As I explained at length in various of my videos on YouTube and in many of my writings published here on this blog, there is a profound Truth to Reality. It isn't an accident that many human beings have devoted their lives to a fascination with this fact, though this quantity is a drop in the bucket of the total volume of humanity's teeming throngs over the millennia. As with any great fascination, there is a profound Truth contained in the object of its reference, and that Truth is as real, or more real than the person whom it captures (modeler or modeled are both "captured" in the fascination in different but isomorphic ways). It's not the fault of some deformity in an outlying population, nor a flaw in their character , nor a sublimation of any perversity which leads to this condition of awe. It isn't the mere byproduct of a trait, for example, relevant to "physical survival", that is to say a trait which could be reduced in concept to the interest of the rodent in detecting its prospects well ahead of meeting them, sometimes in dark confined spaces, using only its nose and whiskers. It isn't simply "curiosity", in other words. Reality Really IS Profound! It is even more profound if one asserts spitballed notions of its being a dynamic chaos that seeks only as one of its many meaningless permutations a specific arrangement of one of its universes that results in someone coming to think that there is, even if "there isn't", meaning. In that case, it is all the more profound, since then one has asserted that the spiritual semantics of Man has arisen from conditions that previously held no form of them and should never hold any form of them. At least those with a genuine appreciation of those semantics would find it so.
That notion, that life pines away for more life, in spite of the hellish conditions of its evolutionary history (at least in this world), is almost like stacking the deck in favor of the absurd in order to create extreme conditions for a thought experiment, but without the experiment. As I said in the previous installments of this series, some human beings have a strange predilection for reductionism, but one that I think reveals the true pragmatic of this realm, and is a key to their own distinct nature, as being of a sort of norm where all that is held in esteem so as to make life worth living, even in this hellish domain, is disregarded as but epiphenomena which at best offer clues to some particular substructures which are of interest in studying the genetic and environmental dynamics of the evolution of psychological propensities, some of which are eminently "useful" for survival (the ultimate telos of reductionists working in biology), and some of which are not as much so but which form a tapestry of secondary and tertiary consequences which loom on the edge of the "area of the optimal". At best those other permutations of the ordering of a psychobiological entity are "areas of the suboptimal", which will have their status as such most simply because the environment has not selected for their prominance. But if that is so, then what is suboptimal is what Thrasymachus would say of the idealism of Socrates, for "Justice" is merely whatever is in the interest of the stronger. Socrates and Dante are foolish outliers, and Thrasymachus and Machiavelli are the true knowers of reality!
Whatever the cause of such elevated interests in sublime subtleties of Reality as Such, in metaphysics, it is owing to a proper focus on the possibilities which outstrip a narrow conception of things which has enabled that science to develop the infrastructure of all higher culture and all advances in science and technology, and in the ideal conception of humanity's stake in its own posited potential, as well as in its own responsibility and accountability for its past, present and future. It might be said that to reduce the world to a condition in which Man's Ideals are in fact non-existent has simply underscored His propensity to transcend the given and to invent. If "x" were not so, then Man would simply invent it. But not all human beings possess the same proclivities for developing a properly moral and ethical framework in which to conduct their construction of the various devices of the mind. And once such devices become artifacts, they become increasingly accessible to those who could never have invented them at all, many of whom if not most, should never be entrusted with their possession. Sadly, the way that virtue manifests in the world, it is never truly inherited or instilled through any education or training. It is something that cannot be analyzed into the deterministic aetiology of mere "survival", into a mere notion of biophysical and sociocultural inertias. It would seem that Xunzi is correct an alarming percentage of the time, and Lord Shang long before him, concerning the worth or moral notions as being nothing more than a handy propaganda tool for controlling the teeming masses with a form of NLP suited to their "tier" in the hierarchy of the capable. Kongzi and Mengzi are demoted to fantasists incapable of facing reality.
