The "system" is set up to save us from ourselves

If you just search up the phrase, "thin veneer of civilization" coined by edgar rice burroughs(author of tarzan), it just makes you wonder that this whole system in which we are under, which includes religion, pacifying drugs and fluoridated water, hypnotic signals from tv and radio, phones etc etc....is all of that set up to subdue the barbarian inside all of us?

if you think about it, we ALL are capable of really ugly stuff when it comes to survival, case and point scenarios like Lenningrad, New Orleans after Katrina and most recently Haiti with its mobs of people with machetes, pillaging and raping through the streets.

In the end, it comes down all of us spiritually and introspectively understanding ourselves independently, not with the help of so called specialists or anyone else, we would have to have a whole revolution inside our mind, not a physical revolution but something which deals with Us

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by the dacoit
If you just search up the phrase, "thin veneer of civilization" coined by edgar rice burroughs(author of tarzan), it just makes you wonder that this whole system in which we are under, which includes religion, pacifying drugs and fluoridated water, hypnotic signals from tv and radio, phones etc etc....is all of that set up to subdue the barbarian inside all of us?

maybe. i notice throughout history lessons that mankind is accredited with domesticating the wolf, social engineering it through thousands of years, genetically altering it's evolution into the domesticated tamed dog.
then, history teaches us, that man used the dog as a sheep dog to fend off the wolves and guard the sheep.

mankind "domesticated" and "tamed" the wolf, and man made dog.

man turned wolf against wolf.

but who "domesticated" and "tamed" mankind?

who turned man against man?

if you think about it, we ALL are capable of really ugly stuff when it comes to survival..

not all of us, no we are all not capable of such things. inherited fears and neuro linguistical programming can manipulate our perceptions, our actions, and our behaviors. our opinions may be more maleable due to fear, i think. sure people say they aren't afraid, but they do not always know what fearlessnessing truly is, impo.

In the end, it comes down all of us spiritually and introspectively understanding ourselves independently, not with the help of so called specialists or anyone else, we would have to have a whole revolution inside our mind, not a physical revolution but something which deals with Us

Any thoughts?

your life is your autobiography. i can only help proof read it, but ultimately you and you alone are the editor.

hope this helps,
et

[edit on 1-9-2010 by Esoteric Teacher]

Something in me does not want to believe we started off a violent people. I know there was a time of peace once before. I have no doubt in my mind, that something unnatural was happening, that somehow intercepted our way of thinking.


[edit on 1-9-2010 by leira7]

I would argue that the systems of control themselves, being unnatural, actually cause the incidents of violence and savagery we often see in the modern world. As well as less dramatic examples of everyday inhumanity. We are not bees, yet we live and work in hives. We are socialized primarily away from our families, which themselves are, of necessity, nothing at all like the large extended family-tribes we are hard-wired through hundreds of thousands of years to flourish in. Most of all, we're forced to wage-slave for our basic survival, not as groups, but as individuals. Practically everything about modern life is unnatural and relatively very new in terms of our time on the planet. And it's becoming more and more complex, difficult and unrewarding. Any wonder that we're not in touch with our basic goodness, the central fact of our essential humanity?

reply to post by joechip


I think Neil Kramer sums it up very well in this radio interview, a very intelligent introspective man. here is the link:

Neil Kramer - Owning the Dystopian Daydream, Brazil & Artificial Constructs


The world around us is definitely set up in a particular way for a reason, of course we, as a society created it like this. The way in which we behave on an individual level and on a society scale, city/country or global scale all has some common themes. Within these themes, the ones which are in the mind, the psyche and the unconscious are all shown in our surrounding environment, generally they are the way they are because of 'how' and 'where' we were brought up, and of course because of 'who' are our parents. I know this is basic psychology but if you look at the parts of the psyche that we cannot directly analyse, I believe these are shown in nature in poeple, places, societies, governments, countries, and so on. Nature is clever, why not display 'externally' what you can't physically see inside of yourself in order to help you figure out why you are in distress, why you are upset, what parts of yourself you don't like and so on. And of course there are all the positives sides as well.

If we look at the collective consciousness, it feels like we have set up this system because we are not prepared to take ownership of what we really create, and that, in itself is the part of reality that we create. Of course there are other factors but I think with enough analysis, we can find almost everything wrong with the world is a byproduct of our own mind and behaviour, especially the parts which we do not like; until we learn to take ownership, change may be difficult.

I am sure this theme is highly metaphoric in ancient religions, and ancient texts. With the right set of 'eyes' on can begin to see a common theme of how we create the systems, in order to teach us what we don't understand about ourselves and create wisdom in order for us to evolve.

Also the other interesting thing that is talked about in the radio show is that the way we are living today, focusing on materialism, the way we live in crowded cities, out of touch with nature, breeds less spirituality, and more negativity - much more information on this in the above link.

