Thank you so much for your wonderful essay, Rachel! As ayahuasca has contributed in part to the profound understandings displayed in your essay, I’m going to have to reevaluate my negative view of it. As a person in my late 60s, who has engaged in many years of religious and philosophical research and practice in order to deal with life’s difficulties, I’ve tended to poo poo attempts to reach more profound awareness through substances. I now realize how that position stinks of righteousness as well as being an embarrassing attempt to prop up my self-esteem. More profound understandings of existence, and of the suffering and the threats to all beings on earth and our contribution to that, is what we all desperately need right now, and any way that can be achieved is something we must be extremely grateful for.
I was first drawn to your Podcasts through a great interview you did with Carl Safina. He’s done many, but yours was definitely the best. Thank you so much!
Yes, on some days ‘the abyss’ feels austere and empty, but on good days it feels warm and forgiving. I think there are some personality types that can self-reflect enough to see that most human wisdoms and philosophies are not much more than adorned or storied guesses at meaning. This understanding doesn’t have to be feared though, we have each other and the guesses we make together are fun. I would even include the ‘hard’ sciences in this back and forth process. Consider how advanced maths is needed to build skyscrapers, but what use is this knowledge amidst the expanse of infinity? It could be akin to a recent species adaptation--here and gone. Or, a fleetingly ‘new’ idea. Again, the physical skyscraper is not the same thing as the architectural drawing, it is the aggregate of networks of people working together. So what should we make today? How about something other than skyscrapers and rockets?
“A world in which masculinity is perceived as frightening, violent, domineering, controlling, extractive and exploitative. ...
Instead, what we see today is a perverted masculinity”
It is important not to fall into the trap of seeing the perversion and then talking of it as if it were the norm.
Our uniquely human way of being in the world is mutual aid in doing work to create, curate and innovate an artificial world of technology solutions to the everyday problems of everyday people living our everyday lives as a safe house for humanity that we build for ourselves out of the world of Nature into which we all are born, in a kind of Human-Nature partnership that is constantly changing and being changed through inquiry, insight and new learning for innovation and choosing new beginnings.
We rely on institutions to hold up that safe house, and curate that partnership.
Institutions are given agency and authority subject to accountability.
Sometimes those institutions themselves become outdated, and need to be innovated.
In those times, outdated institutions that have not yet been innovated to fit the changing times become inauthentic, exercising authority without accountability to agency.
This inauthenticity can only be remedied through adaptive innovation of our institutions, so that our capacities for social decision making are made right for the decisions we have to make in times that have changed in some very fundamental ways.
Petromasculinity is evident in music. Especially the music of the ‘60’s onward to today. Because, it is about power (even if it seems to be about other things like love, beauty or anything else).
Before the invention of speakers, amps and electric instruments, music had a different way of fitting into our lives. Add to that recording technologies and fast cars -- and, humans have never felt more powerful. None of which was possible without a petroleum-based economy (and, still isn’t).
It conveys power in a way that was never possible in the past -- and, the music created has reflected this. This power of loud, industrial-inspired music led people to change in a lot of ways. Perhaps some social good came out of that, but ultimately, it is a powerful symbol of our ‘dominion’ over the earth and our ability to manipulate our environment.
Now, not all music is industrial-inspired, screeching voices -- but, it doesn’t have to be. It’s the fact that it’s not so much made on the personal level and passed on to others, it’s a money-making industry that requires egotistical giants, large stadiums or auditoriums and massive petro-energy to make happen.
But one cultural indicator of our grasping of more than our share of reality, because -- “you only live once!” Better get all you can put if it, you need to be powerful to do that! Rock on! Driving 80 mph down the highway with loud, powerful music to make you feel invincible.
This is a brilliant essay Rachel. As profound as anything by Eisenstein or Monbiot - more so. (Ayahuasca seems to be inspiring more and more people with powerful insights, including Gail Bradbrook and others.) What's the takeaway? Well we had Pooran Desai down here in Lewes on Saturday. He said we've missed the window of opportunity now for effective action on climate. What should our attitude be? Well, he said, at least stop fighting. Fighting is what got us into this mess in the first place. Relax into the future whatever it holds. Does that square with what you're saying?
yes Platonic philosophy is from the wrong music theory - from Archtyas and Philolaus. So the wrong definition of infinity. I go into this Daoist secret - it is actually physiological. Our original human culture, the San Bushmen, requires ALL males to train in the female vagus nerve bliss as a cyclical eternal energy source for life. The male primate "linear" reproduction spikes the stress cortisol - creating a dopamine-cortisol addiction that Dr. Helen Caldicott calls "Missile Envy" (a pun on the subconscious Freudian dynamic that drives Western civilization). Actually this patriarchal physiology problem spread with plow-based farming favoring the male hoarding of wealth - found worldwide. So our original hunter-gatherer human culture was based on ecofeminism. Brad Keeney studies the training of our original human culture - he calls it "shaking medicine" from music. I just did an upload in the secrets of the math and physics of this - ending it on how it explains out ecological crisis also. thanks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YJVz9bhA3g&lc=UgyOpxBHbLNI8ixK4ax4AaABAg.9rhBdocNKPL9rhPkzfMlSv
Thank you so much for your wonderful essay, Rachel! As ayahuasca has contributed in part to the profound understandings displayed in your essay, I’m going to have to reevaluate my negative view of it. As a person in my late 60s, who has engaged in many years of religious and philosophical research and practice in order to deal with life’s difficulties, I’ve tended to poo poo attempts to reach more profound awareness through substances. I now realize how that position stinks of righteousness as well as being an embarrassing attempt to prop up my self-esteem. More profound understandings of existence, and of the suffering and the threats to all beings on earth and our contribution to that, is what we all desperately need right now, and any way that can be achieved is something we must be extremely grateful for.
