The attempt to destroy the individual

The attempt to destroy the individual

by Jon Rappoport

May 27, 2013

NoMoreFakeNews.com

What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It’s the individual that’s finished. It’s the single, solitary human being that’s finished. It’s every single one of you out there that’s finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It’s a nation of some two hundred odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods.” — Howard Beale, in Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 film, Network

But that was only a movie. Who cares about that? You go into a theater, sit there in the dark for a couple of hours, walk out, and think about something else.

For several years now, I’ve been writing about the decline of the individual. The wipeout.

Every time I write an article on this subject, I receive suggestions. I should go back and re-read Marx. I need to understand the difference between “communal, communitarian, community, communist.” I should research worker-owned businesses. What about trans-substantial transpersonal sub-brain algorithmic psychology? How about the pygmies? Ego? Superego? Id?

I appreciate these and other remarks, but I’m talking about the individual, about Self, beyond any construct, beyond citizenship, beyond membership, beyond sociology or anthropology or archeology.

The individual is enshrined in various political documents, but his rights don’t originate there. Neither does courage nor imagination.

I’ve laid out the enormous psyop designed to submerge the individual in unconscious goo. This psyop depends on the repetition of words like: unity, love, caring, community, family. And phrases like “we’re all in this together.”

The individual is characterized as: lone, outsider, selfish,greedy, inhumane, petty. Turn him into an exile, excommunicated from the great body of humanity.

Here, in the usual prose, is a familiar formulation of the grand psyop: “We can no longer afford the luxury of thinking of ourselves as individuals. The stakes are too high. Finally, we must all come together and realize our presence on this planet is a shared experience. The decimation of our resources, through hatred and divisive behavior, the denial of love and community, the cold greed and excessive profit-making, the whole range of social and political injustices—all this can ultimately be laid at the door of the individual who refuses to join the rest of humanity…”

Is this manifesto valid? It’s a deception, BECAUSE it’s aimed at making the individual extinct.

And once that happens, the collective, managed by Globalist princes, will have a clear path to the control of Earth, at the expense of the rest of us. And the cruelties we now witness will pale in comparison to what is in store for us.

When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse…The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause…Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer [who surrenders Self] is to the whole — the church, party, nation — and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society.” — Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, 1951

Wait. Isn’t that a bit harsh? Isn’t that too “critical and negative?” Where is the cosmic share-and-care we need to spread like butter over the whole universe? I mean, Eric Hoffer was a wonderful writer, and he was a working man, a longshoreman for his whole life, so we should admire him, but today’s prophets are wired directly into the Unity that will save us all automatically—like a toaster popping up with toast every time…right?


On some mid-west college campus, a wide-eyed kid of 19, full of hope and optimism, is studying political science. His professor is running down the catalog of stunning injustices that populate far-off regions of the planet.

The boy wants to help. His professor gives him the name of a humanitarian group that runs operations in Africa. The boy, in some sort of “personal crisis,” drops out of school and signs on with the group.

Little does he know that the charity he is now working with in Africa has ties to USAID, which in turn is a solid CIA front. The real mission of the charity, unknown to most or all of its members, is gathering information that can be used as intelligence.

Under the banner of justice, help, hope, and unity of all peoples, the charity is providing actionable intell to CIA-backed “rebel forces” who are carrying out assassinations and bombings in advance of a political coup.

The coup will pave the way for new deals with multinational scum, organized as corporations, to enter the scene and plunder natural resources and labor at more formidable levels.

Five years later, the boy leaves the charity and returns to the US. He is confused, looking for another group in which he can submerge himself. He’s hooked on groups…

The naïve have given up the ghost on their own independent existence. That is the key.

Think of some of the messages of recent pathetic presidents. Bush the Elder: “Kinder, gentler.” Clinton: “I feel your pain.” Bush 2: “No child left behind.” Obama: “We’re all in this together.”

Judging by these presidents’ murderous actions, it’s clear they were selling unity and caring and togetherness as cover stories for oppressive business as usual.

The op? Make the individual extinct, present him as a useless and dangerous and outmoded construct. Then, whatever real unity that might exist between individuals will vanish, because the population will take on the shape of a coagulated mass melted down into a cosmic glob of androidal harmony.

