The New Reality of Capitalism

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

We, as humans, are a social beast. We depend upon each other to maximize our survival. Because of this, when it comes to anyone of our individual best interest, if we are to have a chief concern for that best interest, then regard for others is a damn good idea. Selfish is better defined as simply a chief concern for ones interest without any qualifiers. Tragically, this is not how it is defined, and so the word has become a pejorative to castigate people who do show a chief concern for their own interest which, let's face it, is pro-survival. If we are not going to hold a chief concern for our own interest, who the hell will? The selfless?

I take it you're not a fan of metaphysics.

I don't see the point in believing as you do. Of course, I could attempt to explain why you you probably think what you do, but I still can't fathom the rationality in doing that.

Your standard in gauging the value in something is entirely unspiritual; it assesses life at the most base and material level - at how things appear, divorced from their metaphysical causation (since this is not even postulated, it doesn't enter your judgement). Instead of considering the possibility of appearance being contingent on something more substantial and cosmic, you hold life's mysteries - or lack there of - in perpetual abeyance; the aspect of 'awe' which precedes all cognition of the world, becomes swallowed up by doubt, and doubt takes hold and dictates all your judgements.

To not ponder and be amazed at life's remarkable mysteries - to not realize the metaphysical content of the world we experience - is a sad thing to me, because there is so much to behold and be riveted by.

Just today, for example, I was talking to my brother about how incredible it is that there appears to be a correspondence between physical things and their archetypal qualities; for instance, a short marijuana plant - indica - produces a body high, while a tall marijuana plant - a sativa - produces a more cerebral high. I was struck by the symbolic correlation between short and body and tall and cerebral. It's as if the physical body of the plant (or anything) is a symbol for it's spiritual content; the body of the plant takes on physical proportions in direct relation to it's archetypal quality, translating quality into quantity, ideas into things.

To see this and not be affected by it's mystery, to not at least wonder whether some superlative intelligence designed things to be this way, for the apparently amoral world of nature to convey deeply spiritual meaning to the minds of self conscious mortals such as ourselves, it all to me begs the question.

I can't help but look at the world metaphysically. If it is "illogical" I counter that accusation with an equally "logical" claim that it is virtually impossible to be logical. We are always tempered by our emotions; and so, some people think some way while other people think another way; this could imply an inherent subjectivity to all judgements, and therefore, truth, or, it can simply imply the presence of a state of 'falsity', where the possibility of evil and falsehood becomes activated once one loses his moral perspective; when the conscience is drowned by desires and egotism. Some people eventually, upon suffering (usually) or some other impetus, to discover the beauty of righteous living - to combat the laxity and inertia of not acting justly with ones fellow human beings, and with nature as a divine creation.

I also admit the selfishness of most human behavior. But even beyond, or in spite of, the presence of ego, there is some faint glow beckoning man towards his absolute source of being, which precedes all development, singular, and simple; call it a universal self which binds all individual selves together, or the presence of God drawing all things into harmony with one another. Some languages allude to this cosmic insight: in Hebrew, the numerical value of love - ahavah, and one - echad, is 13. Love is a feeling of oneness; oneness and love are two different modes of the same thing; one is as if the amoral principle, and love it's manifestation primarily in human feeling, and also throughout nature.

I'm not denying either the presence of evil. Evil, is a possibility who's sole purpose is to motivate good.

Hence, I oppose any social system that deprives man of the ability to perform acts of kindness; in a communist model, everyone and everything becomes so leveled and restricted that an ennui and boredom kicks in that inevitably precipitates the development of some deviant behavior.

reply to post by dontreally

I don't see the point in believing as you do. Of course, I could attempt to explain why you you probably think what you do, but I still can't fathom the rationality in doing that.

Your standard in gauging the value in something is entirely unspiritual; it assesses life at the most base and material level...

You make a bold claim only to turn around and prove your arrogance. Spirituality is not a weapon. It is not to be used to badger other spiritual beings into acceptance of some imposed reality. To do so is to be guilty of the same baseness you smugly accuse me of.

Were you half as spiritual as you've deluded yourself into believing you are you would not have presumed a thing about me and simply addressed the argument. Instead you attacked the messenger and claimed spirituality to do so. Not a big fan of metaphysics? I'm not a big fan of mystics. Poseurs who preen and prance and inexplicably believe their mystical incantations will render the listener or reader helpless.

