Slippin' Into Darkness

Slippin' into darkness
Take my mind beyond the dreams

There's beauty in the breakdown and we need to find it. Our culture on all levels is breaking down, circling the drain, and slippin' into darkness. We can see this in the general movement not just of statistics, the expansion of opiate addiction, the high incidence of addiction, depression, anxiety and general stress. In addition, for the first time in a very long time our life-expectancy has gone down quite unusual for any developed country. A recent report by the UN Special Monitor's on extreme poverty made it plain our country has a major poverty problem in addition, we know that half the population wouldn't be able to come up with $400 in an emergency and this re-enforces other statistics. Over a 40 year period the US has seen a steady rise in the percentage of money going to the very rich at an unchanging rate no matter the political party that control the Presidency or Congress. The fact we don't seem more in decline has to do with the in the gaming of statistics to make it appear things aren't as bad as they are. How this happened has been well-documented by some economists on the left and largely ignored by economists on the right and center and who are favorites of the mainstream media. In addition, it became obvious for a decade and a half that the place we put most of our resources, the military, has been unable to actually prevail in conflicts it has engaged in except in very limited ways--at the same time our reputation for honesty, pragmatism has given way for the perception by most people in the world that we are the greatest threat to world peace because of our aggressive military and covert wars in at least half the world. Over the years the United States and Israel are the two states that have been consistently ignoring international law, treaties and agreements of all kinds and even the Geneva Conventions on War that the US once favored and supported--to such a degree that I can safely state today that there is simply no such things as "international law" any more. We are not only the only country that does not have some kind of universal health-care system but we are the only developed country that seeks to not only ignore the poisoning and pollution of the environment but actively resists climate science and any field that puts into question the world-view that life is strictly about the strong exploiting natural resources and the working-class throughout the world. We appear to embrace the philosophy of might makes right.

The problem here is that there is no clear way to move beyond this situation. The power-structure is impregnable. The power-elite control the media-narrative and there is, despite all the storm and fury, no viable opposition to the main lineaments of the situation I described above. We imagine that there are deep political difference among different factions but they are minor--all sides seem to accept the  notion that the fundamental meaning of life lies in consumerism/materialism. The alleged "left" has, for the most part, become another right-wing faction--largely pro-military, pro-corporate whose politicians pretend to be concerned with economic inequality and the environment but when they've had the ability to do something about it they demur and wave their hands to indicate their concern--"I feel your pain" as Bill Clinton used to say. Both political parties (the system only allows two parties) vie for corporate money and support and have no interest in change and both sides deliberately champion an overall vision of American Exceptionalism. I've been kind of shocked at the depth of this view, even now, contrary to all evidence, Americans on the left, right and center still believe that our country should run and police the world.

We are, clearly, living in a post-rational society. Most of the issues and problems we face all have clear and scientifically verified solutions whether in health-care, education, transportation, diplomacy/war, crime, addiction, mental health, and so on. In all those and many other areas those clear solutions (there are more than a couple) are consistently ignored in favor of only actions that don't upset the status-quo and don't take away business from major corporate cartels. These solutions and possible policies are mainly ignored by the mainstream media for obvious reasons thus these ideas are only spread on the Internet particularly in social media--however, because of the signal to noise ratio being very low on the Internet the real ideas that are real gems are lost and, because of a bad educational system, we are unable to sift through the mess and are rapidly diminishing ability to communicate and socialize makes real debate and discussion, even in academic circles, next to impossible even if we took a rational approach to these matters.

There are people in dissident circles who think "outside the box" on both the left, right and, even better, those people who think logically and with compassion who are all around but in very small numbers.