Artists have warned about all this. Their so-called supporters say, “Oh yes, he was a wonderful writer. Misunderstood, of course, but brave in the face of utter rejection.” The usual claptrap. Point is, these gushing advocates conveniently and easily forget what the artists actually wrote.


Here is another reminder from an Outsider who was glad to be outside. He was a hero to some. He was reviled by many.

A bureau operates on opposite principles of inventing needs to justify its existence. Bureaucracy is wrong as a cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action to the complete parasitism of a virus…Bureaus die when the structure of the state collapse. They are as helpless and unfit for independent existence as a displaced tapeworm, or a virus that has killed the host.”

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”

There is simply no room left for ‘freedom from the tyranny of government’ since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.”

The author? William S. Burroughs. But not to worry, he was crazy. Of course he was. He didn’t profess utter loyalty to the mass of humanity. He didn’t prostrate himself before “the greater good.” He didn’t preach unity and togetherness.

He was an individual. Therefore, he is obsolete. A cherished memory of a time now wiped from the mind. Now we are all dancing and marching in the psyop.

Here’s another psyop and cultural theme: the distortion of money and the free market.

The psyop goes this way: The making of $$ is a religious event comparable to the arrival of Jesus or the appearance of the Great Buddha. Indeed, isn’t Christmas the season measured by consumer sales?

A life justified is a life of the bottom-line cash register, a poem to make Shakespeare turn pale with envy.

It doesn’t matter what a product is. If it sells, it must be good. It must mean something profound.

Nail polish, a new plastic toy, a little robot that sings songs—they’re Walt Whitman and Michangelo and Bach because they jumped off store shelves.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are geniuses because they and their companies amassed billions. It has to be so.

The team that put together Goofy Bird III, the summer blockbuster hit, are the Chaucers of our time. The box office proved it.

What product makes more money than any other? War. Therefore, Jesus wore a white leisure suit and played golf with generals and made deals for weapons systems.

If a young man or woman today wants to express his true individuality and succeed with other like-minded individuals who have no fear of failure, the two businesses to go into are war and banking. My father told me that, and it’s stood me in good stead all these years. It’s the apotheosis of America…”

An artist named Paddy Chayefsky, in his film, Network, covered this waterfront pretty well:

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and sub-atomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and You Will Atone!”

Hail to the collective, managed from the top. Ah, but as I said, Network was just a movie.


Who cares about American artists? They need monuments and grants here and there, if they’re still alive, but…taking them seriously? Who would want to do that? They’re just…INDIVIDUALS.

Who would want to keep the individual alive, especially the free, independent, and creative individual? We can learn all we need about that by listening to TED lectures!

Here is another quote from an American artist. This one is REALLY not in the politically correct mode. I mean, how dare he!:

Tomorrow you may bring about the destruction of your world. Tomorrow you may sing in Paradise above the smoking ruins of your world-cities. But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you—MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am.” — Henry Miller, Black Spring, 1936

And this! From the most celebrated American poet of all! Is this what he really wrote?

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself/And what I assume you shall assume/For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you/I loafe and invite my soul/I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass/…Creeds and schools in abeyance…I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked…The smoke of my own breath/Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine…The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides/The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.” — Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, I, II, VI & LII

A celebration of self, and self expanded out into limitless dimensions?

And this is is our real poet laureate?

Something must be wrong.

Yes, the individual, the self—these individual artists—far too messy, too uneven, too unpredictable, too complex to fit into a scheme of the future in which we’ll all be subsumed in a cosmic order.

No, the individual, the self, must be shaved and carved so we can all meld together in a simplified enlightenment.

Here, from the universally acclaimed author of Moby Dick, Herman Melville, another quote that sticks out from the great uniform mass of group-think:

There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,—why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag, — that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.”

There is no doubt; these Individuals are too thorny, too different—and even different from each other. How can we build a world of unity and unified enlightenment if we let them in the door?

We must erase the memory that these people ever existed. We need to cut down space and time, leave them out, and outfit a new continuum so it will accept only the brainwashed and reduced and harmonized desires of the collective.

