Manufacturing Of Consent
February 25, 2010
This Noam Chomsky interview/documentary, entitled Manufacturing Consent, is based on the Noam Chomsky/Edward Herman book by the same name, and was complied by Necessary Illusions.
I won’t say too much about it, other than it relates beautifully to issues previously seen in An Introduction To Corporations… Insight Into Our Own Inner Needs/Greeds, Expanding Those Varied Stances Of Perception, Priming Of The Masses – The Century Of Self, Beau Lotto – Optical Illusions Show How We See, Letting Them Into Our Heads, and The Human Ape. So, bearing in mind the aspects raised in those previous blogs, enjoy this movie about how language, psychology, government and the media all interplay into modes of conformist herd mentality… A mentality that we are all prone to falling into if we are not aware of the mechanisms used…
To find out more about Noam Chomsky, and all the good work he’s doing here on Earth presently, please click here.
Or to read some of Edward Herman’s articles and books, please click here.
And… To find out more about Necessary Illusions, please click here.
P.S. A big thank you to Martin for the link to this…
While I applaud Noam Chomsky’s hope for change in United States, it would appear, based on the past year, that manufactured consent continues to hold sway with few signs of the types of changes he desires. My personal observations lead me to believe that humans do not always act out pure self interest (despite the paranoid delusions of John Nash as spread from the Rand Corporation)and quite often act altruistically. If one accepts this premise, what type of person would actively seek out to exploit others and create the misery the world offers the majority of its citizens? Do those who follow this path represent a small percentage of our population devoid of empathy (i.e. sociopathic behaviour)? It has been suggested in the documentary Corporations (http://misc.docuwat.ch/videos/?alternative=2&channel_id=0&skip=0&subpage=video&video_id=695) that the very power Noam talks about is sociopathic in behaviour. Is it possible to change with this deviant illness embedded in our societies or must this first be “cured”?
Yeah… Totally. I agree with you. Human beings are on the whole exceptional altruistic beings… This is something that is beautifully discussed in Susan Blackmore’s take on natural memetic selection for altruism, where she elegantly states why constructive attitudes would be selected for behaviourally, in her book entitled “The Meme Machine”…
Everyday I witness good deeds being done to others… And I try to do them myself whenever there is chance presented to me. On the whole, good deeds increase all of our chances of survival.
So yes… On the whole, people do NOT “always” act out of self interest… In fact, on the whole, people (I would say) act out of selflessness, to help others, to give back what they have received, and aid people in their journeys here on earth…
It is a feedback loop… We are meme machines. We simply use this structure of a brain to feedback what we have learnt. It’s classic psychology… Put a child in a loving home with a great up bringing, and 99% of the time they become happy, well adjusted, giving people… Place them into a home with violence, discouragement and anger, and most of the time, when they grow up, they will do the same i.e. criticise and bully.
I’m not familiar with John Nash’s “delusions,” as you call them… But I would urge one to understand what corporations are… And how they came about.
I’m not suggesting that corporations deliberately exploit people to maliciously maim others for the sake of creating misery. that in itself is quite a way out idea… !?!?!? Definitely not.
What I’m saying is that, when a corporation becomes too blinded, say by living their lives in offices in New York while discussing the oil rights of Ecuador, say… They become detached from the reality of the matter at hand i.e. the alternative stance of perception that the indigenous people’s of Ecuador, living in their forest (where the oil is), have on the matter… Their reality is that their forest is their home… They hunt off the land and can’t afford to loose their delicate niche of living so close to the earth, or any unbalance to their ecosystem. What right do we have to take away their land rights… Just because we went to school and have weapons of mass destruction??? WTF?
My gripe, and Chomsky’s gripe, is not with the fact that human’s are heartless bastards on the whole… That is total bullshit. You know it… And I know it.
What “we” should be having gripe with is that human perception can become detached from the many facets of understanding i.e. if allowed to, it can become one sided, to the point that it exploits others without even knowing that it is exploiting.
We should be placing ourselves in other peoples shoes… i.e. if aliens come down and kick us out of our homes and take our freedom, and all that we hold dear away from us… How would we feel?
If I may… I would like to offer these links to some blogs concerning illusions and perceptual stances, so that I can demonstrate how easily the human mind can be deceived and “lead” astray, especially if we only focus on one way of seeing things:
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/08/24/probably-the-best-optical-illusion-ive-seen-in-a-while/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/10/11/beau-lotto-optical-illusions-show-how-we-see/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/10/27/chimamanda-adichie-the-danger-of-a-single-story/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/09/28/tribute-to-edward-r-murrow-the-down-fall-of-television/
Battle for the Mind
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/09/03/another-take-on-reality-meme-myself-and-i/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/09/05/evidence-for-humans-being-meme-machines/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/09/05/infectious-people-spread-memes-across-the-web/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/09/13/the-century-of-self/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/12/18/this-is-bigger-than-climate-change-it-is-a-battle-to-redefine-humanity/
You don’t have to read all of these blogs… But it would be helpfully to look at the ideas behind them, as it’s all about understanding out psychological disposition i.e. understanding the way we function as a society in large groups. That’s the key to “Manufacturing Consent.”
