Will the Year of the Cow End with a Mu?
If you ever thought of becoming a philosopher, now's the time. In fact, now is the only and last chance you have. The philosophical adventure – many thousands of years old – is about to be shut down for good.
In some idle moment you may have entertained the idea that philosophy is more relevant than any other field of thought. You're right.
You may have thought it could endow you with semi-mystical capacities, an ability to gaze from the heights, view our own age in the light of other epochs, recognize the triviality of people's concerns, see through deception, expose absurdity and corruption. It does.
You may have thought philosophy is hard, and entails the careful defining of terms and close logical reasoning. Not at all. Its power is from another world. The sort of power to cut through Covid like a fine-edged sword through a Gordian knot.
There is no shortage of people who think the above is cobblers. With a rhetorical flourish they will say, "What use is philosophy today?" Or, less tactfully, "You're wasting your time". The late theoretical physicist Steven Hawking said philosophy is dead.
We need waste no time on those who missed their chance at philosophy by permitting science and rationality to pinion them. This is for people who want to fly.
Philosophy is two Greek words combined: philia, love, and Sophia, wisdom. Revisiting the famous home of philosophy, ancient Greece, you might be forgiven for believing that Plato, who has Socrates skilfully expose others' faulty thinking, held reason to be supreme. Take a closer look at the dialogues. The truths of greatest importance are not reasoned at all, but shown by way of simile and metaphor – the poet's way.
Unless we appreciate what is going on here, we will be hopelessly drawn off course. What puts Plato in the clearest possible light as an opponent of rationalism is this:
There is an eye of the soul which is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen."
Republic, 527e
This poetic language can be rendered another way. Consider the human faculties ranged in a hierarchy: the senses, then imagination, then reason (dianoia in Greek) and above that, nous, or intuitive perception (Intellectus in Latin). CS Lewis used to tell his Oxford students that nous is not for things of this world. To have the reality of such a faculty affirmed can have a profound effect.
One pupil, who later became a Sufi, recalled that it was "like a flash of lightning … for I had never before heard of the intellect in its true meaning. It was something wonderful, and in a sense I never recovered".
How to describe the world that opens to intuitive perception? And what is human life like when nous is inactive? Plato tells us in one of the most illuminating allegories in literature.
Imagine, says Socrates, we are prisoners in a deep cave, shackled by the foot and the neck and facing the wall of the cave. Behind us is a track with a raised parapet, and behind that a blazing fire. Along the track come figures holding puppets aloft.
The shadows of the puppets and what they hold – cast upon the wall before us – are all we ever see because we cannot turn. Though there is a way out of the cave – a long slope upward to daylight – right now this is the only reality we know.
It's a disturbing image, and it's meant to be. It should make us want to do everything we can to wake from our torpor and seek the Light.
Clearly, Plato envisaged the possibility of escape from this bleak situation. The shackles are self-imposed. For hundreds of years – long after Plato and his great Academy were distant memory – philosophers sought to promote a knowledge of the 'Sun' and our freedom to strive for an enlightened state. Plato would not have foreseen that this knowledge might be forgotten, the quest given up. Or that the cave might be sealed.
Freedom is a funny thing. It's not for everyone. Especially not for those who think they're already free. Long ago, in opposition to the true philosophers, a minority decided the most laudable aspect of the Classical Greek heritage was its use of inductive and deductive reasoning to fathom reality – empiricism. They named it 'natural philosophy', and then 'science'.
By the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell had determined that the facts of science easily trumped the wild speculations arising in the brains of the ancients. Wittgenstein believed the very limit to the expression of sensible thought lay in the propositions of science; the rest was nonsense.
Their writings, full of the idea of freedom, contain almost no philosophy at all.
Cave dwelling, since the advent of modern science, has been celebrated. Practising the most elaborate mental gymnastics ever conceived, troglodytes are prepared to discount inner or subjective knowledge, while imagining real knowledge is a sort of consensus drawn from whatever observables appear on the cave wall.
Understandable, then, that today many of the imprisoned are members of the Cave Sitters' Club of Freedom-Loving Individuals. Dedicated to promoting the merits of cave life, instructing the young on what's real and what isn't, and tackling dissenters, it has a very wide following. Here is an example of woke cave culture.
Philosophy for Kids During Lockdown
(NewsGuard rating: Satire – not assessed according to the nine journalistic criteria because it is not real news)
1. Can you see a pattern in the following historical incidents?
a) The Papal Bull of 1484 identified the existence of countless witches all over Europe.
b) The 1504 da Vinci globe identified the existence of ferocious dragons at the limit of Asia.
c) The WHO, whose logo is a snake on a stick, declared in 2020 the existence of a deadly coronavirus all over the world.