Yes. That’s it.

Let’s cause everyone to accept one of two things. We are either “all in this together forever,” or money is the supreme and final god of all time and space. Those are the two choices. They both flatten out the soul and prepare it for the endless gray day.

The Individual must be put into permanent exile. We can’t even say what he is. We can’t define him. We can’t hold him within borders. We can’t know what he’ll do.

Sometimes he’s up, sometimes he’s down, sometimes he’s sideways. Sometimes he embraces the whole cosmos, sometimes he’s alone in a room.

The new world can’t have him. For sake of the coming glory, he has to exit.

The Great Psyop hath spoken.


So, you see, when it comes to freedom, I’m not talking about columns and columns of people marching in one direction, most of them moving ahead together, and a few dropping out and scattering. I’m not talking about a billion androids, among whom a few thousand defect.

I’m not talking about androids or columns of marchers at all. I’m talking about Self. The individual apart from any coordinated picture, apart from any tedious idea about what a human being is.

I don’t care whether he chooses to live in a one-room apartment in New York or a commune in Georgia. I don’t care whether he votes Republican or Democrat or the Party of Golden Lucifer. I don’t care about any of those distinctions, because they all proceed from some horrendous and mutilated idea, some shrunken desiccated idea of what the Self IS in the first place.

Well, we’re really all the same, so the choices a person has aren’t that important…”

We’re really all the same AFTER the great curtain has lowered on the individual and his psyche and his imagination and his daring. Yes, THEN we’re all the same. And then it doesn’t matter what the individual thinks or does, or whether he goes left or right or stays down the middle. THEN he begins to concoct systems and counter-systems and parochial visions he wants to impose on everyone else.

The truth is, we’re all different, astonishingly different. So different, in fact, that left to our own devices, over a long enough span of time, how each one of us would express his deepest thoughts and inventions would make the world into a completely different place.

The individual, the Self, isn’t just a little different or moderately different or quite different. The individual is a revolution all his own, a living breathing revolution.

He can become and identify with any other thing or creature in the universe—or not. He can think with seventeen brains and walk on eight legs if he wants to. He can be Self inventing more Self. He can destroy all forms and shapes of slavery—most importantly his own.

He can love and he can hate. He can experience and create emotions that have never been dreamed of. He can dance with the angels on the head of a pin or drift off past the stars.

He knows freedom is real, and he doesn’t have the slightest interest in interfering with another’s freedom.

This is what political and social movements are FOR: to establish enough freedom for the individual, any individual, so that he can then, if he wants to, become what he is, which is to say, invent his existence entirely according to his own fecund imagination. It will not be a copy of anyone else’s existence. It will not even be close.

After enough time has elapsed, it will be astonishing.

I know many people who believe they are already free and are already living life exactly the way they want to. This is preposterous. At a superficial level, yes. But beyond that, there are oceans of potential expression and invention they haven’t begun to fathom. If by “free” they mean relatively unencumbered by outside forces, but locked down tight as a drum from the inside, then yes, they are free, and good luck to them.

I’ve quoted artists in this essay because I want to impart at least some sense of how different we are from each other. This doesn’t mean we can’t bridge the gulf; of course we can. In fact, it becomes far easier when each of us is speaking with a Voice uncoupled from the “wisdom” of this joke of a society in which we currently live.

The ultimate and permanent fusion of all things is a myth and fairy tale. It’s a fairy tale bought by people who have never ventured off the reservation to discover and invent their own Voice.


Exit From the Matrix


If all this is true, then why do I write about the crimes of the medical cartel, the crimes of Monsanto, the corrosive destruction wrought by television? Why bother with any of this? Because I’m for authentic movements to end these crimes. The mafias of this world are out to gain as much control as possible…and finally and ultimately, this means a war against the freedom of every individual. It means writing the individual and his enormous untapped potential out of existence.

When the android-uniformity of all individuals is being sold as marvelous unity, that needs to be pointed out. When millions of people believe uniqueness=uniformity=unity, that’s more Orwellian than Orwell, and it needs to be pointed out.