And so, here, I would like to present a transcript from Noam Chomsky’s Q&A session after his M.I.T. Gaza talk:
As Professor Chomsky replied to the question posed to him in Expanding Those Varied Stances Of Perception (1 hour, 16 mins into the talk roughly), which asked “Professor Chomsky… While this may seem obvious, because you’ve touched on it time and time again… Why is it that the US media appears to completely lap up the propaganda while appearing to not do any sort of objective journalism which is what every single journalist student has, you know, studied to do? What in the world is going on???”
To this Chomsky replies, “Well for one thing I think the US media are just as good as any others. And if I had one newspaper in the world to read i.e. I couldn’t read any other, I’d pick the New York Times, because, I don’t love it as, you know… And the reporters themselves, not so much in the case of Israel, but in many cases, are courageous, honest… You know… They report what’s before their eyes… Are objective, if you like, but very typically, consistently, within a framework of interpretation that is subordinated to state corporate propaganda. Now that’s unconscious. And it’s true of the intellectual community generally…
“I mean, one of the reasons why I write about the media is because it’s easier to study the New York Times systematically, than to, say, study academic scholarship systematically, which is a huge effort beyond my resources. But it’s basically the same… You know, there aren’t any differences… And it’s the same in the general educated population, [where] there is an assumption that the US cannot do anything wrong… They can make mistakes, but can’t do anything wrong. Individuals may do things wrong, like there may be a bad apple here and there, but we can’t do anything wrong, as a people. So let’s, say, take the invasion of Iraq… Barack Obama is praised, even by the left, for what’s called his ‘principle of opposition’ to the Iraq war.
“What was his principled opposition? Basically that we can’t get away with it. He says it was a strategic blunder. Okay… If you go back to Pravda in the 1980s, when the Russians were invading Afghanistan, there plenty of people saying it was a strategic blunder. We don’t call that ‘principled opposition’ to the war. After Stalingrad there were plenty of Nazi generals who say that is was a strategic blunder to open a two front war. Are they principled opponents of the Nazis? I mean, the very idea that this is called ‘principled opposition’ is a very interesting insight into our own moral and intellectual culture. It’s totally unprincipled… It’s based on nothing except cross to us, and maybe there’s a couple of words like I don’t like civilian casualties. Err, but err… It’s very hard to find any principled opposition in the intellectual culture generally. And it’s also true of thing that go way back. Take the Vietnam war… You know, reams of material on that. But try to find a principled criticism of it in the mainstream. If you look at the literature of, say, the diplomatic history today or anything that goes way back… Well, you find two positions. And they are the Hawks, who say that with more force we could have won… And there are the Doves, who say that it was a lost cause; it was a mistake… Say, take Arthur Schlesinger, who was leading American historian, Kennedy advisor, and one of the most outspoken Doves, who did become… He was a strong supporter of the war under Kennedy to the extent that he paid any attention to it all, in fact he paid almost no attention to it… Even though Kennedy did directly attack attack South Vietnam and carried out many atrocities… If you look in Schlesinger’s journals there appears an almost day to day record of almost everything he did… There’s not even a mention of Vietnam, till the Johnson years. There’s a lot about swimming pools and who jumped in naked, and that sort of thing… Er… But nothing about Vietnam. But by 1966/67 he was like others becoming critical of the war. And he wrote a book which is considered one of the most important criticisms of the war, which is called ‘Bitter Heritage,’ where he was very explicit… You know, nothing hidden… He described his controversy with his friend, Joseph Alsop – a major journalist who was a strong supporter of the war… And Schlesinger says something like this… ‘You say we all pray that Mr Alsop is right and that with more force… You know, the surge of the day… We will be able to win victory in a land of wreck and ruin…’ With everything destroyed, and so on and so forth. ‘That’s what we all pray…’ but it probably won’t work. And then he said, ‘If Mr Alsop is right and we do win victory in this devastated land, we will all be praising the wisdom and statesmanship of the American Government.’ And that wasn’t ironic… He meant it. You know… And yet, yes, that’s the attitude of liberal world doves.
“That’s why when US causalities decline in Iraq, you know, people say well, you know, it really was a success. Okay, it killed a million people, and drove millions out of the country, destroyed a society, left it as a total ruin… Okay. But not too many American causalities and the big problem is that they are not doing what we say… You know… There is mass non violent resistance in Iraq… A major triumph of non violent resistance has compelled the invaders to back down from their, at least in words, from their major goals. Okay… But who describes things that way? You know… Where can you find a principled criticism?