I was first drawn to your Podcasts through a great interview you did with Carl Safina. He’s done many, but yours was definitely the best. Thank you so much!
Wonderful article here - have you read the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying? It touches on a lot of similar themes you discuss here!
Yes, on some days ‘the abyss’ feels austere and empty, but on good days it feels warm and forgiving. I think there are some personality types that can self-reflect enough to see that most human wisdoms and philosophies are not much more than adorned or storied guesses at meaning. This understanding doesn’t have to be feared though, we have each other and the guesses we make together are fun. I would even include the ‘hard’ sciences in this back and forth process. Consider how advanced maths is needed to build skyscrapers, but what use is this knowledge amidst the expanse of infinity? It could be akin to a recent species adaptation--here and gone. Or, a fleetingly ‘new’ idea. Again, the physical skyscraper is not the same thing as the architectural drawing, it is the aggregate of networks of people working together. So what should we make today? How about something other than skyscrapers and rockets?
“A world in which masculinity is perceived as frightening, violent, domineering, controlling, extractive and exploitative. ...
Instead, what we see today is a perverted masculinity”
It is important not to fall into the trap of seeing the perversion and then talking of it as if it were the norm.
Our uniquely human way of being in the world is mutual aid in doing work to create, curate and innovate an artificial world of technology solutions to the everyday problems of everyday people living our everyday lives as a safe house for humanity that we build for ourselves out of the world of Nature into which we all are born, in a kind of Human-Nature partnership that is constantly changing and being changed through inquiry, insight and new learning for innovation and choosing new beginnings.
We rely on institutions to hold up that safe house, and curate that partnership.
Institutions are given agency and authority subject to accountability.
Sometimes those institutions themselves become outdated, and need to be innovated.
In those times, outdated institutions that have not yet been innovated to fit the changing times become inauthentic, exercising authority without accountability to agency.
This inauthenticity can only be remedied through adaptive innovation of our institutions, so that our capacities for social decision making are made right for the decisions we have to make in times that have changed in some very fundamental ways.
Petromasculinity is evident in music. Especially the music of the ‘60’s onward to today. Because, it is about power (even if it seems to be about other things like love, beauty or anything else).
Before the invention of speakers, amps and electric instruments, music had a different way of fitting into our lives. Add to that recording technologies and fast cars -- and, humans have never felt more powerful. None of which was possible without a petroleum-based economy (and, still isn’t).
It conveys power in a way that was never possible in the past -- and, the music created has reflected this. This power of loud, industrial-inspired music led people to change in a lot of ways. Perhaps some social good came out of that, but ultimately, it is a powerful symbol of our ‘dominion’ over the earth and our ability to manipulate our environment.
Now, not all music is industrial-inspired, screeching voices -- but, it doesn’t have to be. It’s the fact that it’s not so much made on the personal level and passed on to others, it’s a money-making industry that requires egotistical giants, large stadiums or auditoriums and massive petro-energy to make happen.
But one cultural indicator of our grasping of more than our share of reality, because -- “you only live once!” Better get all you can put if it, you need to be powerful to do that! Rock on! Driving 80 mph down the highway with loud, powerful music to make you feel invincible.
This is a brilliant essay Rachel. As profound as anything by Eisenstein or Monbiot - more so. (Ayahuasca seems to be inspiring more and more people with powerful insights, including Gail Bradbrook and others.) What's the takeaway? Well we had Pooran Desai down here in Lewes on Saturday. He said we've missed the window of opportunity now for effective action on climate. What should our attitude be? Well, he said, at least stop fighting. Fighting is what got us into this mess in the first place. Relax into the future whatever it holds. Does that square with what you're saying?
These four related references are very much about the themes of this essay - especially death
http://www.easydeathbook.com/purpose.asp The Purpose of Death and what it requires of us.
http://www.beezone.com/adi-da/death_message.html Death as the Constant Message of Life
http://www.beezone.com/whats-new The Dark Force that patterns and controls the humanly created world-mummery
http://www.beezone.com/adida/quandramamashikhara/thelawofpleasuredomeEDIT.html
The Feminine Pleasure Dome Principle
yes Platonic philosophy is from the wrong music theory - from Archtyas and Philolaus. So the wrong definition of infinity. I go into this Daoist secret - it is actually physiological. Our original human culture, the San Bushmen, requires ALL males to train in the female vagus nerve bliss as a cyclical eternal energy source for life. The male primate "linear" reproduction spikes the stress cortisol - creating a dopamine-cortisol addiction that Dr. Helen Caldicott calls "Missile Envy" (a pun on the subconscious Freudian dynamic that drives Western civilization). Actually this patriarchal physiology problem spread with plow-based farming favoring the male hoarding of wealth - found worldwide. So our original hunter-gatherer human culture was based on ecofeminism. Brad Keeney studies the training of our original human culture - he calls it "shaking medicine" from music. I just did an upload in the secrets of the math and physics of this - ending it on how it explains out ecological crisis also. thanks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YJVz9bhA3g&lc=UgyOpxBHbLNI8ixK4ax4AaABAg.9rhBdocNKPL9rhPkzfMlSv