Jon Rappoport

The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

32 comments on “The attempt to destroy the individual

  1. Gina says:

    This has been one of the easiest concepts for the Matrix masters to hide from the masses. They can turn it inside out, upside down, left, right and sideways and so no one will ever figure it out, the puzzle of all puzzles. Yes – groups, conformity, & we’re all in this together = freedom according to Matrix philosophy.

    And this is why it’s so easy to manipulate: For, we DO deserve and should aspire to be INDEPENDENT, free-thinking souls BUT we also need each other – we need to be INTERDEPENDENT with one another as the true wealth in this world is not the fiction called money but is in fact love, community, and recognition of our equality with one another as sovereign, free human beings. Independent but interdependent – a fanatastic tapestry of billions of unique, individual souls who live & play in harmony & reliance with one another.

    A beautiful concept, but yet one that has been so easily manipulated for thousands and thousands of years.

  2. bleak says:

    “No, the individual, the self, must be shaved and carved so we can all meld together in a simplified enlightenment.”

    Exactly. And that is what Freemasons do. That is why they are here. To carve us up and fit us together a stone carving at Pumapunku. A world without borders and tariffs on goods and services (like guns, drugs and humans). So tightly refined that even a credit card won’t fit in between the cracks. Their CRAFTsmanship is all around us.

  3. freebird888 says:

    Jon, I find your articles so insightful, inspirational and intelligently written. I’m glad I found you!

  4. “Western Culture” is THE cancer. It seeks out “other” cultures, infests them, and replicates itself. It is why all “regime change” looks the same and has the same end.

    “Regime change” in America was no different. It could not have been, as it was borne from the bowels of Western Culture. It appears different only because we buy the lie that our “Founding Fathers” (how quaintly patriarchal) were working for “freedom” and “the good of the populace.”

    Individualism becomes egalitarianism (not Western,” everyone is equal” egalitarianism, but the true egalitarianism of, everyone’s voice deserves the respect to be heard and listened to) the governing structure of all indigenous cultures.

    (As an anthropology major and once archaeologist, I can attest that the stories we have been told about past “primitive” cultures are lies.)

  5. hybridrogue1 says:

    “I should go back and re-read Marx. I need to understand the difference between ‘communal, communitarian, community, communist.’ I should research worker-owned businesses.”

    Right…riiiiiiiiight…{grin} The fact is, having read Marx and Amitai Etzioni, ‘Communitarianism’ is nothing but ‘Communism’ with 7 extra letters to bewilder the naive.

    Just read this impressive load of one sided bilge by the Communist, Fazal Rahman. I say ‘one sided bilge’ meaning that Rahman totally misframes the Hegelian Dialectic under a complex and convoluted flow of seemingly “reasonable” rhetoric.

    As I noted in a comment on that page, what is totally ignored is the sovereign place of the individual in natural philosophy – it isn’t even considered in these neo-Marxist ruminations. There isn’t even a passing apologia applied in this “analysis”. The final conclusion is that for these Marxists, the individual simply does not exist.

    Call me Jacks flaming disgust.

    \\][//

  6. sistertongue says:

    Exactly, mate. Thank you.

    Missive from an exile – and happy to be so named and treated.

  7. I was raised by a real Ukrainian, my mother June. This is how her people responded to a despotic Turkish sultan they had just defeated, and who still wished to rule them. I took this from a wikipedia entry by the way 🙂

    To whit:

    ————
    Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

    O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil’s kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can’t slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil excretes, and your army eats.

    You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we’ve no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee,

    fuck your mother.

    You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and

    the crick in our dick.

    Pig’s snout, mare’s arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow,

    screw your own mother!

    So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won’t even be herding Christian pigs. Now we’ll conclude, for we don’t know the date and don’t own a calendar; the moon’s in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day’s the same over here as it is over there;

    for this kiss our arse!

    –Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

    ———————-

    PS Rick Danko was a Ukrainian-Canadian farm boy, a Cossack by blood.