“And this is not a critique of the press… Because the press are reflecting the educated culture. They’re reflecting the mentality of Harvard, M.I.T., you know… Yale and so on… That’s the culture from which they come. And I think that the reporting is very accurate… In fact a large part of what they’ve written is defensive of the press, for its professionalism and objectivity. You may know of a book that Edward Herman and I wrote called ‘Manufacturing Consent,’ which is about the media. There is a lot of condemnation of the book, but nobody looks at it. That’s material you’re not allowed to look at. It doesn’t keep to the party line. Err… But a large part of it, if anybody wants to look at it, is a detailed analysis of media coverage after the TED offensive. The TED offensive is a crucially important event. Err… And after the TED offensive the Freedom House, you know, great defender of freedom, published two thick volumes denouncing the press for their lack of patriotism… Because they didn’t report the TED offensive in a manner glorifying the United States efficiently.
“You know… Straight of Stalinist Russia that’s Freedom House. Err… Two volumes; one of commentary and one of documents. Err… And they claim that the volume of commentary, you know, condemned the press for being on the side of the Vietcong and hating America, and all the usual stuff… And there was the volume of documents that was supposed to back it up. Well, you know… I carried out the heinous act of actually reading the documents. Err… The volume of documents completely refuted everything that said in the volume of commentary, line by line… If you want details look at the book. We went through it and we concluded that contrary to the Freedom House Stalinist style attack the press was very courageous, competent and accurate… People describe what they said… But entirely within the framework of US doctrine. You know… US propaganda. So, like everything we were trying to do was right and noble, but we just had to destroy half the place because… Well, what choice did we have? It’s described accurately…
“Now, it’s interesting that the media hated that defence of their objectivity and professionalism… They would much rather be portrayed the way Freedom House portrayed them in its Stalinist Style Attack… As traitors, challenging authority, and so on and so forth. They like that. What they don’t like is you’re doing your job very competently and courageously but you’re completely subservient to propaganda and the party line. No body likes that… So that part of the book (Manufacturing Consent) can’t be read. But yeah… I think it’s generally true. And I think those are the reasons… I mean… There are other reasons too… Like the media Ethral R type big corporations, you know… Selling a product to their audiences about the corporations naturally has an effect… And so on…”
So to answer your question… Do those who follow this path (exploitation of their fellow men) represent a small percentage of our population devoid of empathy (i.e. sociopathic behaviour)?
I’d personally say no… Rather it’s the dynamics of mass human interaction and delusion that causes these structures of discontent and malicious action i.e. look at the slave trade… People in authority (while some might be maliciously bad apples) on the whole are just following policy…
Thus a cure would be meditation on compassion… Understanding the true nature of mind… I’m not religious in any sense… But I would say, if a system of training could be given to those in government and positions of power… Hell, let’s be daring and say the whole world could benefit from it… They perhaps they might be open minded enough to revamp certain policies and rework the single national story, into a global story…
So… Is it possible to change with this deviant illness embedded in our societies or must this first be “cured”?
I think it is… But we have to start with ourselves first i.e. still the mind and understand that meaning is a socially controlled aspect of our own reality… It’s not easy to un-learn things we’ve taken for granted for so long i.e. the certainty of Western policy, for example… But we should at least begin to if we are serious about making a change. It’s hard enough for people to be honest with themselves too. This is something that a psychologist friend of mine keeps relaying about her patients… And you can see this in Jung’s book entitled “Man And His Symbols.”
Thus I look to Zen and Buddhism for wisdom… To understand my attachment and egocentric bias towards my own perceptive stances on reality. And I have found it inspiring and helpful to understand aspects of delusion that I have clung to for so long. I’m not a Buddha… No way near… HAHA! But I’m making the effort. And it’s helping me see past the social conditioning I was brought up into (social conditioning is not a bad thing, by the way)… And, thus it helps others that I come into contact with… Via finding myself patient, more compassionate, and understanding towards others.
Even if everyone was to do this and start now… We probably wouldn’t see the end results of this effort in our lifetime. But, if we really love our children, and this world, we should be happy to make this change now and make good effort. Life need a change… You’ve just got to look at Prof Iain Stewart’s program “How Earth Mad Us…” to see the effect we’re having on the Earth…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qclqx
No doubt, some of us already are trying to make that change…
http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/
To end this little rant, I’d like to quote a piece that Robert Persig wrote in his book entitled “Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance” which differentiates between reaction to the causes of a problem/institution vs. changing the institution… And thus changing the causes…
It’s something that we would be all advised to heed…
“To speak of certain government and establishment institution as ‘the system’ is to speak correctly, since these organizations are founded upon the same structural conceptual relationships as a motorcycle. They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be that way. There’s no villain, no ‘mean guy’ who wants them to live meaningless lives, it’s just the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless.
“But to tear down a factory or revolt against government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves (as we know the universe is fractal) in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system… And so little understanding.”
