The Scene: The Space Ship Enterprise.
The Question: Kirk to Spock—Who owns the Planet Earth and its inhabitants?
The Answer: Spock to Crew—Those who have the power to define. Those who have the power to lie well.
The ownership of the Planet has changed hands a hundred times. I think if you trace their papers back far enough one of their first owners was called Jehovah. Approximately 50% of the present population still believe He still owns the planet and that they have been chosen to rule the rest.
The earthlings have an interesting habit of dividing up ownership through wars and then marking their territory on little scraps of paper. The inhabitants of each territory think they are superior to their neighbors. This in turn creates new wars and new divisions. This is their particular form of making changes. It is difficult for them to change without being forced to or having some horrible event take place. They use primitive genetic practices. Conquered regions are used as experimental breeding grounds. When they ran out of new frontiers and artificially attempted to stabilize the planet there were four main classes of people. The intelligent and powerful, the status quo, the poor and the criminal. When they invented space travel the powerful and the criminals left, the poor were slaughtered and the ownership of the planet passed to the Status Quo. These were known as the middle class of mid-zonal professionals who from their inception have attempted to imitate the powerful and intelligent. They in turn re-invented the same four classes and the ownership of the planet is up for grabs. The majority of the problems on this planet are the result of the idea that humans are not sovereign and autonomous, but property owned by primitive Gods and incompetent governments. At this time the United States believes it is the most competent and elite.(but so does every other Government)
It is important to remember when visiting this planet that words, things and thinking are experienced by the inhabitants as the same. They are full of pride, easily hurt and capable of just about anything. They suffer from a poor memory when it comes to self improvement and an excellent one when it comes to remembering slights and imagined injuries.
They enjoy the game known as scapegoat. This is a game where they find someone less powerful to blame their problems on. Often they will torture, enslave and murder their victims. As I said and it warrants repeating, the inhabitants respond to words and pictures with the same neuro-physiological reactions as real events. Be cautious, it can get quite dangerous down there. They are very aware of differences and at times respond with curiosity but tend to respond with violence.
The dawning of popular Western Metaphysics (the history of metaphor) is best expressed by the story of the Tree of Knowledge, when an imagined, undifferentiated, blissful world called the Garden of Eden was suddenly split apart when a female member of the species ate an apple and then tempted her mate to do the same. Adam and Eve’s act of disobedience, born from a womb of curiosity, divided the world into two. Good and evil became primary modes of thinking and reacting and members of the species have proceeded to develop entire philosophies from this metaphor. As I have said, although very childish, they are also very inventive.
The primal set of concepts, good and evil, springs from disobedience, the very well spring of God’s greatest gift, man’s free will. It was the very use of this gift which inescapably gave birth to shame, guilt, original sin and planetary bankruptcy. It seems that intention transforms accidents into crimes.
Expelled from paradise into a world of gravity and work mankind must now forever struggle for his act of primal disobedience. From an idyllic world free from pain, man found himself in the world of change, of differences and similarities, of epistemology, and of language, a tool which can cut in two directions at the same time. The ancient Hawaiian’s have a proverb which says, “In language is life and death.”
From the simple myth of Eden which almost every Western child is familiar, sprang a world view, which, in its extreme, is represented by modern day earth television evangelism. It appears, that God is a landlord, indeed a slumlord, but always a Lord. Man is an ungrateful, rebellious slave-child who can never pay his debt, except possibly by complete obedience, casting his mind and nature into the “caring” hands of his angry and frustrated Creator.
This species’ philosophy has enjoyed centuries of speculating on the fruits of this primal disobedience—The emergence of the Opposites. Some of these opposites have been Nature/Nurture, Being/Becoming, Whole/Part, Real/Apparent, Mind/Body, Physical/Spiritual, Man/God and other meta-morsels.