  8. […] Jon Rappoport | Jon Rappoport’s Blog “What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing […]

  9. Dr. Orson says:

    I’ve striven to share what I’ve learned about natural healing, for instance, for the past 60 years. I’ve never turned anybody away for lack of money. For the most part the sound, sane advice I have offered people falls on deaf ears. I believed in Socialism in its purest, most spontaneous form for most of my life. Somehow I manage to remain an optimist even though most people are surly, self-indulgent followers of any lying mountebank that says the right words.

    911 was the ultimate testing of the peoples tolerance for manipulation by a military/intelligence cabal, which successfully holds our government hostage. The people are helpless to bring the perps to justice. Knowing this, where does individual liberty come into play? As I have said before, what is that all-powerful ‘self’ – the indomitable “individual” that Jon talks about – going to do when the bombs are dropping on their heads, as in Vietnam, Iraq etc. Will we think positive thoughts, celebrate our individuality as we stand alone and become immolated? Will our creativity save us? Or is this all a middle class pipe dream, we who are comfortable, take yoga classes, watch our calories and have no idea what it’s like to be under siege?

    Any meaningful justice for the average human being has come by way of fed up working people getting their heads bashed in by corporate goons and scaring the hell out of the rulers. Ever since Roosevelt, the corporate cabal has been positioning itself with the help of its media whores in such a way as to make it impossible for that to happen ever again.

  10. consentient says:

    Reblogged this on Consentient and commented:
    Real shared values, like love, solidarity and mutual aid, are not wrong, nor do they threaten the individual; because they come from reason and autonomy, not violence and heteronomy.

    But please, do not assume that anyone who merely conjures these words believes in them, or has good intentions. Be careful because MOST of the people in positions of power want nothing to do with these shared values, other than to exploit them. They are just an excuse for taking more power and control.

  11. Greg says:

    A lot to think about.

    What sickens me most about our rotting culture is that the idea of “freedom” and “individualism” is now being sold back to the public as a commodity that can be attained if you believe the “right” things and are willing to spend the money.

    This is most obvious in the way corporate America has co-opted the “Live Free Or Die” ethic of the outlaw biker gangs that took hold in the post WW2 era and continue to flourish (twisted or not, they have a distinct philosophy of who and what they are and do not compromise it).

    This idea of American individualism, however, has been corrupted, marketed and sold to a vacuous segment of our culture that thinks riding a Harley down to the local 50’s style diner or “watering hole”, costumed-up in Harley Davidson brand leathers, tshirt, boots, and do-rag, is somehow supposed to make them “free”.

    This accomplished, they can now feel good about themselves as they sit comfortably in the Lexis on Monday morning sipping Starbucks from their Harley Davidson travel cup, stuck in traffic on the way to their certified financial planners job, day dreaming about next weeks “run” to their next “rebel” adventure.

    It’s the delusion that, if one can somehow buy the right lifestyle, or superimpose oneself into the right beer commercial ambiance, life will be complete; the American Dream realized.

    And the mass state of arrested development that is the American Public continues…

  12. Sam Spade says:

    If you wish to be an individual you must begin to act like an individual. Read Delmar England’s “Insanity As The Social Norm

    (Don’t know if this site supports HTML, so here’s the link):

    http://www.anarchism.net/anarchism_insanityasthesocialnorm.htm

    Sam

  13. Sam Spade says:

    Incidentally, I am a sovereign state.

    Sam

  14. Sorensen says:

    Originally as individuals gained wealth and power they realized that other individuals were going to be a threat to them so they are using their power to create a non threatening mass conscious collective.
    They have no intention of getting rid of “all” individuals since that would mean the elimination of themselves!
    A good example was Stalin who was a powerful individual who did everything he could to eliminate individuals he deemed a threat to his power!

  15. Just a small town girl says:

    Standing, Clapping, Cheering, Hooting, Hollering Yahooo! Great article and so eloquently presented !

  16. Orpheus Bradley says:

    Jung himself thought that mass movements that bound individuals to collectives, submersing them in unreflective intoxication with archetypes in the collective subconscious, were the great evil of the post WW II world: see “The Undiscovered Self” for his impassioned response to Naziism, Communism, and consumerism and his plea that the individual be allowed to work out his/her individuality and integration.

