Thought
Fragments on the limits of understanding…
What does Thought mean? The capitalized, Bohm/Krishnamurti-an concept that seeks to distinguish a grand category of that which drives programmed and limited forms of relation to what-is.
It includes ideas, concepts, and isms. It also includes conditioned emotional reactions. It encompasses every form of institution and every method of attempting to channel and control behavior including the channeled and controlled behavior that appears to be “Free-choice” when perceived without the benefits of Proprioception.
I’ve coined the term, Edifice of Thought to highlight their insight into how Thought has created the world we find ourselves in. Everything humans have done under the thrall of Thought; and all the artifacts, physical, abstract, emotional, within any category we could imagine; have resulted in this Edifice which; at this point, is co-identical with what I’ve called Our Enormity: The symphony of Predicaments we face. Unable to cope or effect change.
Distinctions are essential. Without the capacity to perceive distinctions, light and dark, for example, we cannot perceive anything. Distinctions can also easily, and especially so for us the victims of Thought’s Enormity, become barriers to understanding, bringing us back into the kind of dualities that characterize the difficulties Thought brings about. It is hard to avoid making any distinction without putting elements into categories and judging their relative merits. This is how Thought works. It takes every attempt to break out of its prison and turns them into new binds.
There’s another sticking point in this. The term Thought has the same root as thinking. We may “think” that “thinking” is either the same as Thought or that it is different; but, how can we untangle this and what and where does this take us?
Thought also covers things we don’t normally consider as part of thinking. We are accustomed to a duality between thinking and feeling. Yet, within this understanding of Thought, the distinction is complex. A feeling can be simply, as K & B would say, a “felt.” Something that we notice is happening to us emotionally and that we can; if we can be Proprioceptive in this moment; find a way to incorporate into a response to our situation within the moment. Or, if we are not Proprioceptive; we may feel the ”felt,” taking it as our conditioning has set us up; as not simply an emotional factor but a force acting upon us from outside, “He makes me mad!”
We react with an escalation. We feel that we must “defend.” Actually attack the other. This quickly starts a cycle of escalating violence. The error is not simply in “thinking” that the wrong actor caused the damage we feel. It’s equally an error when we “think” that something felt is good, “They make me want to like them!” The error is in attaching a felt to any outside actor at all.
Our felts are internal relationships within our selves. The hates or likes we feel directed at us from the outside; the hates or likes we “feel/think” emanate from some object of our emotion; result from the way our emotional states; that we have inherited as creatures; function. These impulses alert us to imbalances within us. They are “meant;” in the way pain is meant to help us avoid injury; to help us realize we are out of balance. The error Thought makes inevitable is that we continually seek correction outside; and in so doing; only escalate ongoing cycles of violence, misery, and suffering.
All this does cohere, except that it’s difficult to keep track of all the thinking and feeling and how it all relates to Thought….
When the abused believe the justifications made by their abusers abuse proliferates. What keeps this dynamic going is the refusal by the abused to give up the delusion that an abuser cares. Not accepting that their abuser only holds onto the appearance of “following norms” of behavior to defend an indefensible position. We react to this; when it can no longer be denied; by calling it out as hypocrisy. This is still a misunderstanding of the actual dynamic. “Catching” them out in their hypocrisy does not lead to any meaningful change in the abuser’s behavior. They simply do not care. Being “caught” is just a means to increase the cruelty which is always their driving motivation. Those in the thrall to Power do not resort to cruelty as a “last resort.” It is their primary motivation. Derived from self-loathing; it is the price they paid for accepting the lie behind Power.
It appears counter-intuitive. The release and opening of awareness available through disillusionment comes about when we drop the expectation that there is “goodness” somewhere out there. That people are simply confused; or that they misunderstand; or that the urgency of the situation demands “difficult choices.” Expecting good faith in these situations is a grave error. The calls to “take it easy!” To be “reasonable!” Only go in one direction. The power-mad consider their victim’s exhortations after “fairness, niceness, reasonableness” to be “Loser Mentality.” Their garbled, pastiche world view based on Ayn Rand and Nietzsche’s Nazi sister’s intentional misapplication of his writings…. Who could resist the call to be an Übermenschen! The abuser mentality is a self-intoxication using the frisson of self-hatred turned outwards to provide cover for swallowing a poisonous fantasy.
The thing is…, through the mechanisms of Thought this mentality has entered us all to some extent. Even if only as we fulfill the role of their Üntermenschen. “Willing slaves” to their hideously caricatured “superiority.” This is where Normality works to keep us all complicit. It’s “bad manners” not to be Optimistic!™
This is the way the garden variety family abuser gets his free pass. Damage often done in plain sight. Ignored because, well…, good manners. It’s also what makes the struggle for liberation so perennially difficult. At every step as the ratchet tightens the “Overton Window” of Normalcy shifts further towards an acceptance of ever more abusive and violent behavior. Cassandra keeps getting punished for calling the alarm and things keep getting worse.