Answer: They all involve animals.
2. Which of the following should you rate the most trustworthy?
a) Socrates, who said, "I know that I know nothing"
b) the mate who's never let you down
c) doctors Ferguson and Fauci, who said, "I don't always get it right, but I know a hell of a lot of stuff"
Answer: c); the others know bugger all.
3. Which is the odd one out?
a) In the Milgram experiment people were persuaded to follow orders by authority figures in white coats.
b) In the coronavirus experiment people were persuaded to follow orders by authority figures in black uniforms and chequered caps.
c) In Star Wars people were persuaded to follow orders by authority figures in white plastic suits
Answer: b); the police are just ordinary citizens in uniform.
4. Without leaving the safety of your home, consider the following:
a) dangerous picnics in the park
b) being dragged around by police, forcibly masked, cuffed, and fined for breaking curfew
c) meeting up with other bio-weapons in the pub
5. Without thinking, tick the following boxes:
a) I'd like to see Greta or Jacinda as President of Earth. □
b) Willy, Zuck, and Klaus are making the world a better place. □
c) Everything about modern science is cool. □
d) Old people are not that important. □
e) Cows and sheep are annoying bastards. □
f) Freedom and individual sovereignty are passé. □
g) I'd like a world with zero carbon. □
6. Is there a pattern here?
a) Overuse of antibiotics causes resistant bacteria.
b) Overuse of Roundup causes resistant weeds.
c) Overuse of vaccines causes resistant viruses.
Answer: No; c) is still wild conjecture.
7. Identify the fallacy here.
a) If you magnified an ant 240 (1 trillion) times it would appear dangerous.
b) If you magnified bits of virus 240 times it would appear dangerous.
c) If Willy Gates magnified the contents of his piggy bank 240 times, he would appear dangerous.
Answer: b); a virus is not a living thing.
8. Are these two statements compatible?
a) We've survived for hundreds of thousands of years with viruses.
b) From tomorrow, we won't be able to survive without vaccines for viruses.
Answer: Yep. As David Hume pointed out, the fact that the sun has risen every day so far doesn't imply it will rise tomorrow.
9. Alarming statistics to make you think.
In the UK, in the first month of 2020, 50,000 people died. After another month the figure had risen to 100,000. By the end of the year, it was 600,000. At this rate the entire present population of Britain – 67 million people – will be dead in a little over 100 years.
10. Are the following statements examples of well-known logical fallacies?
a) Vaccines have not been proved dangerous; therefore, they must be safe.
b) We must lock everyone up or deaths will increase.
c) The vaccines will work because America is great.
d) Piers Corbyn and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are known conspiracy theorists so what they say about vaccines can be ignored.
e) Deaths fell after lockdown so lockdown worked.
f) Surveys show that primary school children are more likely to be mask wearers than university students. Therefore, the lower the level of education the more likely it is that people will do the right thing.
Answer: Under normal circumstances perhaps. However, Chris Whitty, Antony Fauci, and Paul Kelly are not philosophers.
11. Masks are very useful things. Without removing your mask, try entertaining the following subversive ideas:
a) Masks don't stop viruses.
b) Masks are tools of oppression and inhibit human interaction and the effectiveness of protest against the Covid cult.
c) Masks cause breathing difficulties and confused thinking.
Were you successful? Please see the teacher after class.
12. Which is the odd one out?
a) Tobacco companies have made very dangerous products for money and tried to cover it up.
b) Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer have made very dangerous products for money and tried to cover it up.
c) Chemical companies have made very dangerous products for money and tried to cover it up.
Answer: b) can no longer be sued.
13. Spend one hour studying the ABC and BBC factchecker sites to find out where you went wrong. If you now voiced the view that PCR tests are totally misleading, asymptomatic infection is nothing to worry about, and there are hundreds of deaths and hundreds of thousands of adverse reactions because of the vaccine, you would be responsible for:
a) stirring up trouble
b) providing useful information that might avoid future tragedy
c) preventing the progress of science
d) embarrassing journalists at the ABC and BBC
e) embarrassing well-meaning vaccine companies
f) embarrassing Matt Hancock (even more)
Answer: All of the above except b), an example of narcissism, cockiness, and quite possibly psychosis.