So, if I am understanding you correctly, people create structure within society that is focused on doing as opposed to being and it is this narrow view of the world that leads us all into actions, as a society, that bear a strong resemblance to sociopathic behaviiour. That we may actually find sociopathic individuals in positions of power within these structures has no direct bearing on their creation.
I have recently begun a journey to try to change my perceptions of the world using the precepts of Buddhism and viewed from that framework your point is well taken. Thank-you for your insightful response.
PS. Unfortunately some of your BBC links are not available to me as they are restricted to the country of origin. This is unfortunate as they provide many of the finest documentary works I have watched.
Hi Andrew… Glad to hear you’re on your journey. May it be fun, fruitful and yielding for all you need to know and see.
Regarding the sociopaths. I’m no expert at this… But I can explain to you what I mean:
Firstly let’s look at the definition of a sociopath – “a person who is completely unable or unwilling to behave in a way that is acceptable to society.”
So… What is acceptable to society? Who makes the distinction between socially acceptable and not socially acceptable?
I’d personally say that this is a type of feedback system… Memes about what is socially acceptable and what is not acceptable are flung back and forth between people in communities on the whole, and I’d say it is the people who will ultimately discern what is acceptable and what is not socially. TV plays a big role in this today… HUGE, in fact!!!
For example… Being a homosexual was not a socially acceptable thing back in the 1800s. On the whole it was classed a “sodomy” i.e. sexual acts, which was on the whole a much over looked crime. However, sometimes it was punished severely e.g. see Alan Turing’s case. However, as time has gone on it has become socially acceptable to engage in homosexual activity, and one can see obvious evidence for this in the Church Of England’s acceptance of homosexual people, and the way a vicar “flouted” the church of England’s guidelines by having his ‘marriage’ blessed in church.
Either way… Homosexuality is a recent social construct. It is used to identify people by their behaviour and their taste/preference in sexual orientation. However, while it describes their sexual tastes, it does little to relay what sort of person they actually are i.e. a kind and loving person who looks after homeless people; a good caring father/mother of 5 who had an unhappy marriage and became gay; etc… Even these later descriptions of this person do not offer any real insight into what, who and how this person really is.
So a sociopath in the 1600s could have been a homosexual repeat offender who, no matter how many times they were arrested, kept on committing lewd acts in public places with members of the same sex. However, in present times this type of person would be George Michael, whom we could hardly call a sociopath.
Thus the definition of a sociopath is temporally vague and species specific… At best it only relates to people’s i.e. human being’s/homo sapiens, convictions based on current socially accepted and dictated norms, and possibly the current laws.
What I am suggesting when we discuss Manufacture Of Consent goes beyond simply human egocentric ideals. It covers a blatant rejection of the interconnectedness of all matter and Life here on Earth. Let me expand on this idea…
The way I see it is… We, for example here in the West, have clung to identities to define ourselves… Rather than emptying ourselves of desires to discover our true potential and nature.
This has occurred because of science, religion, technology and consumerist ideals, which have yielded products that have practical uses to make our lives easier and “more rewarding” i.e. supermarkets, computing, telephones, movies, clothes, drugs (antibiotics, especially), etc… Thus, rather than relating to the cycles of Earth and what nature can show us through the passing of time i.e. subtle yet powerful metaphors to understand our own internal nature with, and our positions within universal creation… We rely on the corporate system to provide for us – to meet all our needs. This system seemingly can produce everything we require. It always seems to meet our needs here in the UK. Thus, sometimes our needs turn into obsessions where we take more than we need i.e. people earn more than they really need to survive because they want to have five houses, three cars – even though they can only live/drive in one at a time. This is classed as a social construct of success, and it is what some might refer to as the “American Dream.” This is where natural needs i.e. shelter, food, warmth, water, mobility, education – which are always met – can, if left unchecked, turn into greed – without the person even understanding that it has become greed.
This places us in a strange position of becoming detached from true our nature i.e. to survive… Not totally detached, mind you, but in so much as we go to shops (glossed out corporate wombs of affordable offerings) rather than growing our own food directly in the environment, weaving our own clothes, etc… Many of us eat vegetables out of season, we always have what we like… We always have what we feel we need… In fact we are encouraged to continually consume – just look at the adverts on television telling us what we need – without any concern for sustainability.
We do not see that nature only produces limited amounts of food in a reality without technology… Thus the population of earth never expanded beyond it’s means till technology came about i.e. until farming became more productive.
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/12/18/just-how-many-people-do-you-think-the-earth-will-be-able-to-support/
In actually fact, the UK government and corporations are buying vast tracts of land in places like Kenya and other African countries, where people are starving. These corporations then grow food on this land, and they send it back to the UK for us to consume. Forget the people starving… We in the UK have money and thus money speaks louder than morality.