  17. Rose says:

    As much as I would change the world, my ability to effect massive change is limited to a very small realm around myself, and everything I do, I do not know if my consciousness is your consciousness, yet we may be the same consciousness having an individualized experience. I do not know if my existence is exactly as I am perceiving it to be or if the experience I am having, here, isn’t an animated atom producing facsimile of projected experience. I do not know if the history of the world is correct or dictated but I suspect the myths of light and dark, are vying for my attention. That the closer I come to awakening the more forceful and chaotic must become the distraction to keep me from, actualizing…the sharded Consciousness becoming aware of ‘itself’ and awakening from the the imposition of, the nightmare matrix. Seeing truth about the fabric of lies I have been lulled by, both historically and personally, are required to awaken to, from, the matrix. I must know the lies I tell myself as well as break the spell of the lies others have told me are reality.

    If we are shared consciousness we can ONLY recognize it by the act of individual awakening. The only truly effective way of creating an influence is to encourage by example our personal awakening, that those around ourselves inspire the remembering of that which within our self identifies with the condition of reaching towards this enlightenment…being why philosophers and sages inspire us, because we identify connection to, their ponderings as our own ponderings. When consciousness examines itself it reaches the same universal truths.

    Buddha under the bodhai, Plato in the allegory of the caves, Christ in the wilderness, the list goes on, contemplated and by contemplation, evolved. The only solution is evolution, the only thing we have ‘to evolve’ is self.

  18. Jose D Monjardin says:

    Love your work Jon! Read it all the time.

    Ever look in to The Venus Project? I think you would love it. 🙂 God bless you John!

    http://www.thevenusproject.com/

  19. J. C. Barullo says:

    Not all ideas are worthy of consideration. But that is a function of individual understanding, tastes, etc. Collectivism seeks to submerge individualism in a sea of sameness. if each person were able to express individualism without fetters we would indeed be astounded at the variations and beauty (also some ugliness). It is not western culture but this nutty extrapolation we now see in its extreme. What we have is not really the old form of western culture. What we have is the new form of corporate materialistic collectivism designed to create a ready made society of automatons and drones programmed to react to stimulus and to consume. You all had better read John Gatto’s excellent book “Weapons of mass instruction.”

  20. Anthony says:

    Whitman was the prophet of the world you see around you, the body electric, that technology would set us free. But as soon as you require something to set you free, guess what, you become its captive. It gets the cat-bird seat and yet what is it?

    It was the contagion of the time, with Emerson and the rest. A few voices were half-heartedly raised against it like Thoreau.

    Bach is interesting in that he looked forward in the correct way. That technology and knowledge was not a liberator, or an idol, something to be set up and worshipped, or even to be used for personal advantage, but for praising its source.

    Then it does not cling. You fight against the easy targets. You should charge against that which you respect and love. Then you will grow, and either deepen your knowledge and love, or throw it off altogether.

    People will not understand it, and think you an enemy, for who acts in that way? But you do not improve in chess by playing with those who give you an easy win.

  21. rathbonez says:

    “The naïve have given up the ghost on their own independent existence. That is the key.”
    I do not necessarily know if it is the naive, but rather there is a predominant psychological factor underway called “learned helplessness.” These people have learned they are not individuals, that as individuals they can do nothing. They have been taught this.
    The rules of society have forced out their independence and sense of self. For more on this Jon: http://rathbonezvizionz.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/rules-of-the-world-and-those-who-follow-them/

  22. babylovet says:

    I think taking the world apart and putting it back together again through art is about the most thrilling thing a human can do.

    And you can put it back together — or not — however you want.

    The reason lots of people find composers like Mingus and Bruckner, as well as surreal visual artists, “difficult” is because their creations poses alternative rules, behaviors and worlds and thus can be kind of scary. Each constitutes a whole universe at once emerging from yet separate from what is taught to be conceived of as “real”. These universes intersect and intertwine in webs of ecstasy.

    But these are not scary and can actually be entered and exited at will by those inclined to do so. Go along for the ride and see what happens, discover what revelations are being bestowed.

    All human cultures pose limitations geared for their own survival and propagation and most do not serve those individuals who aspire to be most truly human. They require artists to smash the mold. The individual is able to see past those limitations. Easily. But it takes some courage to do so.