14. What are the best vaccination centres for Covid?
a) churches, mosques, and temples
b) vaccination centres
c) doctor's surgeries
Answer: a), since all religions were cults in the first place.
15. Australia has a population of about 26 million. Only 0.0035% have died with Covid. Despite multiple lockdowns, and relentless attempts to find people about to die with Covid, it has proved almost impossible to bring the numbers up. Yet the country has secured 195 million vaccine doses. Rank the following reasons in order of likelihood?
a) It's planning ahead for killer variants. □
b) Australians are not good at maths. □
c) The population may grow faster than anticipated. □
d) America told them to do it. □
e) It may take more than two attempts to kill you (at 40:20). □
16. The Queen has suggested that if you get the vaccine you're thinking of others; if you don't, you're selfish. Could this be an example of the excluded middle or false dichotomy fallacy?
Answer: No, this is the Queen remember!
Covid Catalyst
How can we tell we are anything other than shackled in ignorance? That we are not fantasizing over a non-existent 'Sun', or its light which is nous? That we have the ability to escape? In short, how do we know we have the makings of a philosopher?
It's quite simple. Plato's world is where three timeless and transcendent verities come together: the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
And so, an attraction for what is true or real, to honesty and integrity, an inclination to kindness and goodwill, a sense of empathy, a love of beauty and the desire to create it, a sense of the sacred, and an orientation towards the world of the Spirit, are signs of that higher reality.
Fittingly nous has a long use in English culture as intelligence, good judgement, or common sense. Perhaps it was common once. Those sensitive to the Platonic values are today on the fringes, pushed there by hard-nosed scientifically-minded types.
When I began perusing alternative media sites as the Covid narrative took shape, I realized that the most interesting section of any article was the comment section below it. These forums are one locus of a heightened awareness, of common sense.
Here, a clear-eyed apprehension of untruths, deceit, and corruption is matched by a heart-felt concern for human welfare and an aspiration to the good and beautiful world we know is possible. Read them and weep. Whether expressed as lament, in gentle irony, in anger, with deep sadness, or to console or encourage, they are a sign that nous is operating.
This is what it means to turn from the cave wall and face the puppets.
If Plato were around today, he might invoke the sitting room with the wall-sized plasma TV for his allegory. Socrates, discoursing on delusion, would find in Covid not just the perfect example of false perception but the ideal goad to rouse us from insensibility.
For here, in high definition, the images become comical, absurd, grotesque. The head-and-shoulder glove-puppet government ministers, the scientific advisers like wooden marionettes, and the sanctimonious media dolls, could inspire philosophers by the score.
Time to Leave
Groucho Marx said, "I wouldn't belong to any group who would have me as a member". Philosophers are ludicrously independent. They will not start a club of philosophers, since any group is subject to group think. Philosophers are focused on waking up to Reality. They may be interested in what cave-sitters believe, but not in what they are doing.
Jung favoured individual over collective consciousness. And Henry Corbin said philosophers are always moving on. You are on your own. Therefore, be satisfied with a group of one, for here free thought prevails.
In Jacindaland, the prime minister would make of her country a 'team of five million'. This doesn't sound philosophical. Teams, by definition, must work together, extinguishing individuality for an abstract goal.
To launch a $25 million ad campaign to oh-so-cleverly swing things your way, get people to think and do exactly what the Covid narrative dictates, is to forget that the one thing a nation of individuals should be allowed is to make up their own mind. Before your nation of individuals has been trained in appropriate group behaviour, you may have a problem with recalcitrants.
You will need to punish your nation of individuals by getting them to snitch on neighbours or by putting the boot into rule breakers.
When the realization that they've been duped hits home – as, alas, it usually does – unfortunately, for you, your trained nation of individuals may not be on your side.
If you seek truth, stop assuming you already have it, or that you know best. Avoid the pitfalls of argument and debate and try philosophical dialogue instead, an ongoing unjudgmental attempt to uncover truth, rather than learning a few dubious facts from the WHO and then trying to brow beat those around you into accepting that you're right.
This highest form of conversation, cautiously assesses the facts of today, the facts of yesterday, human psychology, history, humour, life and death, life on Earth, other times, other worldviews, other worlds, ultimate reality, and on into the late afternoon.
If you find you never quite decide on anything – good. You will ensure that Covi never gets a foothold and it will be time for tea.
Effortlessly you will be able to reinstate the world as it was, laugh as the dictatorial Punch and Judy puppets bump each other on the head, and move on.