I declare that having regard for others is in each individual's chief interest and you declare this base, and in doing so you reveal your own insidious agenda. It is not that I've declared regard for others as an important part of selfishness, it is that I've dismissed selflessness as sacrifice that riles. While we should be in agreement, instead you've chosen to attack my spirituality, and this has to be because you want to sell selflessness as a noble ideal.

To presume that those who reject selflessness don't ponder the amazement of life's mysteries is narrow minded ignorance that can only come from the self, certainly not "selflessness". I declare regard for others as an important part of selfishness, and because I've included it in selfishness as opposed to embracing your insidious message of "selflessness" you declare my understanding as a system that deprives humanity of kindness, but I assure you there has been nothing kind at all in your post, merely smug patting of your own back for your perception of your own spiritual superiority, as if a spiritual being could be superior to others, and as if this some how reveals kindness.

Selling sacrifice as a system of kindness is the cruelest form of self serving tripe I can think of.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Not a big fan of metaphysics? I'm not a big fan of mystics. Poseurs who preen and prance and inexplicably believe their mystical incantations will render the listener or reader helpless.

Mysticism and Metaphysics are not exactly the same...but continue...

I declare that having regard for others is in each individual's chief interest and you declare this base

Base in relation to a metaphysical viewpoint. Of course, in itself, by itself, if you so choose to make such an argument and leave it at that, it is fine and quite moral. I wasn't saying it wasn't. But since I am familiar was Satre and surmise why you argued as you did, I am peevish about resting my views on that alone.

and in doing so you reveal your own insidious agenda

Exaggerate much? I have an insidious agenda now?

It is not that I've declared regard for others as an important part of selfishness, it is that I've dismissed selflessness as sacrifice that riles. While we should be in agreement, instead you've chosen to attack my spirituality, and this has to be because you want to sell selflessness as a noble ideal.

I claim selflessness as an ontologically existent reality. You, clearly, do not. Hence I criticized your elaborate explanation in the supposed 'absurdity' of using selfish and selfless as useful terms. Selfless refers to a state outside the egotistical concern for one's own imminent interest. It may not be 'precise' inasmuch as the selfless is essentially the Self in it's entirety, but for conventions sake people understand what selfless generally means in relation to selfish: selfish is egotism, a blatant disregard for justice, equity and peaceful relations; selfless is an effort to always act justly, even when opposed to an interest which doesn't deserve equal attention. But this forces me to go deeper into more particular issues which probably neither of us have time nor interest to pursue.

I feel as if you've reduced God to a concept roughly equating with 'necessity', to natures over arching concern with 'survival', whether in the interests of the self or the species. .It is too impersonal, too immoral for me. Since interests in relation to the whole oftentimes conflict with the interests of the individual, and one who sees through the context of the whole species - which is surely more important than any individual member of it - must necessarily devalue the significance of the moral when the two come into conflict; I see nothing more here than transplanting natures logic into a moral category which may at times disregard the dignity of the individual.

In Judaism, it's said that when you save a life you save a world. In Nazi Germany, it was mutually agreed that the Jews were a cancer on humanity, particularly the ubermensch Aryan race; Hitler convicted the Jews of infecting mankind with two blemishes: circumcision on the flesh, and conscience on the soul. In the interests of mankind, in their spiritual - cultural and moral unity - it was perfectly understandable why the Nazis sought to eliminate a people so often associated with consciousness, reason, morality, emotions, personal relationships i.e. with the concerns of the ego. In traditional, non-Hebraic religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, foremost, but also Islam (sufism) and Christianity (chiefly in its gnostic dimension) we encounter a metaphysics that closely parallels your depersonalized appreciation of the 'interests of the species', albeit, theirs is truly metaphysical while yours is socially pragmatic. In the former religions, the one point of mutual contact is the Absolute (undifferentiated principle), whether looked at as nirvana, or metaphysically as Purusha/Brahma, Allah, etc, there's a similar stress on the prime importance of the metaphysical in contrast to the wholly personal; the wholly personal is 'maya', 'demiurgic' - 'illusory', or in non-religious terminology, 'irrational'.

I don't know you. I could be wrong in many of my suppositions about you. While you quoted me to discuss your issue with selfish-unselfish, and how neither term makes much sense, I rejoined something similar in return. That's it. No need to get snippy.

To presume that those who reject selflessness don't ponder the amazement of life's mysteries is narrow minded ignorance that can only come from the self, certainly not "selflessness".

