Liars Who Read

Of all the ways to describe whats wrong with the world, I don't think its ever quite been put that way.

But its true, is it not? Does consciousness not grow more complex with reading? Yes. And why is that? Because reading is a process of actively seeking to try to understand and relate many different symbolically encoded concepts into one coherent whole. This is what the "word" does. Initially, reading is hard for us, but once you "get the hang of it" - a metaphor for your brains coming to compute a task that earlier required conscious attention at the unconscious level, leaving consciousness open to surveying more rarefied levels of abstract possibility.

Because the brain grows in complexity through reading (also listening to intelligent conversation) the mind is able to better convey itself, and so, persuade others of the self's coherency. And this is it, isn't it? Huddled within the core of every person who reads and experiences their minds grow more complex through time, lies a pridefulness, and, in this ridiculous civilization of ours, most people who read easily and thought quickly believed that their capacity was a sign of their essential superiority - key word essential - which lent so easily to a way of thinking that deprecated others.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where people without morals, but who are "well read", are able to play the part of being 'decent people' while at the same time cynically deriding the people they deceive - as if to remind themselves that they are strong, and right and true.

On a side note, but relevant to this conversation: there is a fundamental "performative" dimension to Human behavior, and this applies know more than to the ostentatious commitment to "evil", or "badness".

Oftentimes, I think about Nietzsche, and I wonder how ironic it was that a man so full of himself and so convinced of a mans self-sufficiency, would be wrecked by his own intemperance, and, furthermore, have his immoral philosophy repudiated by his sister, who affirmed something greater than the individual by taking him in and tending to his needs.

Similar cases can be furnished from many people like him - Shelley, Wilde, Crowley, Evola, where each in their own way, in their own life, they experienced themselves from the perspective of the 'weakness' that they so abhorred and put themselves in conflict with. Picture Evola, needing the help of someone else because he can't reach for something. Or Wilde, reflecting on the things he did and said, and - unlike the others - maturely acknowledging having gone too far, and needing to assume a posture of humility to keep face i.e. survive.

Yet, why do I call these people "liars"? The liar could be a lying politician or a lying religious figure or a lying police chief. Or, it can be a more essential and intricated form of lying - self-lying of the reflexive and unconscious type: the confabulations we develop to sustain our affect-regulation, and so maintain our sanity as a self. Yes - isn't that the harshest truth? That what we do is always embodied and structured as neural pathways, synapses and special electromagnetic and chemical assemblies? Living is a canalization - a 'digging' forward into the future from the same pathway you've been digging since you were born. Forward, but forward from the logic of what went earlier. Subjective sanity may be distinguished from objective sanity by the formers "correlation" with the view of others, but not with scientific and empirical reality. Subjective "sanity" could be evidenced in the Nazis or todays western civilization. Yes, the nazis were worse, but even they felt the sanitizing effect of common agreement and mutual affirmation of what they were doing, just as this culture does. Yes - the brain distorts, and it distorts as a function of culture. Culture is ancient - yes? So perhaps there is nothing more distorting than an unconscious loyalty to an ancient viewpoint simply because it comes with bedeviling effect of being old.

Insanity is common in today's world because we do not acknowledge this basic reality. We go forward 'blindly', while liars who read profit from a poor-enough educational system and stupefaction of the public through tv and media and video games, yet it has an end-game - being evil, careless and predatory gas a limit: the planet sets it, by threatening the inhabitants of the planet with a dynamical situation that could, potentially, lead to something called a "venus effect": run away greenhouse gas emissions.

So change must happen - some conscience needs to be injected into the matrix. But not too much - hell forbid that conscience grow too large and lead to some sort of spiritual, progressive runaway feedback that eats away at the logic of capitalism - and thus at the system which maintains the elitism of today's society. Oh - how difficult! And yet side-by-side with this there's the early-childhood education movement, the mindfulness in schools movement, black lives matter movement, and many other movements: the wave cannot be held back - if hell or the way that hell's minions controls things is to be maintained, it seems chaos/rigidity or excess is the only context that supports it. Chaos/Rigidity is easy. See ancient civilization. But if a spiritual, self-sufficient, therapeutically conscious civilization were to emerge - a unique condition, and one very well supported by today's infrastructure - these nut-bars in power may prefer the destruction of what is than a loss of their hold on the system, piece of the pie, and loss of power.

The next month or so will determine the way the future will unfold for the next decade. If Trump wins - which seems very unlikely - we are simply f*ucked. If Clinton wins - which seems very likely - its becoming more and more likely that Trump will contest the results, claim it was rigged (as he is doing now) and encourage his followers to engage in civil disobedience. Right now, indeed, a delusion is being weaved elsewhere on this site about Hillary Clintons destiny to win - because she is obviously not as crazy as Donald Trump, as any emotional regulated person can see - and how this is being "rigged". Rigged. An effort is being made to persuade people of a falsity - using clever language and typical cognitive science techniques aiming to activate a known-metaphor network and so prompt the reflexive cognition into certain ways of thinking.