Phrenology – the study of bumps on the head to determine psychological attributes – once all the rage, eventually got a bad name. And rightly so; you can't measure things that way. However, the principle is sound.
Study carefully the faces – especially the eyes – mannerisms, and speech of the Covid puppets and you'll begin to realize there's such a thing as effortless intuition. You can't teach this perception, but you can foster it. It is no more than comparing what one sees and hears with an internalized template of Truth and Goodness.
Specializing puppets of the Ferguson type, wearied by their own expertise, commonly display zero empathy. The opaque, lightless stare of a Fauci Napoleonic puppet tells you they are immune to common sense and balance. A Hancock puppet, complacent in its complete lack of expertise, finds displaying genuine emotion a hazardous enterprise. Jack-in-the-box puppets pompously deliver advice right, left and centre. The Willy-G version manifests as a schoolboy with too much pocket money who just wants to be loved.
A Boris clown puppet, seemingly bent on winning hearts in the Covid circus tent, is routinely set upon by other clowns, who light the firecracker in his back pocket. Incorrigible Blair puppets morph over time into miniature demons. A Tedros puppet presents as a fatherly figure, but is in reality a prototype robo-puppet, its sincerity setting dialled way up. Klaus puppets, you will note, have their right brain switched off.
If your response is, "I thought we'd gone beyond simplistic judgements based on how someone looks or speaks", then you have just discovered philosophy is not for you.
To find their way out of the cave, philosophers must be prepared to commit intellectual infanticide. Not only unafraid to examine their most cherished beliefs, they will be keen to challenge them. Here are four examples of what I mean, chosen almost at random.
1. Food
I spent thirty years as a vegetarian, utterly convinced it was the best idea I'd ever had, only to find that carbohydrates (everything except meat and fat) are problematic. In excess, they are responsible for multiple health issues. And they cause alarming obesity.
Anyone who can seriously entertain the fact that for thousands of years we were relatively healthy and in the past few decades, through no fault of our own, we're getting fatter and sicker, are not in love with philosophy, but cognitive dissonance.
Switch to fats and meat and the first thing that happens is you get back the body you had when you were nineteen. The next is that aches and pains disappear along with a host of encroaching ailments. And you can think properly. If you want to see what people looked like not that long ago, check out TV shows from the 70s – the original Star Trek say, or British sitcoms.
If you want to know what happens to the brain deprived of adequate access to long chain fatty acids, consider the recent decline in reasoning ability or the ever more pervasive infantilism.
Consider the fact that we worship a national health service, which communicates through cartoons, by standing in the street and applauding. Or that we think heroes are guys who walk in circles or voluntarily submit to untrialled vaccines.
Consider that Veganism, an entirely modern experiment in nutrition deprivation, is so lacking in essential fats it can make your brain shrink.
2. Climate Change
I spent a similar period of my life convinced the ecosphere was about to break down, and we were responsible. Devastating global warming and sea level rise were imminent. In the 80s I wrote papers and a thesis based on this premise. I pored over IPCC data.
For years I asked my mother to check and report on the advancing tide levels on the shore below her house. Nothing. Then my sister was co-opted. Nada. Not a single inhabited island has gone under, and fifty-degree days are as rare as ever. It could all happen tomorrow. But which tomorrow exactly?
Understanding the Earth System is not rocket science. It makes rocket science look like designing a new dunny float valve. Ludicrously complex interactions operate within the ecosphere, most of which we hardly begin to understand.
Yet, each time we notice something new in Nature, we decide it is unprecedented, imagine the worst, and crank out a computer model which confirms that it is very bad indeed. And panic.
James Lovelock has spent half a lifetime warning about how precarious is Gaia's life sustaining ability. But which is more likely?
That a ball of rock muddles along for 4 billion years propagating life, even producing consciousness from matter, all the time rallying against the onslaught of a pesky sun which keeps getting hotter – and then is defeated by some bipeds?
Or that a staggeringly complex sphere of light, long the symbol of divinity, whose structure and operation mirrors that of a brain, its emissions embracing and connecting with Earth, initiates, upholds and guides life?
A modest proposal: Would it be a better idea to look at the certain technological causes of the problems we have? Unrelenting attacks on the Earth and its lifeforms by the military-industrial complex, say. Attacks by international mining companies, oil companies, logging companies, agribusiness companies, pesticide companies, and pharmaceutical companies – really any technology driven by greed for profit which, heedless of the interests of other species (and most of our own) degrades or obliterates a beautiful functional world?