Any intelligent human could simply re-create the entire history of the planet by plotting the Opposites, both as independent grids and or as interactive forces over time. In fact we could diagnose or mirror an individual or an entire culture’s development simply by understanding which position on each grid a group’s belief system is plotted. For example, the Chinese believe in fate, the Americans believe in free will.
The “opposites” (either/ors) have served as epistemological training ground for metaphysicians who could demonstrate their superiority to the masses by turning an apple into an orange. Of course, only those divinely ordained to understand the true meaning of these terms could participate in this sport. The rest stood in awe and worshiped those who had the credentials and ability to understand the dark and mysterious world(s) of
Being and Becoming.
The problem of opposites lies in the inadequate information gained from the Tree of Knowledge—good and evil. When man learned about good and evil he did not learn how words are like containers that can be filled with just about any type of liquid.
Like a child who receives an airplane for a gift and is so delighted and overwhelmed by the way the wheels turn, he never learns that the plane, if used differently, can fly. The utter emptiness of words gave man the opportunity to fill them with whatever he needed, while at the same time believing the words had an independent substance of their very own.
The opposites have served as a primitive model of classifying, ordering and understanding the universe. Their real use is the their speed and ease allowing for quick reactions in dangerous situations. The grunt “UGH” means run.
Although the species has changed from its beginnings it still prefers to rely on opposites rather than even simple interacting grids.
In other words, the notion of opposites is not a “natural law,” but simply a primitive survival device with many interesting and dangerous uses. If we carefully examine history we will find that man has torn himself apart with his belief in the REALITY and NECESSITY of Either/Ors.
For the man in the street, the philosophies of opposites, particularly Good and Evil, have served as a torture chamber, a crucifix made from metaphor. Thrust into a world which views him as the property of Gods and States and overwhelmed by an unrepayable debt, the metaphysics of slavery and the facts of pain, pleasure and death; bolstered by science, whose theorists have become the whores of the state, man is now informed
that he is ill. The proof of this is his refusal to submit completely. The world debt is due to his saying “no” to total slavery. He will not obey. We are at War, and man is the enemy. The question is: Who is on the other side?
Original sin is now also translated into sickness, calling in a new and scientific priest craft who rush to the rescue. Man is sick, addicted, lame, and dangerous, needing constant protection and supervision by the state, insurance companies, and a never-ending parade of caring, licensed professionals. We are told over and over again that man’s illness and addictions are costing US billions. Man the slave/resource, is causing US trouble, he is interfering with OUR Plans. Man’s debt has now increased a billion-fold. Those who question the “plans” or the sanity of the metaphors in play, are diagnosed as morally unfit or mentally ill.
Evil emerges as a metaphor which refers to those who refuse to accept the Plan—the prevailing Garden of Eden—created by God so She may bestow Her Love and Grace. If man refuses he must be force-fed.
What makes the notion of Evil and Good work is the belief that the words have substance independent of the workings of man’s own mind and his uncanny need and ability to create final causes.
All that is required for metaphysics to function, to perform its magic, is any unanswered question which can be associated with fear and pain. What makes a leader is someone who claims that he can fill the void.
While most humans agree that slavery is evil—that the ownership of one human by another is immoral—few humans equate slavery with enforced education, welfare, health, and the idea of a perfect orderly universe. Slavery is usually associated with power over others and with the ability to enforce one’s will on another without the fear of retaliation. Within the “right” of ownership and debt there is a hidden mystery—a metaphysics—a knowledge only available to those with the power to create and enforce their metaphysics. Whenever a new group achieves power, they also inherit the metaphysics, and magically, the ability to use it.
However, an interesting twist has taken place in the entire slave/master paradigm. Enforced education, welfare, health, are for our own good and it is our duty to submit to the treatment. This is immediately followed by the platitude that all these laws are necessary for the smooth functioning of society, which, of course, we all observe daily. Without someone to run the show we would have chaos and disorder. This is followed by a SMILE, and the statement that
“things could be worse.”