This is a classic double-bind. Damned if you do….
How do we dissolve the bind? Remember binds cannot be untied and “cutting the Gordian Knot” is a power fueled fantasy. That’s how one of the greatest “Greats,” Alexander the, dealt with it. How did that turn out?
But, you see. No matter how hard we try to be aware of the failures of power it is so hard to ignore its allure. Hard to not have to suppress the adolescent smile of regard for the Great Hero….
It’s in this moment of realization. The moment when we recognize that we are not immune; that we have an opportunity to change our relationship within the wider dynamic.
Power wants us to believe that change occurs through compulsion. The kind of change Power is interested in; change that is fundamentally and ultimately destructive; is brought about through compulsion. But, it never leads to any “intended” outcome. An outcome that, under the thrall of Power will always be an impossible, incoherent fantasy. Always involving some “return to Greatness.”
Change that is not destructive…. Change that is vital…. These can only come about when a bind is seen for what it is. Not theoretically, not intellectually; but seen with one’s whole being. This cannot happen with divided attention. What’s required is not “focus” which is a form of internalized compulsion. A “choice” to see this and not that.
Here is where the dynamics that produce actual, vital change run into our closed Overton Window and fall stunned to the ground like a bird hitting plate-glass. Every urge to normalize. Every, wish it weren’t so…. Every hope for an optimistic turn…. These all blind us to the need to allow the full disclosure of the depths of futility and come to a direct confrontation with Grief. We all must face that the whole thing has been rotten. The whole thing has led us here and can only have a bad outcome.
Grief is debilitating, paralyzing. It’s easy to see that no one gladly enters into grief, willing an entry to despair, dropping the ultimately false comforts of maintaining our illusions.
There is real power in the Universe. It’s just not in the hands of the power-mad. The Greek’s had an eye for this and called the force that defends the Earth from the power-mad Nemesis. Hubris; the desire that my wishes must trump what-is; brings forth Nemesis. Its force, as with its close ally Grief, is always perfectly balanced. Grief dissolves pain when have allowed it to take us. Nemesis eases its grip when we forsake Hubris. They will also; if we fail to heed them; escalate as far as is necessary to bring us to that point or destroy us if we refuse. There are no get out free cards.
Abuse is not an anomaly. It’s not something the baddies do. One of the hardest revelations we face is that abuse is what happens whenever we let things slide. Go for a “reasonable response.” Accept the ease that the abuse of power being “done in our name” bestows upon us. Nemesis doesn’t care what our justifications are. Even Hitler felt justified in his own mind.
We have only one choice that’s truly available. Double-down on Normalcy or relinquish our false innocence. This is where James Baldwin is such a guiding light. This is where we can finally see that he was describing the follies of Whiteness as a warning of what it would ultimately do to those who did not actively refute its rationalizations and renounce its blandishments; it’s “Awe shucks!” John Wayne, Doris Day bullshit.
This confrontation is internal. It cannot be prescribed and certainly cannot be brought about through compulsion. Those Nemesis destroys never do figure it out. Their heirs always see their heroes failures as a nefarious betrayal that will ultimately be overturned when, “The South Rises Again!” Or any of the other perennial chestnuts of incorrigibility.
We’ll know it when it happens. It should be visible when it does and therefore have some communicable effect. The whole thing is a mystery and will likely remain so. Revelation does have its limits.
Will any of this “solve anything?”
We need to learn that this is a false question founded on the assumptions hidden within Thought.
Thought has been a mechanism driven by the fantasy of power. It has arisen wherever and whenever the so-called “Will-to-Power” has been embraced. It has receded whenever and wherever people have seen through it. David Graeber and David Wengrow in The Dawn of Everything have shown us how what came to be called “The European Enlightenment” was most likely a garbled misunderstanding of plagiarized hard won insights within the cultures the Europeans were destroying in North America. The way this played out is one of the great examples and lessons concerning the depths of the blindness Thought imposes on us all.
Once again, I feel that all this is still preamble to vital questions we need to face….
Blitzkrieg is a fantasy. The drug-fueled fever-pitch of Fascism in its first blush holds the seeds of its destruction. The most pernicious and longest lasting lie about the German Nazis has been their “genius.” Their “super-human abilities.”
A willingness to deny reality and force through brutal actions does not trump reality. The willed ignorance and sheer incompetence of those who fall for these promises guarantee their self-destruction. Their ruthlessness imprisons them in their individual jealousies and self-regard. They eat their own.
They do manage to destroy everything they touch while they are able to lash out. Those who ally with them are sure to be amongst their victims. They are dangerous.
They are not omnipotent.