3. Young People
When I was ten, I thought the 21-year-old female student teachers who appeared unexpectedly at our school one term were goddesses from another planet. Then I grew up. Which is important if you're going to be a philosopher. Perhaps we more easily assess and critique our own sex. I long ago learnt to identify the small boy syndrome: men who never matured, becoming either clownish, nerdish, or devilish. Innate proclivities delayed my capacity to discern their counterpart.
A lecturer I knew once remarked that he'd noticed the conclusions men arrive at after hours of careful reasoning, women see intuitively more or less straightway. Wisdom is associated with the feminine. In Ancient Greece, Athena, identified by Socrates with nous or divine intelligence, was the embodiment of Sophia, the inspiration for philosophers. On the other hand, Athena was never a girl.
It is customary to claim that the young are somehow more important or relevant than mature humans. "They're the future", "They're smarter than us", "You know what my little one said the other day…?" And so on. The logic here is not apparent. Children, charming as they are, haven't had much time to think.
A twelve-year-old has potential, but their grasp of the world is what you'd expect from a twelve-year-old. They know sod all.
Having less in your mind makes you notoriously conservative. The world you're born into always seems about right; it's the way the world works. If there is anything wrong with it, the solution proposed will be simple and straightforward – and most likely what the Establishment is already working on anyway. Idealism often means to be narrowly focused, convinced, and determined.
Greta Thunberg is an interesting example of where you can go with a single-minded kick-ass approach to the world. Her exploits may make one hanker for those halcyon days of wagging school, telling your Oldies where to go, and setting off on a whim on voyages around the world. But, to borrow from Voltaire, though one feels one ought to admire kid's views, after forty years conversing with adults, I've lost the habit.
Young people can't be philosophers.
Older people have seen a lot, experienced a lot, done a lot. You can't deny a seventy-year-old has seventy years of experience. On the other hand, you don't know how long a ten-year-old is going to last. Let's formulate a simple law: a forty-year-old is four times as relevant as a ten-year-old, a fifty-year-old five times as relevant and so on.
By the time you're 80 (and haven't been vaccinated too often) you've become an impressive 8 times more relevant. You have your whole life behind you. A white-haired sage, you'll know which cunning plans tend to go pear-shaped, which ideas won't work at all, which people would be the best teachers or leaders, and which ones should be given toys to play with instead. You've had time to learn that Truth, Goodness and Beauty are not merely words but fundamental principles which preserve the world.
4. Modern Science
I used to think science and science fiction were everything. If you grew up in the Land of the Lotus Eaters when The Ascent of Man first screened, astronauts careened on the moon, colour television and a digital watch were the acme of sophistication, and a PDP 11 was a real presence in the Computer Room, you probably identified with the guys in orange jump suits in Star Wars, and presumed – erroneously as it happens – that the Dark Side was not the West.
For a brief time in the 80s I was a lab assistant at the CSIRO in Tasmania, and this effectively put paid to the idea of Western civilization. We used to drive down to the southern forests to study what happened after clear-felling and incinerating a piece of primeval rainforest.
Just how effective at fixing nitrogen were those little liverworts and mosses that emerged from the ash? We took a map produced by a computer program on which were plotted the exact locations to sample – so many paces north from the big Stringybark stump, so many east from the muddy rivulet, and so on.
One day we forgot the map. My supervisor was in some distress. I said, "Why not just pace out fifty metres along the road and walk ten metres in, and keep going like that?" He stared at me, appalled. More boldly, I said, "The bush doesn't know it's supposed to be any different at regular intervals than at random ones".
The look of horror at experiencing the rigors of the scientific method so casually thrown to the winds was replaced first by the outward signs of a valiant mental battle, and then by acquiescence as common sense returned. He was quiet for some time after though.
It was an early warning of what happens when we submit to the cult of modern science. If you're not careful, you'll end up thinking the world really does conform to the internal model you have of it. The model will become what's real, and Nature just a poor similitude.
The tragedy of scientists is that they almost never look to the philosophy of science. For, of course, science is not an exact knowledge gained from careful study of everything perceived. It's the sort of knowledge you get when you elect to study only what can be measured.
Forced to start by ignoring most of reality and looking only at the things they could apply a yardstick to, scientists arrived, four centuries later, at the brilliant conclusion that only what can be measured is real.
If you get used to working only in greyscale, it's unsurprising if you eventually claim the colour button doesn't do anything.
Non-sensory modes of perception? Higher realities? – what on earth was Plato talking about?