What must be understood is that the realm of Man's Mind is apart from the "worldly" propensities of human existence and evolution in this domain here, which is clearly a construct of conditions which are asserted by a mind which wishes the human being to be in an environment of complicated servitude. The actual freedom to live one's life according to the precepts of Truth, Justice and Liberty, is outlawed by the entity in charge of this domain. It has set up conditions in "nature herself" which ensure the basest conditions in which to develop, and which inspire nothing of the Culture of Man. Then it ensures, as soon as humanity develops an inkling of intelligence capable of making true sense of his world, to help him develop a culture of the most odious and abhorrent practices so as to instill in him a sense of boundaries to his development that will always ensure that he will learn that first and foremost is to obey the powerful and to fear death. So much so that he is taught that nothing could be holier than to willingly kill his own children, to sacrifice his own best of anything, to some monstrous entity posing as an authority figure simply because it can cause even worse calamity if this is not done. To pay taxes with due reverence, it might be said. To throw one's children to Molech, but to do so with an outward smile and grateful heart. One must say that Man and His Culture are rarely if ever actually found in the world except as a PR stunt to manage the masses who cannot do more than elaborate breeding and rearing instincts on the level appropriate to the form of management their handlers in the upper tiers of power have deigned best for them at any given age of their existence as cattle.
No matter how one thinks of this world's "design", it manifests a clear indifference toward the innocence of children, sometimes as though anything but innocent. That is, when it doesn't manifest an outright contempt, instead. That is especially true of the "book" religions, and I won't belabor the specifics here as their own texts betray their arrogant, evil mistreatment of them as through they were chattel of little worth. If one has the wherewithal to comprehend this, then one doesn't need the references to be cited, which are rather numerous and telling. Those can be derived from the empirical evidence of history in any case. Most would simply reflexively refer to some favorite little scripture in their precious little brainwashing indoctrination manual supposedly showing an exception to this rule, but that would of course be only to underscore what little lip service is ever offered to the notion that children are of any special value. Much more of such lip service, and much more overdone to the point of being propaganda, is paid by the state and its de facto PR organs in the media and culture. That underscores a heavy contrast with their having run cover for massive abuse and destruction of children, and their innocence per se, over the many dark decades of the last century. And just imagine how much more went on before they even bothered to offer such fanfare to their supposed dedication to the welfare of children before then. Then again, I would expect that it had only worsened in direct proportion to the intensification of the offering of facades to the contrary, as it usually happens.
This is just a recounting of the way the world actually is. Most of the people who are being covertly screened from looking at my material on the internet, most of the people on the internet, wouldn't give credence to such a reality even after it would manifest as an attack on their own children anyway, so of course it would be folly to bother to address them as though it would matter if they were granted their adult American right to read whatever is published that I have said or written. Avid consumers of propaganda such as the popular TV series Person of Interest simply choose to allow their brains to be programmed to adopt certain views in a tacit manner which would, due to their content, tend to make them immune to such considerations in earnest. The manner in which such programming is delivered tends to make them irrationally fixed on maintaining the delusions which cognitive dissonance demands, and which the hegemons who rule over them prefer. They also can't be expected to be even nominally aware of these dynamics of propaganda and how they work, either. The moral anesthetic which is a part of such programming is inherent to its structure and essential to its function. It enables them to painlessly look the other way, trusting that those who have programmed them have everything under control and are operating with the utmost of moral scruples and ethical restraint. That is a basic sort of cowardice which the numerous specimens of the plebian population cultivate as though it were a virtue. If one looks at it with an objective eye to the threads held in common, one can see that the role of such propaganda dovetails in seamlessly with the methods that religions of obedience to authority employ, and extend their power into a massive, "full spectrum" matrix of reciprocally reinforcing programmed delusions of busy idiots avoiding reality.