We can begin to scent the meaning of evil. It smells of change, contradiction, uncertainties. It is the lack of stability, becoming, the opposite of order, being, peace, the good. Here the confusion coincides with physiology. We have mixed the whole thing up. We have confused the physiology of comfort, the cognition of stability, beliefs as truth, predictable futures, statistics—with the idea of a Morality. In other words, while chaos, disorder, change and destruction are integral and necessary elements of life on this heavy G planet, we abhor its realization and worse yet, its Existence. This requires the postulation of its opposite as an Ideal, a heaven juxtaposed against earth. A God who loathes his Creation. From this has evolved a need to group act, to over-control and “normalize.” We are simply No-Good Shits—by Definition.
From this we have created the Idea of the one God, separated from his creation by Evil. The new slavery, unlike the old, not only guarantees that the slave will be punished if he transgresses, but also guarantees stability, order, health and education—by decree. The new slave must let God (State) bestow care and supervision onto her, in order to ensure the continuing “safe” functioning of the person as resource. If the person refuses, denies the right of the Master and his Plan, the person is Evil. It is important to remember (the story of Job stresses this), Evil cannot be a characteristic of the Master, only the Slave. When the slave gets smart she reverses the process.
Mind and Will are exchanged for a guaranteed future. But even a modern slave cannot tolerate the complete awareness of the exchange. Acknowledging his cowardice and slave mentality would offend his “pride.” To cover up the trade, we require more fictions and ideologies.
We now search for the enemy of stability, as if it had a face, an identity, other than LIFE ITSELF.
And our search for those who cause the discomfort is directed at the rebels. Those who dare rattle the cage of stability.
The rebel the one who sought and tamed new frontiers, once revered as hero and mystic, is now turned into the sociopath. This transformation from hero to devil is partially a result of the stability demanded by those who come after him (the middle class) to live off the fruits of his courage and struggle, the mass which comes to fill the world carved by those who thrived on nature’s unpredictable chaotic qualities. Once the frontier is
“tamed” Status Quo moves in and demands order. A place where they can build their nests and ensure the betterment of their genetic coils. Morality is in fact an invention for the Middle Class. It creates a notion of order and justice in the world. The truly Powerful do not require these fictions and the Poor…well, they know better.
However, this is not the end of the story, for Nature “knows” that it cannot survive without the rebel. She is born again and again, and when born into stability, taming is difficult. The child is incorrigible, delinquent, hyperactive, requiring Ritalin, psychotherapy, special education. If lucky, the child escapes with the deep scars of guilt, shame and self-hatred, but at least having a chance to find its own frontier. If unlucky, the child is tortured, jailed, or suffers from never-ending despair.
When there is no frontier for the rebel the soul of a society begins to suffer. Some, like Wilhelm Reich, contend that the culture can itself be diseased. He referred to this as the Emotional Plague. In the end he was proven correct, not simply by the culture, but by individuals who embodied the repressed counterparts of an ideal.
According to Jungian tradition the manifestation or experience of evil results from the repression of both the personal and the collective shadow, sometimes resulting in physical manifestations such as Hitler, regarded in this age as the Epitome of Evil. However, what is the cause of this repression but the Ideal itself? In the face of this intimation, why still worship the Ideal?
As Nietzsche so beautifully put it, the ideal of truth posited by the Christian world, was the value which overturned it. Can we say that our fear and denial of instability or disorder, which in my view is the result of a lack of belief in ourselves as anything but a slave race, be perceived as more devastating than chaos and instability itself? The attempt to destroy evil, in and of itself, is an attempt to destroy life. Accepting that disobedience was the first evil, it follows that any attempt to destroy disobedience is an attempt to destroy life. I believe that even the rebel Jesus would agree that his acts of dis-obedience were perceived as evil by the establishment Rabbis, who used the notion of evil to destroy him.