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/09/28/why-should-you-consider-growing-your-own-fruit-and-veg/
Password: food
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/12/06/moderation/
But since mankind has become more productive… And medicine has prevented many, many deaths, one the whole we have lost all consideration for sustainability and we have even forgotten the delicate balance that links us into Earth’s delicate ecosystem… I know the Earth looks and feels very big… Hell, I’ve travelled to many countries in my time and have seen the diversity of culture and life that exists on this planet, and I can tell you it sometimes feels almost infinite. But it’s really not… Earth is a planet. It is a closed ecosystem floating in an inky black void of space and time. A void so inhospitable that when the Apollo astronauts got back to Earth from the moon, they saw life in a completely different ‘light.’ A ‘light’ of realisation that has stayed with them for the rest of their lives..
Many here in the UK that I speak to think that this system of abundance will always supply our every need. When I discuss it with others i.e. sustainability, many scoff and ask me why I think about such mundane things. Thus, survival has given way to decadence.
It is this ability to have what we like when we like it, which has broken a deep connection that we used to have from living off the land ourselves… It has fractured us from understanding the interconnectivity of all Life here on Earth… And through this never ending abundance i.e. clothes, styles, music, etc… many in the UK define the notion of “themselves” with these products, brandishing designer wear and cars to show how successful they are, how clever they might be, or if they are fun loving people.
We cling to these social constructs… Even I cling to some on certain levels… I have to, otherwise I find it hard to interact with others, and satisfy my needs of companionship and love.
SO I SUPPOSE THIS IS NOT ABOUT SOCIOPATHY… RATHER IT IS ABOUT GAIAOPATHY I.E. A BLATANT CRIME OF MAN KIND TODAY IS THE DISREGARD IT HAS FOR THE NATURAL WORLD AND HOW IT “TRULY” RELATES AND INTERCONNECTS WITH IT…
We here in the UK (as other industrialised greenhouse gas producers) have to answer for these atrocities:
http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/11/tuvalu-climate-refugees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/03/global-warming-climate-refugees
Will we in the UK accept our responsibility in role of re locating these refugees? I certainly hope so…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/613075.stm
This delusion of continuing to consume at the rate that we are doing, comes from a forgetting about the interconnectivity that links all of life here on Earth… And, indirectly, it comes from the cultivation of “self” and “identity” in this corporate world i.e. giving ourselves and our images importance over others’ REAL needs. Many up at the top might not even be aware that they are detached from nature’s ways, and thus they might not understand that we are over consuming our resources, leaving others with not a lot OR non at all…
But when a Buddhist monk tells us that the notion of ourselves is a delusion, we fight it, to preserve this notion of our “self…”
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/11/14/the-grand-illusion-of-consciousness/
http://polynomial.me.uk/2010/01/12/non-attachment/
Psychology, as does Buddhism, seems to show that really there is only previous memetic programming which comes from our parents, and society… The delusion of self is built from nothing more than memes… These memes/ideas are like a burning torch for the Olympics, passed down from generation to generation… Iterating ever so slowly across the experiences of our lives into new, ever changing ways. Or perhaps like an infection of the mind, where the virus mutates into modified new types – evolving into new strains. The only way to cure this infection is realise “emptiness.” For some this is possible quickly… For others, it takes time. We have so many attachments, and the reason for these attachments is simple in some ways and more complex. When we look at what these attachments are, we can begin to see that man himself created them… And through these attachments, man creates the world in which he lives. He has likes and dislikes, and through these preferences he attracts and repels objects/situations/people/etc… These are desires. Desires that either attract us to things… Or desires to free of things. When we attract something, it’s because we find it comfortable and pleasant to be around. When we find something repugnant, we usually have a desire to be away from it. However, I have found that when I closely look at the reasons why I push things away, it’s usually not because it’s actually vile… But because I perceive it to be vile. Thus the issue lie within my mental perception about how I perceive things. The truth (IMHO) is thus things are not generally unpleasant… They simply are. It is the way I have been brought up i.e. the memes and experiences I have had, that shape the way I perceive the world around me. Thus, if I was to totally empty my mind of all desires and memetic thoughts/drives, I could perhaps experience the continuum of all things… The interconnectedness of everything into a long, multidimensional chain of cause and effect. It is social constructs that cause us issues when we try to truly understand.
For example… When I walk into a room, we see a ceiling, walls and the floor. This is the perceptive stance from our social conditioning that I have learned. this thing have become separate from one another. However, when I empty my head of the notion of desire, I begin to see the continuum of the wall-floor-ceiling. In many ways this is backed up by science’s view of the universe i.e. when I look deeply into what science has revealed to us – through good empirical experimentation and study over the years to posit a clarity derived from observation and sound logical deduction – we see that both the ceiling, walls, and floor are all made from atoms. Even we are made from atoms… Thus one can understand the interconnected nature of everything… Even the great Toaists i.e. Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu have said that talking about the Tao is to misunderstand it. It must come from an emptiness.