[edit on 1-9-2010 by Reflections]

reply to post by Reflections


Thanks for the link. I listened to the first hour (the second cost money and that ain't gonna happen) and found it enjoyable, if somewhat glib and simplistic. The folks who maintain the notion that we create our own realities generally understate the interactive, feedback-loop nature of the inner and outer worlds, and as they are generally making a living off the promulgation of such notions, tend to wildly underestimate the difficulty of such "creation."

The concept is nothing new to me. Nor do I consider it entirely incorrect or misguided. However, literal decades of attempting both to create a better world for myself, as well as create a better person of myself, have left me with the undeniable conviction that the latter is a more achievable goal than the former. One does not necessarily follow the other. Perhaps the "weight of the world", so to speak, the billions of consciousnesses that accept the current state of things as "normal", have reached a tipping point of sorts. Or maybe I'm just tired and old and somewhat defeated. Or maybe some little aspect has escaped my notice, and I'm centimeters from a major epiphany. Which possibility is why I still bother to listen to such notions after a lifetime of spiritual failure and disappointment.

A system is by nature imperfect, with time all systems decay and become unbearable because they no longer serve the purpose of humanity at which time another system is created, likewise imperfect but better. It's just a way to organize the world and make order out of chaos. Chaos is the nightmare of the paranoid psyche of society and this is why people compromise with their humanity and accept all the injustices that are inherent in systems.

For the most part though, they are essential to getting on in life.

From my point of view the system as we know it is not to protect us from ourselves but to makes us more compliant to TPTB

I'd just say from my own experience and intuition that the average person is a destructive animal that functions better with limited freedom. No more testament to this is needed then to witness the giant automobiles and wasteful lawns of suburbia.

There is a small minority of the population that cares less for being destructively rich and more for engaging with the world creatively, whether through business, music, science, spirituality etc.

The destructive majority of the population needs a lot of limitations on their freedom as their main desires centre around sucking the material world dry and causing social havoc to feed their ego.

I'd say that the "system" in the West went horribly wrong when freedom and liberty, which were ideas being promoted in creative intellectual circles, was eventually extended to joe six-pack, who had no positive use for such conditions.

Originally posted by Merle8
I'd just say from my own experience and intuition that the average person is a destructive animal that functions better with limited freedom. No more testament to this is needed then to witness the giant automobiles and wasteful lawns of suburbia.

There is a small minority of the population that cares less for being destructively rich and more for engaging with the world creatively, whether through business, music, science, spirituality etc.

The destructive majority of the population needs a lot of limitations on their freedom as their main desires centre around sucking the material world dry and causing social havoc to feed their ego.

I'd say that the "system" in the West went horribly wrong when freedom and liberty, which were ideas being promoted in creative intellectual circles, was eventually extended to joe six-pack, who had no positive use for such conditions.

You believe the ownership of large automobiles and lawns is actually a testament to the need for limiting freedoms? By people with even larger automobiles and lawns? C'mon now, joe six-pack is hardly the inhuman beast you paint him as, and the intellectual elite who "engage the world creatively" through "business", are the ones that created the giant automobile, marketed it to joe through their "creative" marketing and stifled rival (and less "destructive") technologies with their great wealth and market leverage.

And freedom and liberty aren't merely ideas promoted by intellectuals as you assert, but the natural state of mankind for the overwhelming majority of our time on the planet. The Enlightenment intellectuals merely recognized this "natural state," they didn't invent it.

[edit on 2-9-2010 by joechip]

There was one Hitler. There were millions of Hanz Beirensteins. There is one Bill Ford, CEO of Ford, there are millions of wannabe rednecks driving his gas guzzling trucks.

Point being, if freedom for the average man is really such a good thing, then the average man should never be able to blame his own poor choices on those of a very small group of "elite" people who are merely exercising their own freedom.

reply to post by Merle8


Exactly. I don't think "they" blame the elite for their bad choices or even recognize them as bad choices. I was merely trying to point out that the 'bottom up' explanation for the wretched state of things is missing a major point. There was only one Hitler. Take him out of the equation and do we have a Nazi Germany at all?
And the concentration of power, wealth, and influence has narrowed even more since the middle of the last century. Fewer and fewer individuals with more and more impact on everyone else and the world at large means the "freedom" of the elites has a direct effect on the behavior, lifestyle, and choices available to joe six-pack.
My main problem with your post is your notion that the intellectual elite are somehow worthy of freedom, whereas the common man is painted with a broad brush as the problem, whose freedoms are of necessity, curtailed. I would have a similar problem with any division of rights and freedoms based upon intelligence, wealth, or creativity.
Clearly, there is blame aplenty to go around. While the average man certainly has responsibility for his choices, the elite who have the power limit those choices and influence those choices could be argued to to have a more direct and primary blame. If I recruit an army and lead it, are the soldiers more responsible for the horrors of war, or am I?

[edit on 3-9-2010 by joechip]

We are also capable of equally amazing and beautiful things as well. Given that it is human nature to prefer pleasant experiences over painful ones, wouldn't it follow that if humans were effectively allowed to freely explore and get to know themselves, rather than constantly living in a state of "protection from themselves", things would be much better then worse. The world would look a lot nicer than it currently does.