Taking stock II: Fitting in

 Introduction

This is a short-form article fitting geopolitical realities to the worldview I have been developing for over a decade. A non-academic exercise to be sure, on several levels, but for what it’s worth an attempt to test its explanatory power. As I have laid out in recent articles, my confidence in my position has weakened considerably over the last few weeks, though certain events in my personal sphere, and others of similar intimacy elsewhere, strengthen it again. 

Key points

1. Scarcity, cultural differences and specialisation
2. Love and consciousness evolution toward global consciousness
3. Love and acceptance
4. Right, wrong and moral relativism
5. Kittens

Scarcity, cultural differences and specialisation

Cultures evolve within defined territories, whether geographical or ideological. So separated, they diverge. Languages, traditions and customs differ to varying degrees, making empathic/sympathetic communication between cultures challenging, while dehumanisation/demonisation is a significant temptation in times of tension, when scapegoats are sought. Tensions develop over some combination of perceived scarcities and said communication problems.

Advanced social specialisation exacerbates this; only a tiny percentage of any people can become ‘expert’ in alien cultures. This makes the rest easy to manipulate in times of tension, hence the irresistibly attractive tool of dehumanisation for those who stand to gain from escalating tensions war.

If we want prevent war, surely we must address these issues. But how?

Love and consciousness evolution toward global consciousness

A couple of days ago, I saw an image that was claimed to be from Hunter Biden’s laptop. I won’t elaborate on its content, but its depravity shocked me. Regardless of whether it was a fake, depravity of unimaginable horror happens. That’s one thing that should humble anyone hoping, as I do, for an evolution in human consciousness toward love. And yet the fact that it is perhaps universally perceived as horror by all healthy humans alive suggests, strongly, that love is the answer, weak as that sounds in today’s bitter turbulence.

The presence of horror, depravity, evil, etc. repeatedly throughout civilisational history suggests to many that its continuous manifesting is due to human nature. My own take is that situation is the driving factor, not biology. Biology is indeed a powerful factor, but exactly how our biology translates into action in the world, how that action is perceived, anticipated, handled, etc., is cultural. Modernity, in my view, handles ‘psychopathy’ very poorly. One example of this poor handling is the curious idea that money-profit should remain a society’s deciding measure, i.e. that ‘free markets’ governed by price discovery produce the best of all possible worlds.

The oldest ‘culture’ I am aware of is that of Australian aborigines, who have been walking their walk for 80,000 years. They fight amongst themselves, kill each other in times of heightened tension and misunderstanding, albeit in better harmony with their environment than does modernity, and with a far healthier relationship, marked by deeper wisdom, with what we think of as psychopathy, sociopathy, etc. This does not mean we moderns should seek to recreate that culture as our own. It means simply that humans are culturally adaptable, less constrained by our biology than, say, cats. This is couched, for the sake of argument, in a dualistic intellectual framework; this is meant to be brief, so I’m keeping it brief.

One of my core knowings is that love is health is wealth, that, therefore, love will prevail over time. However, the cultural impediments to the idea of global consciousness evolving toward love, regardless of the power of love as a universal truth that undergirds the nature of reality, are significant. Cultural inertia is highly significant. It is folly to underestimate it.

Love and acceptance

If we try to be loving, what must we learn to accept … Cultural inertia? Moral decay? Horrific abuse of abductees? Pedophelia? War?

When we learn to be loving, one thing we learn we cannot do is impose our wisdom on others. When we project our power onto an other and force them to “Become wise now! That is an order!”, we fail. Allowing free will the free rein to do what it must is the only way I know of in which wisdom can develop as it should. And yet…

Just as cultures steadily calcify into what they are, so too do individuals. Constraint liberates. In my conception of All That Is, our ‘physical’ reality is specifically set up to effect direct consequences. Our free will is severely constrained by the ruleset that defines our reality. We are not free to fly around at will, to walk through walls, read minds, heal our wounds at will, make that woman love us, etc. More importantly, we makes choices that become the investments in our future selves and systems that narrow and narrow toward correction. This complex of earthly limitations is exquisitely instructive (karma). Earning wisdom in this environment is instructive because its corrections are experienced so intensely.

So, what must we accept? Rephrased: Is it wise to demand perfection? Well, everything is always perfect, so must we accept that we are here to learn this truth, come what may? Jung said, “Free will is doing gladly that which we must do.” If we successfully accept this, and deeply, right through our being, what then? 

Then we learn to love our enemies, to have a better idea of how to prevent abuse organically rather than autocratically. But can we poor humans accomplish this?

I don’t know. The process is painfully slow, and very difficult; ego is at the helm for this journey until we learn the very lesson ego does not want to learn. I think this is the point, a point that is very hard to accept because it seems to require terrible suffering until we learn better.

Right, wrong and moral relativism

So, now we’re here. Out There, as I write, Russian missiles are raining down on Ukraine. My heart goes out to those suffering there, as it goes out to abused abductees, to the crippled and terminally sick. Despite all that suffering and our hunger to end it, to heal it, one way or the other we always end up here.

I do not believe that acceptance is moral relativism, that right and wrong are somehow equivalents. My wisdom is that free will teaches best, with constraints operating as structures that effect a certain immediacy, or directness, particular to our ‘physical’ reality. We cannot grow up into true maturity unless we are free to experiment, then taste, fully, the feedback from those experiments. This scales up to the reflex towards autocracy, totalitarianism … to utopias of every hue striving heroically, hysterically, to end or minimise real suffering for real people. From that messy struggle, civilisations rise – which is a bloody process – only to fall later – which is a bloody process.

“Strong men make good times. Good times make weak men. Weak men make hard times. Hard times make strong men.” But this is not moral relativism. This merely describes part of history’s rhyming, of the necessary experimentation of what works when humans try to govern thousands, millions, and then billions, of souls.

This is only part of what human reality is all about. A deeper part is that love is unconditional and foundational. Which brings us neatly to kittens.

Kittens

We have two tom kittens – born of our sole female cat, Firefly – named Ashitaka (brighter tomorrow) and Kashmir: cute little killers oblivious to the horrors of the human world Out There. My family and I abide with them, watch them playing, eating, sleeping. We are responsible for their health and love them unconditionally. One day they may torture rodents and birds to death. We will continue to love them unconditionally. Otherwise, our love would be conditional.

Their trials and tribulations reach us as endearing life lessons they must pass through. We provide the structure that enables their growth. The more freedom they have within the structure we provide, the healthier their growth will be. 

I know the ‘gap’ between humans and God dwarfs that between humans and kittens. To God, our trials and tribulations are never horrors. We are loved unconditionally. What I know through my love of my many family members, human and non-human alike, is that humans can love unconditionally. The challenge is to extend that loving embrace ever outward until we love our enemies unconditionally. But this cannot be rushed, not even by me and my idealistic fervour.

Conclusion

Is it possible that despite our humanity, we can love our enemies? Or is it human to err forever? One of my own many failings is my idealistic, delusions-of-grandeur aspiration to Save The World. Failing at this – as I must – I feel impotent. I hate to watch on as horrors occur. I become angry, frustrated, sick. It’s why I write this blog, now a journal of my spiritual journey to nowhere in particular.

(The kittens are now on my lap.)

I shall leave this open ended, which is best, I think. Love is the way, of that I have no doubt. But we travel at different speeds, scale different heights, endure different appetites and ambitions, push history relentlessly on. And cannot measure our successes and failures, or even tell them apart.

What do you want to do now?