The greatest scientists have always recognized the limitations of their craft. Newton likened his discoveries to a boy picking up shells on the shore of an ocean of truth.
There is nothing inherently illogical about a metaphysical dimension to reality that the methodology of science cannot penetrate. If the universe is structured hierarchically, and if consciousness precedes 'matter', then intuitive perception may be nothing less than a link with a higher state of mind.
Philosophers are fortunate people.
The Year of the Cow
By curious coincidence, my four points come together in the time of Covid, and the beginning of a new era. 2021 – the Chinese Year of the Cow, the year of the vaccine (from Latin vacca, cow) – I shall designate Year Zero.
This year inaugurates the winding up of Western Civilization, which will be largely due to two SF writers, Willy and Klaus.
Consider: Willy Gates as philanthrocapitalist (someone who hands out money but always ends up with more) searching for something to do with his life, and devoid of philosophical inclination, hit upon some key initiatives.
Like any profit-oriented scientist, he favours the model that gets you where you want to go. Thus, when it comes to climate change, he is partial to models that predict a piddling gas in the atmosphere is about to blow apart the whole kit and kaboodle, ignores the distinction between cruel, wasteful factory farming and traditional and sane farming practice, and proposes knocking farm animals on the head – ending problematic burping – and switching to artificial meat forthwith, thus weening us off food which kept us going for a million years.
Fascination with epidemics, and injecting people with something, led him to daydreams of global pandemics. Overlooking the fact that almost no one dies from any coronavirus, he pounced on the flawed computer models out of Imperial College. Forecasts of catastrophe always sound impressive, and they're pretty much essential if you plan to get at everyone on Earth.
Boredom is always a hazard for the mega-rich. In the end, solving the pandemic was just too "easy". Solving climate change, in contrast, would be "the most amazing thing". Thinking we didn't notice that global capitalism, with the technology it wields, has been busy dismantling our world for decades, he proposes introducing even more hi-tech fixes – a sort of vaccination for our ailing planet.
Even a trainee philosopher can see that technology, both child and parent of modern science, always has a downside. Solving one problem we create three more. It takes time for the whole world to be suffering from the negative effects of technology. But eventually it happens.
The inevitable outcome of a materialistic philosophy, wherein sense perception alone is of account and the manipulation of matter lauded, is Klaus Schwab's 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' – the debasement of humanity and indifference to handing control over to soulless machines.
Although I'm against AI generally, I would make one exception: buses. A super-intelligent bus, wholly autonomous and with an advanced sense of ethics, rolling around the streets of Davos, could quickly solve some of the world's most recalcitrant problems. And in London we could answer a long-standing riddle: Boris may love buses, but do buses love him?
Perhaps glasses – of the oversized Willy Gates or Neil Ferguson variety – could be similarly endowed, effortlessly producing the seeing conditions suited to AI buses. What about an AI-controlled Air Force One? Or perhaps the entire Learjet and Gulfstream fleet?
Santa Klaus
Philosophers, ever observant, will have noticed the plethora of neotenous female puppets who have been rising above the parapet during Year Zero, to prominence in the mainstream media, universities, business, politics, and in unelected busybodies such as the WHO.
Scarily, these long-haired sirens hold aloft syringes, contact tracing apps, and green passports, luring us to take the jab with promises of freedom and fun, and warnings of peril if we listen to anti-vax conspiracy theorists.
This might have been planned by a man. Actually, it was. Klaus – a sort of anti-philosopher – started the Forum of Young Global Leaders in 2004, and a global movement of young Shapers in 2011, to help him engineer the future. You're not supposed to be in it after you're 30, perhaps because Klaus thought this was the age when a healthy suspicion of 'what the hell is going on' kicks in.
By 2020, Klaus's ongoing commitment to young people telling adults what to do, led him to ensure ten teenage change-makers were at Davos that year, later hailing Greta (17) as "the voice of an entire generation''.
While Thunberg's tirade at the UN has been compared to the Gettysburg Address, it more easily compares with your teenage daughter's carefully choreographed tantrum. With this sort of confidence in the capacity of youth to speak for our future, there seems no good reason not to include pre-teens and even toddlers in 2022.
Young men, said Helena Norberg-Hodge, are the weakest link in a culture. We have to update that because we shouldn't be sexist. The young women who run organizations like NewsGuard, write Coronavirus pieces for ABC's Fact Check, or front once-credible BBC programmes like Panorama, still finding their way in a world whose real workings they know almost nothing of, display what has been called Young Girlism. "Childlike, sentimental, and eminently prepared to relinquish heretofore absolute values", they are in a pre-philosopher stage.