Clearly, you and I are coming from different foundations. You may think the same things I think, and wonder about mysteries which I have wondered, but somewhere along the line you and I diverge, and I'm not quite sure where it is exactly, as you seem to be holding some disparate views.

reply to post by dontreally

Mysticism and Metaphysics are not exactly the same...but continue...

That was precisely my point. I am accusing you of posing as a mystic, and now I am accusing you of being an obtuse mystic. Of course in the dog and pony show of the priest class sect, one never truly knows if the mystic is being obtuse or simply hiding behind a curtain pulling levers and gee gaws bellowing "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Pay no attention to the man behind..."

Your continued presumptions only undo you. I am no Existentialist and have no regard for Sartre. Nor has anything I argued even remotely resembled Existentialism. It raises the question of whether you even understand Existentialism and the works of Sartre or if you only made that bizarre connection because of my user name.

The mystic loves to dismiss the power of words while inexplicably uttering them in ways they want others to believe are words of power. Thoughts are things, and when a word such as selfishness is treated as pejorative it has the negative effect of convincing people that they cannot have a chief concern for their own interest and regard to others. Praising selflessness has the negative effect of - as I have stated - selling sacrifice.

In your desperation you now bring God into the equation, and typical of the priest class declare it was I who have reduced God, and again thoughts are things, but it has been you who allowed, not just for the possibility of the reduction of God, but for its actual reality. What regard for God can you possibly have when you believe mere mortals can simply reduce God by defending the individuals right to survive and to hold a chief concern for their interest, as if God doesn't want individuals to look out for themselves and to simultaneously look out for each other. No, typical of the mystic, you would have everyone believe that the only way to be right with God is through sacrifice of ones self, never occurring to you that it is precisely that self that God created so that God may experience being God, through you, through me, and through everyone else.

Where I insist that one can and should save lives while saving their own, you suggest that the only possible way to save a life is through sacrifice. You desperately want to believe that saving a life is a "selfless" act, all the while preening and posing in the raw self smugly uttering your mystical incantations. Your posts in this thread have been no more selfless than the O.P.'s thread and posts. The disturbing reality is that this thread, and your posts have very little regard for others. You speak of Judaism and I will tell you of a very famous Jew who preached that we should not pray on the streets like the hypocrites do merely to be seen praying, and instead go into your room and shutting your door pray in silence because whatever it is you think you need, God all ready knows your needs.

I would add to that it is unbecoming pretentiousness to speak for God, and it is infinitely more honest to speak for yourself and in doing so you will come much closer to, and while not speaking for God, allowing God to speak through you.

You had the audacity to presume many things about me and declare my defense of individual survival through holding a chief concern for ones own interest base and now act surprised that I have admonished your arrogance, ignoring your own attitude you simply focus on mine and poutily declare "no need to get snippy". We could have had a discussion, but astonishingly you chose to use spirituality as a bludgeoning weapon and now you backpedal and hide behind the curtain of obtuseness, demanding that all of us pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

How do you maintain a balance between selfishness and selflessness?

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux

The mystic loves to dismiss the power of words while inexplicably uttering them in ways they want others to believe are words of power.

I just want to butt-in to say that as a mystic I don't love to dismiss the power of words. It's just that, when I transcend time, space, thought, and even reality I realize that words (and money) can only take one so far.

If they (words and money) take a non-mystic far enough for his or her tastes, I would say hey more power to them!

reply to post by BlueMule

I just want to butt-in to say that as a mystic I don't love to dismiss the power of words. It's just that, when I transcend time, space, thought, and even reality I realize that words (and money) can only take one so far.

"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

When you typed this post, you were not transcending time, space, thought, and even reality - as if reality has nothing to do with time, space and thought - you were very physically here in the "real" world to make your post. Because of this, you could not "transcend" words, you had to rely upon them.

Originally posted by BlueMule
How do you maintain a balance between selfishness and selflessness?

There is no balance between them. Selfishness is the physical world in which we live, and the only escape from self is to escape the body, not balance self with selfless. It is one or the other, never both. Outside of a body we are static, but the problem with static is that under such a condition we know all there is to know and presumably have all there is to have, except a game. We choose a game by entering a body and having a self, and the exchange includes letting go of static, so under the condition of a body we no longer know all there is to know and presumably do not have all there is to have, but what do have is a game.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux

When you typed this post, you were not transcending time, space, thought, and even reality - as if reality has nothing to do with time, space and thought - you were very physically here in the "real" world to make your post. Because of this, you could not "transcend" words, you had to rely upon them.