  23. gabriel logue says:

    Wow. only today did i realise, that to be completely in sync and to be fully in tune with the universe required Me to be first fully Myself, I became aware that is the only way. gabe

  24. Eric says:

    This truly is the way the world works now and it is indeed frightening. If the powers that be do completely succeed, there will be nothing but carbon copy, cookie cutter debt slaves in absolute monetary servitude to the echelon.

    Gabe, the last individual to make a comment, has it all figured out. The only way for humanity to flourish is for each individual to be his/her perfectly unique piece to the universe’s puzzle.

    So, the question that I pose is, how do we enlighten everyone to these facts and motivate them to act. Nothing can stop all the people! That’s also where the fear lies.

    http://truthpub.com

  25. Deborah says:

    Jon, your commentary, as always, is brilliant and backed up by the “elite thinkers” thinking… Ha! At this point, anyone with a mind left already gets the point. Now the question is WHY?

    It’s useless to argue a point with a different side unless you understand their motivation. The motivation is the key. Otherwise, you’re just putting out little fires (although they are SERIOUSLY BIG fires, from my standpoint…).

    What do you think is the “big picture” WHAT do you feel is the point of this?

    Brilliant man that you are, I would enjoy your response. Be well.

  26. Deborah says:

    @Anthony, a voice of reason. Thanks. And Jon, you’re always a voice of reason that I look forward to in my inbox. Be well

  27. Micha'el says:

    I know a number of such 19 year olds. It is a true instance of the saying “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

  28. g3 says:

    beautifull blue green orb with lace…………gaia her name

    simple maths jon ……….eloquent way u have defined their game

    3d biological living planet…….. herself…………….an individual.

    as above so below
    …………..her decision respected
    ……… ………..u all know

    freedom…………freedumb……………u me we………….all

    are free 2 choose

    befitting 42 life

    or not………………

    human
    2/3 of gaia u may use with respect
    1/3 belongs 2 gaia………..call it sustain all

    she is the thing
    u me we all have the same.in common
    we are at this point in tym

    air breather
    food eater
    ………….3d bio………….life

    2 b or not……………….e art h ear t…………………

  29. edgy says:

    All of you on this planet are at this very moment being subjected to an assault on the integrity of your cells, (including the one’s located in your brains) by the global-wide geo-engineering programs currently taking place here…the objective of these programs is to replace the natural world with a synthetic/artificial version of nature..the singularity, as it’s referred to….So, whilst you all lament the decline of the individual, the entire eco-system of this planet ( & everything in it ) is being rapidly destroyed…the agenda has been ramped up considerably in the past year…your sun is becoming increasingly dimmer by the day, your sky a lighter blue, & artificial clouds now fill your skies…the morgellons symptoms manifesting in some individuals (present, but dormant in the rest ) are a result of this project…fortunately, the predicted coming corona mass ejections offer some hope ( for those located on the ‘right’ side of the globe that is ) for an end to this insanity…unfortunately, it will all be repeated ad infinitum, because the majority of the entities that incarnate/ inhabit this planet (not just the ruling elites ) are on a low evolutionary curve…So it has always been, & so shall it continue… your parade is going to get soaked…ta-da

  30. Ian T. MacLeod says:

    Excellent piece, Jon – thank you! Sad though that it requires people who CAN read, DO read and are already on that road to actually get it. I thought this might be a sidestep into egotism (an occasional hazard) versus egoism, so I asked a couple of others what they thought: “Too deliberately poetic” (Meaning “I don’t get it”). “Too much work to read” (Meaning “I usually just read the newspaper – I like the comics and Astrology pages”). Und so weiter. I learned in high school that if you ever try to “…join up with a group of real individualists,” you haven’t.

    Well thought, well written, much appreciated.

    Ian

  31. Olga says:

    Thank You, Jon, for Your brilliant articles!

  32. timetowakeupamerica@example.com says:

    This is another excellent article, that should be read with Jon’s article, above:

    Stop Financializing the Human Experience
    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/08/stop-financializing-the-human-experience.html

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