But there is a saying about such mental irresponsibility. Not just that the devil loves idle hands (and minds), because he loves actively delusional minds even more. Rather, it is the saying that one can avoid facing reality, but one cannot avoid the consequences of not facing reality. Let's just stick to the subject of artistic renditions of reality which remodel its discourse into modes of propaganda for various purposes of mass programming. First of all there is the frame of reference. The whole idea is that someone is going to present to you a version of the facts of reality, one that is confined to their narration of those facts to you, the audience. The presentation of those facts of invention are simply confined to the plot which the presenter wants to explore and present as a version of reality. It's not other than this, because if it were, then you'd have to be paying attention to all the other matters that went into the production of that presentation, and it would defeat the purpose, both for the presenter and the audience. Even fine art has this attribute, as one must block out of consideration all the other pressing matters which merit one's immediate attention in order to focus on the work of fine art. So at the very least, art serves to confine one's attention to its presented models of reality, which are to become the total focus of one's attention to the exclusion of all else as much as possible in order to be fully entertained. I meant that to be ambisemous. In both senses "to be entertained", both for the presentation to be entertained by the audience as worthy of their attention, and for the audience to be entertained as a result of its effect on them. Otherwise it is something other than art. But to entertain something with one's attention in order to be entertained by its effects on one's mind through one's senses, feelings and thoughts is only the direct mechanism of the enterprise. There is a fuller examination.
There are the consequences of being engrossed in something, one consistently being that one is taken away from other things. There is time spent in the experience of art, which is not being spent doing something else. Depending upon one's "rest of the time", both as to its quantity and quality, this can be significantly impacting on one's life in a variety of ways. One way is that one has less time to do other things one might have done instead of being engrossed in a work of art. Such things might be quite important in many ways, and there are a lot of such things and everyone knows upon inspection what they are in their own lives, and is aware upon direct inspection what that impact is as to degree and kind. Therefore, even when time spent consuming (and being consumed by) the experiences of art is purely discretionary, it is not an insignificant fact that one did not spend that time doing other things which might also have been a worthwhile use of that time. And the less of such discretionary time one has, the more impacting that choice. Then there is the matter of one's overall quality of time, and that includes what frame of mind and condition of life one has in general, and the implicit question of whether that time would have been better spent with better discretion. Obviously these factors bear a mutually impacting relationship with the quality of the art one is likely to be consuming, and this mutually reinforcing relationship has perhaps a greater degree of reliably predictable characteristics than one might at first suspect.
Given that the social and political-economic landscape of each society has a certain fixed structure within which any remaining dynamics are to be considered, there are already some obvious limits to the range in what can be expected of how people will spend their discretionary time, and also what quality of use of that time they will be able to afford. There are also factors of psychology to consider, so that there is the realm of the person's native tendencies, already accumulated habits, already acquired opportunities, and the mental set that develops, the schema of likely behavior, that becomes the normality, the status quo of that person. Leaving out many considerations as to what the particulars in place of a given collective environmental setting are, there is already a general sense that there will be numerous constraints on the dynamics of choice both as to quantity and quality. Then one must consider a more realistic model based on our actual world, where interested parties who are demonstrably in more active control of those constraints are at work. Then one must consider the agendas of those parties, and their methods of bringing about their desired objectives. These are, from the already touched upon conditions of the actual world here, not inspiring of any hope or confidence in the consideration of what sort of results will be obtained in the overall. And most specimens of human being will, with deplorable regularity and reliability, fall into a certain spectrum of predictable outcomes concerning their use of discretionary time, especially with respect to their consumption of (and by) art.
Contrary to the way that the humanities and the liberal arts are presented to the public through the typical institutions and artifacts of culture, the inevitable outcome which is to be anticipated is anything but "Liberal", which is to say anything but conducive to the best fostering of the Liberty of Good people. Leaving aside the overbearing facts of how human societies have tyrannically controlled their subset groups and individuals in the realms of religion, politics and art per se, just look at the overarching structures which manage these organs of the creation and dissemination of culture. Without focusing on the contents of what is created and disseminated into the public mind and personal mind, there are the considerations of who takes the active interest in how these factors are manifested in the world. Those who have the power of life and death over the tribe have always held out their patronage over those who create culture, extending to them, or withholding from them, a share in the resources which they control in order to ensure that the power of culture remains under their own thumb. One can hardly find any instance of anyone working in any sphere of culture who is not either under the direct influence of some local or national level of "authority", or else is operating as though an outlaw from such, and often in conditions that are hardly suitable for their best fostering of creative liberty. When one surveys the contents of the works of art in either case, one tends to find that the productions which were more directly under the control of authoritative hegemonies to be avoidant of the more daring and interesting possibilities in their field, and at the very least one can detect a certain "tug of the leash" in either each and every instance, or at the very least in the overall of their output. When they go beyond these limits, they tend to withhold their presentation of their work so as to avoid immediate dangers, taking risks only when the tides change significantly in the power structures that be. Otherwise, they tend to withhold such until their lives are nearly spent, or they feel they have nothing left to lose, or they have died. In any case, it tends to occur that the hegemons in power and in all aspects of power, and on each scale, tend to wish to reconstruct, directly or indirectly, the narratives within and about such works and their creators. To speak of the outliers who tend to evade, more or less, such controlling influences, the same ends up happening whenever their works are discovered, just as though they were simply a transposition on the more belated forms of the mainstream operators in their field, since they end up with the same disposition at that point, and they and their works are disposed of in the same way by the hegemony with a stake in controlling their output and its impact on their own larger interests in control.