To understand what a “civilized Christian society” means by Evil, we should dilate on Hitler’s aspirations. He saw himself on a Messianic mission to purify and help his definition of perfected man evolve and rule the world. He saw himself and his followers as the Masters and the rest of the world as slaves. He was willing to do anything to see his vision fulfilled, including Usurping the Power of Mass Murder from God (see The Flood, among others...). But remember Usurping is the greater sin.
He performed his willful acts openly and told the world what his intentions were. He brought to consciousness a picture of mass evil (something which everyone else was doing, but behind more-or-less closed doors). Was his Sin any different when compared to Stalin, Mao, Ghenghis Khan, the Christian and Islamic inquisitions, and the hundreds of other cultures, civilizations and religions which have thought of themselves as Chosen, on a Mission, superior and willing to murder for the Ideal? Could we say then, that his evil was simply losing, or was it the “more important” fact that he employed violence? If so, what of the American Indian, and other races and cultures destroyed by the Christian notion of a pure white race. And what of the Blacks in America? No, most humans would argue that Hitler’s evil was something more. What was it? It may have been because it happened in our own time, it was blatant, he lost the war, he crossed his genetic borders, or attacked the “chosen people” or ??
(As an aside, I would like to inform the reader that some individuals, after reading this, have asked me if I was a National Socialist simply because I used Hitler as an example!)
The word Evil functions in such a way as to allow one group to justify their own atrocities and make them noble. By dealing with such a powerful metaphysical abstraction (one which is physiologically associated with pain, fear, trembling and survival), it is an easy step to the performance of an act such as “execution,” with the sense of moral righteousness and vindication. It is not a man who is being executed, it is Evil. It is the void filled with all the imagination and terror of a cowardly “adjusted” Status Quo man.
What is the psychological effect on the slave of the following two statements?
1) We will execute anyone who disobeys.
2) We will execute anyone who is evil.
As Nietzsche has shown, evil is an invention serving a purpose. It allows one group to justify its will to power over another, just as it has been used to intimidate most men.
REBELS AND DEVILS
The rebel with a cause is one who risks the label of evil when she attempts to remove—or go beyond—the categories of limitation currently believed. Just like the notion of the four-minute-mile which once became “eternally” defined as an Absolute, the rebel challenges arbitrary definitions, commandments and rules, which are believed to be Absolute. Some of these are death, gravity, limitations of the body and intelligence.
What we do and how we feel is a function of believing in fictitious limitations which have no basis except in habits.
Good and Evil and Opposites in general are primitive devices used by our minds to order the universe, and in my view, create an atmosphere of conflict which might not otherwise exist. The meaning and truth ascribed to the various pairs of opposites including such famous arguments as Nature/Nurture are a function of Who has the Power to create Definitions and, thereby, Offenders.
If the human mind requires “evil” in order to function, let it be death, stupidity, gravity and disease. If the human mind requires the notion of “good,” let it be ceasing the primitive process of projecting our Greatness onto Idols—accepting Evil onto Ourselves.
WHO OWNS YOU?
The table below shows three models of OWNERSHIP: The first is the Model of God; the second, derived from the first, is the Model of Society and its Caretakers. The third is the Model of the Rebel-Devil.
One purpose of this Ownership Table is to help the individual gain insight into fundamentalist attitudes of Ownership.
Only when man Owns Himself is the dehumanizing process of slavery non-existent. The notion of Ownership, be it explicit or tacit, is the Key Concept which determines what is thought of as a problem and what solutions can be offered.
If we accept the Model of the Cyber-Shaman (that man Owns Himself), 95 percent of the so-called problems—which we read about in newspapers, hear about on the radio, watch on television, and discuss with friends—Do Not Exist. Thus, all proposed Solutions for these Pseudo-Problems are Meaningless.
The concept of OWNERSHIP starts in the cradle and does not end—not even in the grave.
Thus, our solution is NOT the eradication of
But Rather
Not Viewing Oneself As
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