I find that this movement into a post-rational age began with the fairly consistent and rapid move to the right in our culture starting with the late 70's and increasing consistently. The modern conservative movement has been in reaction to modernism, skepticism and uncertainty. They meet the challenge of modernity by trying to simplify everything into "good" and "bad." Or as George Bush liked to say, you are either for us or against us. The point is that the right while not completely ignoring rational and scientific thought rejects, automatically, anything that violates the assumptions of their ideology. In short, this ideology consists of the notion that human beings are deeply flawed and need to be corrected and coerced into living the right way. People should be deferential to authority, unless that authority is centrist or on the left as they view it, their often skewed notion of traditions, and the ideology that life is about hard-work and that hard-work is rewarded and that reward reflects their virtue--or more to the point, if you make money you are virtuous if you are poor you are immoral and should be punished. The saying, "the beatings will continue until morale improves" is apt here. This is why right-wingers depend on enemies and struggle for power. They are, in short pessimistic about human beings. The left, in contrast, used to emphasize egalitarianism, the idea that people despite their material situation are basically of equal worth. They also believe that society ought to be nurturing to all people even the poor. Also, the left was open to social change to attempt to bring people of color, sexual minorities, and women into full citizenship and be regarded as worthy and, very importantly, liberals and progressives were open to new ideas, and rational discourse, alternative lifestyles, and creating a a convivial society. And the left was once very hesitant to go to war or to increase international tensions. But this has changed radically in recent decades. Today the left has devolved in an obsession with political correctness, identity politics, and, strangely, increasing international tension and war.

Ok, so, where is the beauty in the breakdown? How can I see the good side of all this? First, we need to see our era within a long-range historical context.

Even beyond the political tribalism we see the population as a whole is kind of marooned in a world of illusions, fantasies and unexamined assumption without the ability or interest in navigating out of it. The situation is utterly hopeless on the face of it and we appear destined for major conflict even low-grade civil war if we manage to avoid some kind of world-war.

All this actually can bring us to the next step in evolution and human development. The secret is to see this as an opportunity. If society is breaking down morally and socially and politics seems to offer us no way out except towards chaos. Recent studies of Congress show that Congress pays almost no attention to the interests of the American people and there is no way and no movement to remedy that situation since money, as time passes, rules the roost. The System we live in is systemically corrupt--reform is impossible--too many people are feeding off of both the governmental and corporate system which has become one and the same or at least tightly locked in together. The average person is not only a victim of drastic disinformation but also willingly pulls the wool over their own eyes. We have an inverted totalitarian system that is moving towards true totalitarianism or, at best, a neo-feudal set of arrangements. So what is left? We in the United States, in contrast to other developed states, have only one direction we can go in--spirituality. From the spiritual point of view as we circle the drain we have the opportunity to experience a more transcendent reality--one rooted in an expansion of consciousness left unfinished in the 60's through active government repression and fear of change. Today, that fear of change is dissipating because change is now a requirement, we have no choice but to dramatically change our culture towards a new ethical framework base on compassion, community and an opening of the heart. We need healing from the high degree of stress, depression. addiction, anxiety, confusion and so on. There are clear ways to relieve those problems that involve connecting with each other. Science has shown, unambiguously that our illnesses are caused by isolation, alienation and stress--these are easy to address by seeing each other as rothers and sisters rather than enemies or competitors. We will find, I believe, that the forces in the corporate and the government that want to hypnotize us into believing we are worthless unless we buy their products or follow their orders, will be seen for what they are--monstrous forces motivate by almost pure evil. Evil, after all, is ultimately about fragmentation, isolation, egotism and selfishness all qualities that our culture seems to want to push us towards.


When we see the world a bit more like it really is and begin to understand the forces at work in our own lives that keep happiness away we can begin to make changes in our lives. They will happen smoothly once we begin to cleanse the doors of perception through love, spiritual practice, various forms of therapy, psychedelic adventures, and connecting with the natural world and our own essential nature. This is fully possible in a dizzying array of methods and paths that are now available. We have a rich community of alternative practitioners that, rather than want to mask our symptoms and suppress the crises we go through will help us move through these blocks and gain power and agency. The system wants to weaken us the alternative community that has a different message wants to empower us. Of course, there are and will be dead-ends, mistakes, con-artists, and so on but if we keep our wits about us and avoid fantasies and spiritual glamor each of us can find our way. As more people begin to do that, very quickly, society will become nurturing rather than exploitative and we will experience a rapid paradigm shift that will finally allow us to enter into the real world of the 21st century and gradually be able to deal with the enormous challenges our globe faces with joy rather than trepidation and fear. Of course, we could also choose to further isolate ourselves dive deeper into darkness, deeper into escapism--the choice is ours.