One wonders in this light why people obstinately believe that their precious "holy books" are immune to such real world considerations, especially when there is abundant evidence that those artifacts of culture are the most heavily cobbled together, misattributed, apocryphal, edited, re-edited, redacted, distorted and destroyed in the whole pantheon of cultural relics and icons. "One wonders", that is, until one discovers the only reasonable complex of causes. Many of these are openly portrayed by many controversial figures in culture, past and present. The form and content of their works still live on in the mutilated reflections which can still be found in many productions found in the mainstream of culture, and the indices of distortion can also further serve to ramify the thesis of what was truly intended, and what was and is intended by those who overrule those works with their own agendas. These indices answer to only one intelligible interpretation which shows that Plato was precisely correct about the way in which art, and culture in general, are always going to be the handmaidens of corrupt power mongers.
My own efforts to engage in the proper duties of my own offices have been heavily affected by these same forces, which is what drew my attention to them in a way which could truly be said to be extremely greater than it ever would have been if I had not been so directly affected. It could also be said that while I would not have ceased investigating such matters in general or as they came up regardless, I would have also been able to spend more due time investigating specifics of what I set out here in the most general of terms, and perhaps even in the scholarly fashion which was demanded of me by my professors when writing mere term papers on very narrow subjects. My time and resources have been hobbled by these forces of which I speak here, and so it would be fair to say that I cannot be expected to do much more than I have, given the circumstances. It would also be fair to say that I have an abundance of personal, anecdotal, but also poignant experiences to reference in my own studies of these forces and their consequences which, though sometimes rather difficult to demonstrate to third parties with empirical substance to back them as facts, they yet form a constellation of events which dovetail precisely with the general features of the topography of these issues which I had already surveyed before my personal relationship with these forces began to "materialize". Many of these events could be coherently explained only after the focus had shifted to these channels of consideration, which became salient to their explanation sometimes only long after the fact of their occurrence, and often only with a long series of such events, often paralleled in multiple areas and on multiple scales. And since my objective has been to realize what the nature of reality precisely is and not to merely persuade others of the feasibility of some narrow modifications to the edifices of culture, I don't apologize for this in the first place. I have always preferred to get to the essence of things myself rather than give others a guided tour of the unrestricted areas in the main lobby. I don't look with much approval on either the character of those who have, nor with much envy on what they have accomplished in their power-brokered ensconcements, either, who restrict themselves to being the lap-poodles of hegemonized pseudo-cultures of facades covering rackets of extortion for influence and control. Ditto with regard to any pretended goals or purposes of such.
That is why I have continued to work at my projects as I have, because I do them for the love of Realizing Reality and the Essence of Truth, for the sake of Justice, and with a genuine love of my Liberty to do so. I don't give the slightest damn how a world of fools and hypocrites, cowards and liars, traitors and miscreants, will judge me or my work. It might have been an important factor in a different world, a real one, but we don't live in that world, we live in this one. And judging by the way its cultural forces are arrayed, it has shown profound disrespect toward, and has indeed desecrated all that to which it pretends to love and admire and protect. So in direct proportion to this, I show them my due irreverence. Those who haven't and don't have cast their lot on the other side of this chasm. To antivalently polarized, and distinctly dichotomous destinies go these.
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