It seems man’s quest for understanding i.e. dividing up the universe and it’s patterns of flow into discernible modes of understanding, we have fractured true understanding into egocentric little parts which cannot be easily interlinked back into the total continuum of universal flow i.e. the Tao.
So this Gaiaopathy is the disease we need to treat… We need to understand our basic psychological needs i.e. to eat, procreate and care for one another… And moderate “mindfully” these drives, without over populating the world till we suck it dry – thereby killing ourselves – or over consume till we encroach on others lands and let them starve… When we realise this illness of mind many of us are suffering from… And when we realise that mankind has a natural disposition to follow herd trends… Then… AND ONLY THEN… Can we break from these old selfish needs/greeds and care for one another… AND CARE FOR MOTHER EARTH.
So yes… People create structure within society – via memetic feedback – that is focused on doing as opposed to being and it is this narrow view of the world that leads us all into actions, as a society, that bear a strong resemblance to sociopathic behaviour… What I would call Gaiaopathic behaviour.
Speaking of this… I enjoyed Peter Russell’s video entitled the Global Brain, as it ties into memetic psychology quite nicely.
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/08/27/the-global-brain/
But I must warn… This is only my understanding of things… And thus my advice could be a precarious thing:
http://polynomial.me.uk/2009/12/27/advice/
I realize that in my first comment I failed to focus in on the particular type of sociopathic behaviour to which I was referring. It is currently called “Antisocial Personality Disorder” and displays the following diagnostic criteria:
There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and the rights of others occurring since the age of 15, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
4. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others
5. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
6. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder#Symptoms
This pattern has also been recognized in the behaviour of Corporations (legally viewed in North America as a person under the law with the sole purpose of maximizing investment return to its share holders). In the documentary “The Corporations”
a compelling link to this behaviour, referred to as psychopathy, is shown.
In response to why we fail to see our impact on the earth I would like to offer the following link to the documentary “Arithmetic, Population, And Energy”.
http://misc.docuwat.ch/videos/reports/arithmetic-population-and-energy/?channel_id=0&skip=0
This documentary shows how fixed market growth can impact our consumption of finite natural resources and blind side us if we do not grasp the mathematical implications.
Hi Andrew…
Brilliant video regarding “Arithmetic, Population And Energy.” Seems, as you say, that we would all be well advised to heed this bit of elementary mathematics. Seems that I myself have never truly grasped the idea of what a 7% increase in growth per annum actually means in reality, despite all the lectures I attended in Statistics and math at university…
I agree with you that those “APD” traits you have listed are seen in corporations globally… Certainly it is a well documented case that people used to have less rights than a corporation did here in the UK. However, that has since been rectified, thank “God, or Nature”…
No doubt that focusing on return and maximising investment for corporate/company shareholders is not the most healthy priority I can think to run a company. Perhaps the “nanny state” (as Chomsky mentions in Free Market Fantasies) would do better to encourage longevity, sustainability and more equal treatment of employees and global environments, rather than allow bail-outs for industries in trouble, etc… Natural selection, after all, usually weeds out those organisms/businesses that are no longer suitable to survive.
However… Looking at the patterns of survival here on Earth, patterns that much of life uses to survive today, and that many of us human beings have used before in the not too distant past (2000 – 3000 years ago)… Is it actually any wonder that we still act in these ways? From what much of science has shown, natural – selfish gene – selection still resides at the heart of our being. And those who survived through the eons of hunter gatherers were no doubt the shrewdest of the lot.
I’m certainly not making excuses for this behaviour today though… Rather I’m simply aware of how “base” our nature still really is in our being, despite all these technological gadgets and discoveries we have made for ourselves and use to think we are somehow different.
In many ways this global consciousness is like a rebellious teenager who, having been advised by their parents to be careful, throws caution to the wind and proceeds to continue with their course of action despite the risks involved.
I certainly hope that we can make that change… In fact I see change happening already.
How do you feel about things where you are?
Warmest,
Karl
Hi Karl,
Firstly, I would like to thank you for posting the link about “Arithmetic, Population And Energy.” The more people understand this hopefully the quicker we will see societies goals adjust away from growth and towards improved quality of life (in the non material sense for those of us in the developed nations). Also, we need to learn to share the earth’s resources in a much more equitable manner.
In response to you query about the state of change in my local, it is necessary to preface this with a little background. I presently reside in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. That said you may know that I am living in the conservative heartland of Canada and capitalism is still the main game in town (Edmonton however has a history of leaning to the left as it is a blue collar town). We also, on a national level, have a conservative minority government lead by a Calgarian (Calgary is staunch conservative white collar town) who has been busy trying emulate the actions of the thankfully departed ex president of the United States.
Taking all of this into account, my immediate impression of the pace of change may be some what pessimistic. As you no doubt know we have reneged on our signed participation in the Kyoto Protocol and since that time have done very little politically to encourage emissions reduction and general conservation tactics. Throughout the last two years since the 2008 economic melt down large vehicles (over 10 litre per 100 km average) have continued to sell well although I have heard that there has been some reduction in trip lengths. There are some incentives in place to upgrade insulation and major appliances as well as furnace efficiency.