That depends on whether you think consciousness transcends time and space, and whether you think "you" transcend your ego-self and your physical body. Part of "me" is "always" beyond time and space.

Since I have completely transcended time, space, reality and thought through mystical experience on several occasions, I realize that talking about such things can only get you so far (words are no substitute for taking the red pill), and some of the time one spends accumulating wealth should be balanced by time spent accumulating less tangible "mystical" things that words can't adequately express. You can't take your wealth or your words with you.

reply to post by BlueMule

That depends on whether you think consciousness transcends time and space, and whether you think "you" transcend your ego-self and your physical body.

Since I have transcended time, space, reality and thought through mystical experience on several occasions, I...

\

I...I following an assertion of transcending "ego-self" is contradictory. There are no contradictions, only flawed premises.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux

I...I following an assertion of transcending "ego-self" is contradictory. There are no contradictions, only flawed premises.

No, that's the inherent weakness of language sir.

We have spent enough time communicating for me to pick up the vibe of your mind. It is made up, and I'm not going to waste time trying to enlighten you. I'll just bless you and move on.

Take care.

reply to post by BlueMule

No, that's the inherent weakness of language sir.

Which you keep relying on.

We have spent enough time communicating for me to pick up the vibe of your mind. It is made up, and I'm not going to waste time trying to enlighten you. I'll just bless you and move on.

Enlightenment is not given. The enlightened do not need this explained to them.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

It raises the question of whether you even understand Existentialism and the works of Sartre or if you only made that bizarre connection because of my user name.

Its not "bizarre" to make the connection, albeit, somewhat superficially, between your beliefs and the guy in your avatar/your username. It may be meant in another way. But it was far from bizarre for me to go ahead and make that deduction.

Also, I have read satre, obviously not a fan. I think much of his thinking is completely ridiculous.

No, typical of the mystic, you would have everyone believe that the only way to be right with God is through sacrifice of ones self, never occurring to you that it is precisely that self that God created so that God may experience being God, through you, through me, and through everyone else.

Where did I say one has to sacrifice the self?? The post you originally quoted explicitly said "one can have an ego i.e. a sense of one own self worth, and still act selflessly".

You need to pause and reread your posts. I get that in your passionate prose you would prefer not to look over and possibly dilute the flow of your writing, but much of what you write is completely overboard. Calm down.

What regard for God can you possibly have when you believe mere mortals can simply reduce God by defending the individuals right to survive and to hold a chief concern for their interest, as if God doesn't want individuals to look out for themselves and to simultaneously look out for each other

This is where I figured you and I differed. We can both agree that God 'experiences' the world through man, but you disparage the significance of that relationship; perhaps, the mere idea of 'relationship' is anathema, since it implies a non-dualistic mode of being.

Where I insist that one can and should save lives while saving their own, you suggest that the only possible way to save a life is through sacrifice.

again, wrong.

You desperately want to believe that saving a life is a "selfless" act, all the while preening and posing in the raw self smugly uttering your mystical incantations.

What mystical incantations?

Your posts in this thread have been no more selfless than the O.P.'s thread and posts.

While yours, of course, is the paragon of humility.

I would add to that it is unbecoming pretentiousness to speak for God, and it is infinitely more honest to speak for yourself and in doing so you will come much closer to, and while not speaking for God, allowing God to speak through you.

By assuming that it is unbecoming to speak for God, because it is 'pretentious' aren't you equally speaking for God? It's like the atheist who condemns the theist for believing in a God, when his own assertion is just as much based on faith.

The Jewish tradition, a tradition I feel most drawn to, bases itself on something entirely different in some important respects from other traditions; not simply in it's mythological aspect - claiming as it does a revelation at mount sinai before some 4 million wandering Jews; but more particularly, Judaism emphasizes the personal - the individual, ascribing to it an ontological magnitude usually reserved for the purely metaphysical; what Islam (particularly Shi'itism) regards as evil, namely, the personal and sentimental, Judaism crowns as Gods most salient manifestation. Instead of honing in on the absolute, and transcendent, the God of Judaism, YHVH (whose constituent letters mean 'being', and also form the words, was, is and will be, i.e. different temporal states of being) is almost wholly personal: he is, as if, a divine Ego, the transcendent deity, Ein Sof, taking on the proportions of a self in order to relate with man in his actual condition.