In the infamous Panorama edition of February 2021, Vaccines: The Disinformation War, we find those who could have been intrepid truth-seekers have settled for Establishment propaganda, accidental puppets of dark agendas they may never understand – a fate easily circumvented if only they'd opted for a degree in Ecophilosophy.
Marianna Spring, Olga Robinson and Chloe Colliver would like to see anti-vaccination messaging culled from social media sites.
Spring, shot in soft focus, in low light, and in an almost-erotic plastic face shield, may also singlehandedly be credited with overcoming vaccine hesitancy in at least 50 percent of the viewing audience – which is a further indictment of the BBC.
I would love to believe these muses are all prodigies from Oxbridge and the Ivy League, replete with perspicacity, able to identify all that is wrong with the world, and plan and implement utopia. But for this to happen I would also have to believe that 27-year-olds have suddenly acquired capacities unknown to all preceding generations.
Philosophers must be prepared to be disappointed.
Covid Cult
My earliest memory of the word 'Australia' was as part of an oft-repeated refrain by an Irish Patrician Sister at my primary school: "Wake up Australia!"
I see now what she was on about. Most Australians I know believe that, due to a brilliant strategy, they have escaped the worst effects of the pandemic. Since the effects of the 'pandemic' are vaccines, a restructured society, and loss of freedom and livelihoods as 'zero-covid' morphs into 'zero-carbon', this assessment is a tad inaccurate.
Outwitting a virus is like outwitting your cat. It all seems to be going well until you ask: Which one of you gets to eat for free as well as deciding the menu, commandeers the most comfortable places in the house, has doors and windows opened for them on whim, and has unencumbered access to all the neighbour's properties?
We know now that the pandemic would disappear like mist before the morning sun the minute PCR tests, never a medical diagnostic tool, were abandoned and we re-instated the old-fashioned idea of checking for signs and symptoms.
Fear would go soon after masks were removed, government and media stopped toying with the public and the WHO with the Greek alphabet, and we took a sober look at the death figures. Pandemic years are not ones where all-cause mortality is about normal.
'Vaccines', by contrast, are all too real. The universal roll-out of experimental gene therapy via injection may become the Great Crime of modern science, presaging the most insidious future imaginable.
The ongoing phase-3 trials have resulted in a staggering number of reported serious side effects after vaccination (see the Yellow Card, Vaers, and Eudra figures).
It is one thing to be concerned about physiological damage or the death of a minority. What if mRNA jabs initiate more subtle, and universal, effects? Long-term impairment of our immune system, say? Permanent alteration of our genetic code? Or of human mentation? Would we then know what had happened to us?
Over a hundred years ago the mystic Rudolph Steiner had a shot at one potential of vaccines: inoculation against an aspiration toward spirituality or the philosophical life.
The puppeteers in Plato's allegory are invisible, the unseen forces that delude us. Much fuss is made attempting to match these forces to shadowy individuals or secret cabals bent on manipulation and control for their own ends.
But in fact, there is no secret. And they aren't invisible. To a philosopher on the upward slope turning to glimpse the puppets from behind, the figures who manipulate them represent an absence or void in the soul. They are beings in whom a sense of the Good, True and Beautiful has been dimmed, even extinguished, as a candle its flame. Opposed to the highest ends of humanity, seeking to disrupt it, and life itself, they must be considered enemies of enlightenment. Klaus has assembled the most influential club of such individuals. It is known as the WEF.
A sobering passage in the Hermetica recounts Hermes being chastised for assuming that everyone is endowed with nous. We can ask: When have there not existed power-hungry individuals bent on controlling the planet and its people for their own use?
Look to their visions cast upon the cave wall. You'll see all that is antagonistic to human flourishing. A celebration of war and violence.
Ever more technology to deplete or obliterate life by poisoning our environment, bodies, and minds. A celebration of childish pursuits. Of liberalism to the point of overthrowing all traditional cultural patterns. The extolling of authorities and experts over individual autonomy and common sense. Language used to obfuscate and mislead.
Worst of all, the attempt to divert us from an understanding of what the human being is in essence, by fostering a wholly materialistic outlook, turning our gaze entirely earthward. If this had not been done first, submission to the dictates of Year Zero could not have happened.
From Year Zero, the Gates of Hell are Wide Open
The propagation of a global vaccination programme, digital tagging, ceaseless tracking, monitoring, and controlling, are signs of the endgame. Our moves are becoming more and more limited. Our sovereign being is about to be toppled.