Energy is primarily from oil (including our dirty tar sands which consume 3 gallons of water for every 1 gallon of gasoline created in a province already perilously close to exhausting our water supply) with natural gas the chosen source of heating. Electrical generation is almost entirely coal fired with less than 1% being derived from clean wind generated sources. Over 74% of people commute an average of 7 km to work with about 9% of those taking public transit.
The green movement, at a grass roots level, is strong in will if not numbers. As I mentioned we can opt to purchase clean wind generated electricity which is growing slowly due to the low current price of the omnipresent natural gas. I think the fact that we have been a petroleum producer for so long and our economy is heavily dependant on its revenues co-opts the majority of our population into believing that continued consumption (and growth of that consumption) are required to maintain our standard of living. Amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life most ignore the long term implications and follow the herd. Are you as depressed as I am yet?
I have personally taken steps to reduce my carbon footprint which include purchasing more in season local produce, use of a combination of high insulation and a heat pump powered by wind generated electricity, drive less and focus my activities in my local community. My attempts to date on changing the habits of those around me have met with very limited success but I hope that I may be able to lead by example.
Please share with me your positive experiences in the hope they may spur on to greater efforts or at least raise my spirits on this subject. As a closing thought I usually remind myself that any havoc we can wreak upon ourselves pales in comparison to that with nature may generate as a matter of course. So, maybe we are again overestimating our importance in the scheme of things and should focus on the present. I know, a big cop out.
Mindfully
Andrew
Hey Andrew…
‘Firstly, I would like to thank you for posting the link about “Arithmetic, Population And Energy.”‘
A real pleasure… And thank you for bringing this ‘nugget’ to my attention.
‘Also, we need to learn to share the earth’s resources in a much more equitable manner.’
I agree. I’ve always liked the idea of a global village, as I feel it might better suite mankind’s needs, rather than the present boarders between countries and economies. Perhaps then education can better spread out over the world and all the people of the world can then get together and represent their own parts of the world better – rather than having the majority of people on a board from just one nation.
In this regard I really enjoyed the message behind Aldous Huxley’s fiction entitled “Island.” The way the children of the community interrelated and lived with different families while growing up meant that they had a more diverse knowledge of people, and less egocentric tendencies towards their own families/prejudices towards other people.
I’d also like to see less consumption over all – and better education on nutrition and food consumption i.e. what’s over eating – tailored to the individual. Along with perhaps an over all return to providing for one’s self i.e. growing vegetables on ‘government provided allotments’, rearing one’s own chickens, etc… Thus – hopefully – encouraging people to consider the food they eat and what it means.
This coupled with a better understanding about the notion of what/who and why we are i.e. looking at the patterns that gave rise to the structure of like, as seen in “The Secret Life Of Chaos” (password: chaos), we might better hope to understand human life from the perspective of ‘emptiness – that there is no meaning other than meaning we make for ourselves – that life is nothing more than a pattern of universal origin, which is based on the way atoms attach to one another, and these in there own right are built on the way proton, neutrons and electrons interact, etc… And thus we might benefit from meditation being taught at school – via modes of Zen and Taoism – which could well negate any selfish need to ‘succeed’ (a word I use in the present framework of the western consumerist vein i.e. succeed = earn lots and consume lots, get your desire fulfilled and be).
‘As you no doubt know we have reneged on our signed participation in the Kyoto Protocol and since that time have done very little politically to encourage emissions reduction and general conservation tactics… – …There are some incentives in place to upgrade insulation and major appliances as well as furnace efficiency.’
Ey… I have read about this. I suppose some incentives are better than none… Small steps are better than no action. But it does seem a marginal effort.
‘Amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life most ignore the long term implications and follow the herd… Are you as depressed as I am yet?’
HA! Yeap! Totally feeling that ‘cross town traffic, so hard to get through to you…’ I suppose basic psychology should also be included in any high school curriculum, reviewing experiments like Milgram’s Obedience experiment, The Asch experiment, and Loftus’ Memory experiment, so that the young are able to understand the difference between what is simply “dumb” herd mentality and what is real true understanding.
This does raise an interesting question… Is it laziness that prompts us into inaction… OR is it really herd mentality dictating what we should do.
I certainly know, as do you, that this consumerist binge that many of us are on, will not last. Thus we are taking steps to reduce our “carbon footprint” here on Earth, and look towards promoting a greener, cleaner, more mindful future:
‘I have personally taken steps to reduce my carbon footprint which include purchasing more in season local produce, use of a combination of high insulation and a heat pump powered by wind generated electricity, drive less and focus my activities in my local community. My attempts to date on changing the habits of those around me have met with very limited success but I hope that I may be able to lead by example.’
Awesome!
