The straight-jackets of humanity are socially conditioned and absolutized institutions.

[wcepler]

Institutions as in what? For openers, the institutions of religion, a traditional western marriage, and the Have and Have Not horror (which in essence is a profoundly conditioned social structure).

To take the second one first, I suspect there is nothing humans represses more than that "marriage" (especially monogamous marriage) is merely a relative social institution. It's not in any sense biologically hard wired into our species and in spite of all the legal and religious jazz, it is a completely arbitrary social construction.

But for many (most?) of us, it is the God of our lives. But why should that be? Why should this concantation of "rules" kill our individuality?

Hey, we're the dogs, not the tails, but we certainly don't live like that. When you pass through a marriage abracadabra ritual, you have surrendered the "center of gravity" of your life to what is a social "game", but a game backed up (rather like gold backs up paper money) by OTHER institutions, such as religion and a bunch of dreamed up "laws".

Probably nothing in life is a better example of the infinite stupidity of being a jail cell (often for the rest of your life) with one wall wide open. Yes, there are "consequences" when you get a divorce, but the MAIN thing that keeps probably most of us playing the game is we don't think it IS a game -- even though it's hard to say just how we do think of it.

Obviously, for some of us it's a commandment straight from God (whatever that means). For others, perhaps less religious, it has massive cultural "weight" that chains us to a defined way of life.

In either case, however, these are both simply forms of profoundly successful social conditioning.

It's easy to write off such of critique of marriage as sour grapes or "atheist thinking", but such responses beg the question since they are merely variations of not wanting to face the truth of things. And the truth of things is that institutional marriage is a "passing fancy" of evolution and will almost certainly be selected out in the relatively near future.

Children are not being overlooked in this examination, since it is a common experience for all of us that the toxic infrastructure of most marriages (yes, most!), are horribly destructive to vulnerable children. Love and compatibility is what should hold adults together, not fear of social punishment. However idealistic it may sound to say such things, the only relationship that makes ANY sense is one in which both parties are like birds flying together only for as long as they both want to, i.e., no “institutional chains”.

However, this critique of marriage is secondary to the larger point that we humans are dragging around mountains of anachronistic and criminally stupid conditioning. In short, we "believe" (note a root meaning of "belief" is "lief" -- which is wishful thinking) what we believe mostly because we have been massively socially/culturally programmed to have these beliefs.

As opposed to what? How tragic that we have to even ask that question. As opposed to BELONGING TO OURSELVES, that's what.

Indeed it's entirely possible that the human race is approaching a momentous cusp where if we don't demote our past conditioning from "The Authority" to a vast bank of pragmatic "memes", we are in grave danger of being "conditioned to death".

Religion comes to mind. Do we really NEED religion for ANYTHING? How much longer are we going to allow this institution to keep chaining us to a stake that was set in the earth usually several thousand years ago?

Again, we see an institution (frequently mostly made up of men in dresses) which, in effect, replaces our "sense of self". Nothing reveals the absurdity of institutional religion more than to think we have to ask the institution "who we are". Think about that. It's like having to ask your neighbors who you are -- surely the ULTIMATE act of submission.

The big concept in all this is the straight jacket of social conditioning (or programming or brainwashing or your concept of choice), and that any institutional dog which wags us like a tail is grounded in social conditioning.

Please keep in mind the Have and Have Not horror is ALSO variation of social conditioning. After all, only one or two percent of the human race has nearly ALL of the power and money, so why do we keep bending over for them?

It's naive to think we do it because of "social consequences" if we disobey. Certainly that is a factor, but probably 95% of the reason we keep abjectly kissing the feet of the Haves (aka, the elites, aka, The Beast) is because it never even seriously occurs to us that we can do otherwise.

And why not? You got it: social conditioning. We don't revolt and destroy the Beast to fundamentally equalize the wealth of what is after all the planet of ALL OF US, not so much because of economics, violence, or reprisals, but because we have been systematically brainwashed not to do this.