So, that's the crux of my thinking. Judging from your posts, you seem to incline towards the transcendent, emersonian, eastern way of approaching God. And I feel I am especially educated in this. And I must say, I don't entirely disapprove of it. A part of me concedes to the reality that Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, etc, people of that way of thinking, have an insatiable yearning for approaching God in such a way; perhaps there is some deeper metaphysical reason for this emotional predilection? I've assumed that geography might have something to do with it. (for instance, Easterns, living in the east, symbolic of proximity to deity, prefer a non-dualistic approach, while westerners, native american's, find divinity within natures bosom, not bothering with nagging questions like the transcenental)

In Judaism, the whole might be important, but it is made to compromise with the part; Both must meet at a point and reconcile their differences.

it's all about the central banking system, and fractional reserve lending

we're doomed

my only hope is my kids get to adulthood before we go bust

republican/democratic is just a diversion

don't fall for it

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


I disagree.

I agree that the self and the ego is the static: the self forces on us a certain perception. But beyond the static, outside the faze and distractions of formality, there is an ontological core beyond the interests of the individual self, and it is this which enables man to act 'selflessly' with his fellow man.

reply to post by dontreally

Its not "bizarre" to make the connection, albeit, somewhat superficially, between your beliefs and the guy in your avatar/your username. It may be meant in another way. But it was far from bizarre for me to go ahead and make that deduction.

The "guy" in my avatar is Samuel Beckett:

The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin in a book of the same name; Beckett and Godot were centerpieces of the book. Esslin claimed these plays were the fulfillment of Albert Camus's concept of "the absurd"; this is one reason Beckett is often falsely labeled as an existentialist (this is based on the assumption that Camus was an existentialist, though he in fact broke off from the existentialist movement and founded his own philosophy). Though many of the themes are similar, Beckett had little affinity for existentialism as a whole.

The name Jean Paul does not necessarily dictate that all who use that name must be Sartre adherents. It was a foolish presumption, that is all. That foolish presumption speaks volumes to your handle on metaphysics, and in a thread that wants to be yet another pointless attack on capitalism, this pretentious debate on what you claim is "metaphysics" is just off topic nonsense.

That said:

I agree that the self and the ego is the static:

I don't know who you are agreeing with on this, but certainly not me as I never said any such thing. Static - for lack of a better word - is that "reality" outside of any physical universe. There is no "I", not even "We" in Static, just Static where all that is to be known is known and all that is to be had is had.

In a physical reality there is the "I" because in a physical reality all of us within that physicality are inherently subjective. One can leave the physical body and enter a Static, but to come back to that body that was left and to then speak of Static, can only be done through the subjective self. That's the deal.

Here in the physical universe, one has to come to terms with the physicality of that universe if one expects to survive within the physical body they inhabit. That's the deal.

Who gets taxed rich or poor wont fix anything. There has to be a by law sharing of company profits with employee's before investors are paid. Work should be the best way to make income. The system is imploding now and soon the wealthy investors will feel the hurt too. When there are no consumers there will be no profits.

More tripe from the left, what we have today is just crony capitalism.

But I won't try and explain things, just reading posts from useful tools, tools that will be discarded once socialism rules the day.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

hat foolish presumption speaks volumes to your handle on metaphysics

What does that so-called 'foolish presumption' have anything at all to do with metaphysics? Again, I fail to understand your dark logic.

And whats with the harsh, sardonic tone? Are you incapable of being at least a little civil? It seems like you just want to punish me with rudeness...

this pretentious debate on what you claim is "metaphysics" is just off topic nonsense.

So my innocuous clarification of the difference between metaphysics and mysticism (a generally agreed upon difference) is pretentious, but your harping on about the illogic of speaking of selfish and selfless, isn't? I'm not a mystic, unless you qualify a mystic as anyone with a spiritual leaning..

I don't know who you are agreeing with on this, but certainly not me as I never said any such thing

Ok....The static could be either/or I suppose. Depending on the perspective, to some, the emotionality and chaos of the ego and its troubles is 'static' relative to the clear perception of the Godhead.

From another perspective, the inchoate undifferentiated realm beyond the physical (or even the spiritual) is 'static' inasmuch as it is completely foreign to normal experience.