As Albert Einstein once said, “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.”
And psychological study has certainly demonstrated/confirmed this i.e. memetics.
‘As a closing thought I usually remind myself that any havoc we can wreak upon ourselves pales in comparison to that with nature may generate as a matter of course. So, maybe we are again overestimating our importance in the scheme of things and should focus on the present.’
Yes… Totally. Many of us are still thinking like human beings i.e. we base the majority of our framework work of understanding the world and our actions through our notion of being ‘human.’ Thus our self importance is certainly over amplified and biased towards our own survival. As you so rightly mentioned, in the greater scheme of life’s patterns, I’d say we are just as expendable as the next species… Perhaps we really should be more expendable – bearing in mind our ability to over consume and overpopulate the planet without any real deeper thought/action to life in general.
I hope in the future we develop an understanding of the world that comes from a Gaian perspective i.e. we chose to look at our actions and the marvel of life through lenses of compassion, universal understanding, math (pattern formation in particular) and thus adjust/bend our capitalist/corporate motives for profit into major efforts for ecological preservation and renewable/clean/green structures of power generation…
As for sharing with you my positive experiences…
I’m not sure if you have heard, but there is a global 10:10 initiative starting soon:
http://www.1010global.org/
Any support you or anyone else can give might just help make that change. It’s something that we can all get involved in. After all, relating to the community through the spirit of understanding sustainability is so important to initiate that change.
I’m currently conversing with Greg Clarke MP about aspects of reducing carbon emissions here in the UK, and we are sharing everything we know about climate change, the science behind ecology, and even discussing which aspect of bills recently passed in parliament could be better modified.
I have to say, initially I wasn’t expecting to hear any replies from Greg, being a busy man… However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he replied and encouraged a dialogue of thought and concern… We have since exchanged a lot of knowledge and, despite having learnt a lot about the state of play in parliament for passing green bills i.e. it is a lot harder than we have thought, I know a lot more about what the UK and it’s government are doing to help solve this issue.
Thus my actions have spoken louder than my words… In doing what I believe in myself i.e. I want to become self sufficient and use carbon neutral sources of energy generation instead of local power grids, etc…, I’ve found that people I hang out with have actually started to make changes in their own life styles too… While I’m certainly aware it’s not just my own influence – rather it’s the general influence of many sources of inspiration, – we all play an important part in changing the way we think. And some of the changes that I’ve made i.e. ground source pumps, combined heat and power units, solar thermal, rain water harvesting, etc… have meant that I’ve learnt a lot about what I do, and thus can help other out in understanding what they do… No doubt I’ve had to forego some of life’s luxuries while installing these technologies… But, having gone this way now, they seem to be making a really big impact on the people who see them… Including my neighbours… HA!
On top of that they’re saving me money! And while this doesn’t really bother me – it more about doing what’s right for the world and ecology as a whole – people love to hear about this aspect. And having done my research into this… When I tell those interested about the government grants available to them to do this, it seems to provide more of an incentive to do it themselves. I don’t know whether you have grants for this type of thing in Canada, but I’m sure there must be some sort of incentives there…
That, along with sharing a ride into work with others – though I now mainly work from home… Raising money for charities like 10:10… Or donating some of my income to schools and other community institutions so they can get solar thermal units, etc… is providing a real awareness to others, and it gets some fun injected into something I take very seriously. Even my neighbours
Anything you can do to bring awareness about this issue is tantamount to spreading the meme of carbon footprints.
I’ve had a lot of fun doing this… And I’ve lost some people on the way i.e. many thought that I was going mad and didn’t want to join in or hear about it all… But I’ve made new friends on the way too.
And I love eating and sharing my fresh food from the ground… Plus I’m fitter from walking so many places.
I hope that has proved to inspire you at least on some level… I know its not easy when we – you and others like you an I – know that something is right, while many others disagree. But it’s about making a stand and doing what you know is right, despite the flak that others of the herd may dish out. When you understand human psychology for what it is i.e. via the Asch experiment, then you can understand why others might seem stuck in a rut… But through little pockets of action, these herd notions CAN be changed… And changed with better habits.
Ultimately, as Jared so rightly pointed out, it doesn’t matter whether we make it or not… That is something that Earth’s ecosystem, something that is based on chaos, will tell us eventually… What is important is the need to care for one another… And by one another, I mean all life here on Earth. We, as a species, aren’t as clever as we like to think at the best of times… But when we start to feel what is right – while understanding our need to blend with the herd – we can stand apart and begin to make that change for the better… It’s in little steps that we begin really change. And one day, when there are enough of us, we will see that change.
“Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.” Kenyan Proverb
“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Old proverb
Positively,
Karl
Thanks Karl,
I have signed up for the 1010 Global news letter and will look at talking with my MPP to see about how they are currently approaching the environment and steps they might support.
You have taken me from depressed to empowered and I will continue the good fight.
Best,
Andrew
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