However, this needs clarification. It’s not so much that we have been conditioned to not destroy The Beast, but (and infinitely more importantly), we have been conditioned to not even THINK ABOUT doing this!

What proof? Easy. Ask yourself (and please be honest!) if you think there's ANY POSSIBILITY WHATSOEVER that we (i.e., 98% of the human race) can turn the Earth into something like the glorious Constitutional Republic envisioned by our genius forefathers.

Marx got lots of things wrong and the Russian Revolution almost immediately turned in to just a new (and even more horrible) form of totalitarianism, but his notion of "each according to his abilities and needs" was one of the most profound social utterances in human history.

OK, now let's get this straight. One or two percent of humanity has basically all the wealth and power and live like Greek Gods. Indeed, the Paris Hilton's and Rupert Murdoch's quite literally live like Kings and Queens; even they take pains not to use such words. No, the Beast of religious fanatics, vampire elites, and fascist right rings much prefers the secrecy of a Heart of Darkness. Out of sight, out of mind -- something like that.

But please remember these maggots in The Beast are few in number, whereas all the rest of us (i.e., brainwashed human cattle) make up basically the entire human race.

So why do we allow this total insanity and infinite immorality to continue? Why don't we "stand up and be counted" and DESTROY THE BEAST. In spite of all their fire walls, fail safes, and semi control of the engines of power, it would actually be easy. We could do it in two or three weeks. We could literally change the Have and Have Not horror in two or three weeks. Hey, there's BILLIONS of us and probably only a few thousand Kings and Queens.

And yet, all we do is suck our thumbs and watch television. And oh yes, we play the political game, but the political game was invented by and for the elites. Look at Obama. Perhaps he has good intentions, but the jury is still out and probably the best we can hope for at the end of the next four years is a decorated cage.

However, more importantly, even if Obama tries his best, the changes will be superficial because the core dynamics of The Beast are utterly and forever beyond the reach of “politics”.

So, lots of conditionings: marriage, religion, and the eternal Have and Have Not horror. Which brings us back to why are we living like this? Why are we tails wagged by institutions?

Clearly, the answer is the straight jacket of social conditioning. We suck our thumbs, we don’t revolt, we beg for crumbs, because it NEVER seriously enters our minds that we can to otherwise.

Hence, the cusp. If our species doesn't start being self directed INDIVIDUALS, instead of programmed cattle (locked in marriages, religions, and abject submission to The Beast), our species is doomed.

The bad news is that such transcendental liberation must happen in the millions otherwise The Beast will continue to drive the human species to extinction.

The good news is that such liberation can (and must) happen one life form at a time.

And why is this good news? It's good news because from the point of view of each of us, such transcendence of conditioning (i.e., Liberation!) IS POSSIBLE. It's been happening for millennia and it is happening as we speak. The only problem is that it needs to be happening in the millions, not in the hundreds or thousands.

In short, the buck 100% stops with each of us. Indeed, that's what it means to transcend conditioning. It means YOU FIRST BELONG TO YOURSELF (not to a marriage, religion, or Have Not identity), and only a species with millions of such evolved and liberated individuals can and will destroy The Beast.
*******************************************************************************

W. Christopher Epler

<http://theliberationofrealism.blogspot.com/>

[Deja Q]

1. Wasn't that posted a couple weeks ago?

Or is it deja vu by Deja Q?

[Tansy_Gold]

2. straitjacket . . . . . . concatenation. . . . . .

Sorry. It's a thing I have. Nothing impresses me less than misspelled $9 words.


Tansy Gold

[wcepler]

3. typo snoops

Tansy,

And nothing impresses me less than people who read for typically inevitable typos in a fairly long piece and not content. I found five, but this one I missed. And please save any belated critique as it's now meaningless since you've made your priorities quite clear.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. I'm not a typo snoop. The misspelled "straight jacket" was in the title

Anyone with aspirations of being a writer -- even if only an editorial contributor to a message board -- and being read for content ought to understand that when the words get in the way, the content becomes invisible.