Anyways, it seems as if the United States of America is going through a very dangerous period in its history that is unprecedented. The rhetoric being spewed by Donald Trump and his supporters is dangerously, dangerously out of touch with reality, because it is out of touch with any sense of caring and considerate reflection. It is, as usual, a machismo time-bomb.

It's good that most Trump supporters bypass your threads as were they to read this one the gist of most replies would be along the lines of "Yeah" sez you."

In regards to the final pieces of your post, I see hilary as a war monger and donald as an immoral piece of trash. I'd wish people would understand the power vested in them. We all know each other, we're all connected. If one man says down with the 'elites' and gets his family on board, soon enough there'd be a a group of plushy old people with no army and no power, just meaningless paper and the end of a meaningless roleplay.

a reply to: Astrocyte

It's nice to see a well thought out and elegantly written thread.

I found your description of the affect of reading on the brain/mind to be spot on. I admittedly could not have described it better myself.

I particularly enjoyed reading....

Or, it can be a more essential and intricated form of lying - self-lying of the reflexive and unconscious type: the confabulations we develop to sustain our affect-regulation, and so maintain our sanity as a self.

This, in other words, I believe is essentially a defense mechanism. Although (hopefully) this changes as people mature, there have been times in many peoples' lives when they have done something (or perhaps didn't do something) that they very much regret. The cold hard truth of fully comprehending and contemplating how one's actions (or inactions) have negatively affected others can be overpowering, so the mind invents ways to rationalize the behavior (or, in other words, lie to one's self).

That being said, and perhaps this is because I'm reading your words rather than hearing them spoken, I think you are treading awfully close to becoming what you are writing against. Its definitely possible that I'm misinterpreting you, but you do come across a bit aloof.

people who read easily and thought quickly believed that their capacity was a sign of their essential superiority - key word essential - which lent so easily to a way of thinking that deprecated others.

Isn't a lot of your post doing just that? Are you not separating yourself from the rest of us and in a sense, looking down on those who aren't as enlightened (for lack of a better word) than you?

You wrote....

If Trump wins - which seems very unlikely - we are simply f*ucked. If Clinton wins - which seems very likely - its becoming more and more likely that Trump will contest the results

The thing that jumped out at me was that you had two different sets of a "kind of" logic....

If Trump, we're f*cked
If Hillary, then Trump.

You continued by stating...

Right now, indeed, a delusion is being weaved elsewhere on this site about Hillary Clintons destiny to win - because she is obviously not as crazy as Donald Trump, as any emotional regulated person can see - and how this is being "rigged"

"As any emotional regulated person can see...." Do you see the condescension there? The superiority? I'll leave the real or perceived "rigging" out of this for the moment because that has little to do with my overall point. That point being, the overall gist of your thread (as I understand it) is that there are very well-read people out there that substitute a sort of formal education for a moral high-ground, yet you speak with such authority on candidate X or candidate Y.

The best advice I can give you is to basically relay some observations I've had throughout my life. The people that I have always found to be the most mature and quite frankly, the most wise, have always allowed for the POSSIBILITY that they are wrong on any particular issue or idea.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Liars Who Read...

...are able to engage in an economy based on social currency more effectively.

You do Bourdieu?

a reply to: Astrocyte

You are such a talented essayist - just my opinion.

I was a little surprised at how you weaved in the Clinton/Trump circus toward the end. You and I might disagree on certain things: You make it sound as if "election rigging" is categorically impossible - a claim that I'm not as comfortable making. (For the record, however, I'm not here to defend Trump or push the idea that "rigging" is a certainty.)

Thank you for consistently authoring such thoughtful, interesting threads.

Psshhhyah! Says you!!!!

a reply to: Astrocyte

Well written, friend. You have been reading.

Add to that list Lord Byron. He had a club foot.

What your well-read liars have to do with Trump and his supporters on this website or else-where, I am uncertain. But it might be a good chance to make your case if you see otherwise. Silence too is a choice.

But it's always about rhetoric, isn't it? It is words vs. actions these days. In the case of a presidency, the actions always dictate the course of events, while the words only serve to placate.

a reply to: Astrocyte

What's this all about? I couldn't make sense of it.

Is it about people who skip while reading?

Or is it about people who learn how to see opposing points of view so well they become ambivalent in their value judgements?

Or is it about something else altogether?

I always try to make sense of your posts. Usually I fail. I wish you would abandon the old stream of consciousness stuff and put your basic argument in point form. And then, maybe, expand on the points one by one.

Collect and distill your thoughts before you write them down. Make an effort to be cogent. Then we might be able to have a batter conversation.