therefore it is a bit unnatural for modern man to see spirituality as separate from religion. Government, another institution developed at the same time—therefore it can have the same qualities of manipulation and control that you recognize.

I think the unwillingness to step out of the cave is a personal decision and depends on what trip your life is on. Thedope, may fit this quality, and he understands that one can make a happy beautiful life for oneself, because, after all, you create your own reality, and you can create a reality immersed in good vibes as we used to say. In fact that is one true to the spirit hippy path—we wanted to change the world, but we knew that all politics was filled with manipulation and crap and were generally very apolitical---the SDS, the weathermen and even the yippies did not agree with the apolitical sense. And many many hippies, apolitical as they were, stood up against injustice. But creating a beautiful reality was also an honorable path, and served as an example to others.

But I would also say that to assume the hunter-gatherer spirituality pulls you into that cave is to misunderstand the reality of it. The hunter-gatherer needed help from the spirits because his lifestyle could quickly play on his own weaknesses. He didn’t have any desire to sit in a cave and meditate and create good vibes. He actually preferred to spend most of his time at leisure with his family, but when he hunted he needed food to be readily available. When he got sick or disaster struck, he needed help then. In fact, I argue that meditation and the rosary and all such religious practices probably originated as a way of trying to regain those ancient rituals of ecstatic experience, but they are not the same. I practiced meditation and did yoga when I was younger, and I have experienced different forms of the hunter-gatherer ecstatic experience. My materialist explanation was that the ancient hunter-gatherer traditions enabled one to quickly consciously step into one’s subconscious and consciously explore its contents. In a Jungian sense, to consciously step through the filter of the ego. Meditation, on the other hand, over time, enables the filter to open up where one can peer deeply into the subconscious, but it is in a largely subconscious state itself, and therefore unable to explore with as much conscious manipulation of the contents. Success at meditation can take years of training and focus, the hunter-gatherer ecstatic experience is quick and easy to achieve----but of course that is a materialist explanation and ignores the spirit aspect. I also unfairly downplay the value of meditation—but this is where that cave can come back in.

To carry on with an example of what I am talking about—the Lakota go into a sweat lodge, yuwipi, house ceremony, or sundance, with their problems, the problems of another, the issues of the world, or whatever. They gain guidance, help, understanding, healing, encouragement, or a sense of peace, and come back out ready to face the world again. They know that everything has a cost. If a lodge community heals them, or their prayers are answered, they have already made a commitment to spirit of how they will pay back the community or the altar---maybe feeding the people, or a giveaway, or even some simple thing. For the more traditional medicine men, if you go up on the hill (vision quest) or dance at a sun dance, you are generally making a 4-year commitment—to do that for four years. It is not a commitment to the medicine man, but to spirit. If you carry a sacred pipe, there is a commitment to the people and to the pipe—to respect and honor the pipe, and to always be available if someone comes to you seeking prayers of tobacco. It is considered difficult to follow the Red Road, (Native American spirituality), but I don’t really see any of this as compromising one’s individual autonomy. There is nothing cult-like about it. (of course, for those who are chosen by spirit to be medicine people---that is a different story---but they are special people to begin with—Scouts in their own right---they have a special empathy towards others, and people are naturally drawn to them to seek help. They often have psychotic episodes (according to Modern medicine) but they are healed through these experiences and come out more healthy than ever, but still able to have visions and so forth. But they give everything of themselves in the service of others, with very little in return---except the knowledge that they will always be taken care of (but not by being supported by the people as a Christian preacher may be). Does that make sense at all, or do you think it is still a compromise of autonomy? (PS I don’t see a future where all people go to sweat lodges and do vision quests…)

By the way, you may very well be right about Nietzsche and the topic of inbreeding. His view of Eugenics would have been clear--it is a very definite Apollonian attempt at controlling nature’s natural path and power.