Maybe I'm "old school" or something, and maybe "these days" spelling and ussge and grammar and syntax don't matter online, but that's just the way I am. I still think there's a place, a very valid place, for clear comprehensible writing.

"Concatenation" isn't a word most of us use every day. In fact, some of your (potential) readers might have to look it up to find out what it means. I don't have a problem with that. I happen to love words, love learning new ones, love creating my own on occasion. But you don't accomplish anything if you use an unfamiliar word and misspell it so badly that the reader can't find it in a dictionary to discover its meaning.

If you can't take the gentle criticism of having your spelling errors pointed out to you, you're not likely to take the much more brutal criticism of having your content reviewed (or your work rejected, which never/rarely happens online). A good writer, a serious writer, would have offered an embarrassed "thank you" to whoever pointed out the error.

And while the editors of the WSJ may not have enough smarts to catch "lightening" when the writer should have written "lightning," most writers who have two spelling errors/typos in the first few lines never get past the first reader and the form rejection letter. Been there, done that, and have the publishing credits to prove it.


For the lurkers,



Tansy Gold

[wcepler]

6. oh well

How silly. There's a variety of spellings for straightjackets, and that was another one (as you will find in any spell check or dictionary). Sometimes two separate words, sometimes one word, and sometimes a hyphen. What nonsense to obsess about such things. And your rationalized criticism wasn't "gentle"! It was patronizing, negative, and discounting, but I imagine you've been told that before. What a waste of these town hall sites to spin off into pap.

[wcepler]

8. good wishes

Tansy,

Look, this is foolish. I really don't like to stray from the content of a piece to "personal" matters.

First, because I want to stay on point, and second because I don't like counterproductive unpleasantness. We both submit to this site (or at least I assume you do from time to time) and that means we have much more in common than otherwise and we should save our energy for the pugs, etc.

I really don't know your motives in your concatenation response, but I'm willing to give that the benefit of the doubt and not be defensive about it. I actually sensed when I wrote it I was leaving out a syllable or something, but I forgot to get back to it and fix it.

My problem is that I have too many balls in the air. I'm a Phd mathematician and teach at two different universities (one full time and one part time) and lets just say multiple other matters (e.g., children in prep schools, etc., etc.).

I am also dealing with major health issues which are draining and time consuming. In short, I do these pieces very much "on the run" when I have tiny windows of time and, hence, can't edit as much as I would like.

Anyway, I really don't have the time and energy (and probably neither do you) to waste on quasi "arguments" with people with whom I probably have vastly more in common than otherwise.

So, I stand corrected on concatenation (a word I like as much for the sound and look as the meaning)and I wish you Godspeed.

Bill

[L. Coyote]

5. The straight-jackets of humanity are our own minds and beliefs

[wcepler]

7. yes, that's just the point

Coyote,

Precisely. That's exactly the moral of my piece. Indeed, that's the tragedy because the illusion is that we are in bondage to the elites, etc., because of their power, which of course is at least partially true. But the far deeper bondage is in our massively conditioned minds.

The proof of this is that very, very few people ever think there's any possibility whatever of liberating civilization from the fascist elites, even though it would actually be very easy if we had the will and confidence to do it. The conditioning is less that the majority of the human race can't free itself from The Beast, but that the majority of the human race doesn't even THINK they can do this.

As you say, the bondage is in our minds and that can change only one life form at a time.

Solidarity, Bill

ps I'm far from being a Marxist, but he had great insight about this. He said the subjective revolution had to come before the objective revolution. I'm not pushing the "revolution" word, but the sequence of radical change is the same. First liberation from the mind conditioning, and then whatever.

[bemildred]

9. "mind-forged manacles"

London
William Blake

---

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/London.htm

[wcepler]

10. awesome Blake

Perfection. Blake said it better! And this is our REAL prison -- except it's transcendable. Thanks.

Bill