We don't yet know whether the current mRNA injections have the capacity to disrupt catastrophically. But the momentum is set. The variants, real or imaginary, will keep coming, providing a never-ending reason for more and different 'vaccines'. The future envisaged by the bio-tech industry is in no way harmonious with our nature. Naively we may urge caution, seek debate, even call for some backtracking. Yet, who is listening?
A fateful divide is growing every day. There seems no middle ground. Leaping with Klaus, we enter a world that would redesign us out of existence. Remembering what we are and our highest values, the natural, meaningful, often graceful world known to our parents and to all generations before them beckons.
Of course, to a philosopher there is no choice. It is like being asked about joining a suicide cult. Biotechnology, along with so many emerging technologies, promises nothing good. Extreme evil is no longer a thing of the past. Unless we seek its end, we drift toward our own. The cave will be our home forever.
Exiting the Cave
We could never have imagined the Enemy coming like this. Yet, in hindsight, an 'invisible and silent killer', fear, and a remedy equally invisible and incomprehensible is the perfect way of attempting the subjugation of humanity.
Happily, Schwabian lifeforms, deprived of light, always miss something. Coronavirus may be a great opportunity to reset society. But what Klaus didn't anticipate was Covid becoming a catalyst allowing time for people to find out what he and his mates were up to. And philosophers to thrive.
All who defy the ludicrous dreams of the inhuman are the heroes of our time, courageous souls who stand against efforts to control and coerce. The Good, the True and the Beautiful have ever been the templates for an authentic society, the gauge against which we assess the worthiness of the actions of those around us and especially the worthiness of those who would lead us. Whoever sees this must reject the Covid doctrine and the 'New Normal', denounce Year Zero, deride attempts to snuff out the light, and kick away the stone being rolled across the cave entrance.
Today, the precious few who first made a stand have become the many. In the great demonstrations and marches across the world, the human spirit shines. On a sea of faces is reflected a consciousness of the light. What are they if not philosophers? Lovers of wisdom who choose the upward path.
John Griffin is an artist, writer, and farmer. His books include On the Origin of Beauty, and a prophetic novel, Ex Solaris Essentia.
Filed under: Arts and Entertainment, Covid Positive, latest, Philosophy & Abstract Thoughts
Tagged with: abstr, Aristotle, Bill Gates, climate change, coronavirus, covid19, Essays, Greta Thunberg, Humour, John Griffin, Jung, Klaus Schwab, philosophy, satire, Socrates, vaccines, veganism
James D. Stewart
I appreciate your linking to the Rudolf Steiner Archive & e.Lib.If you had contacted me, I would have setup a special link or URL so that people clicking on it would take them to the exact spot in the lecture. Dr. Steiner spells his first name, Rudolf.
Sophie - Admin1
Reply to James D. Stewart
Hi there – if you'd like to do that now we can amend the article to include it.
Reply to Sophie - Admin1
Tell me the sentence you want to link to and I'll make the link.
Brilliant article yet again John. Thank you for doing your part in bringing awareness to what I can only describe as the nefarious feckery being perpetrated on our society by a Global Elite who are soon to become the Global Delete as they continue to expose themselves and awaken the masses 🙏
Ron Marr
Aug 12, 2021 6:27 PM
Excellent!! Yes. Thank you for your work.
antitermite
What a feast!
So many topics in one, yet linked nicely, like a novella.
The preceding & succeeding articles are also excellent.
Bookmarked, it will take me a while to digest all these.
Si55
Plato and Socrates were vegetarian
plasos
Reply to Si55
Was you there?
Reply to plasos
No, but I can read, whereas your grammar suggests you may struggle with that.
Denys Picard
Aug 9, 2021 10:21 PM
As an addendum…and I don't want to create a polemic, but for me Wisdom sits between the male ad the Female. I wrote further down the Femininity was born in a males brain…and that in this sense Wisdom is very feminine. In fact Athena is the identical mythical being as Isis. And Isis was viewed as an Hermaphrodite. This viewed as an a representation of autarky, as with most deities of the Land, Agriculture.
"All the deities of pagan antiquity, however numerous they may be, can always be reduced to the 2 different forms of the generative principle- the active, male, and the passive female. Hence the gods were always arranged in pairs, as Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus and Venus, Osiris and Isis.But the ancients went further, Believing that the procreative and productive powers of nature might be conceived to exist in the same individual, they made the older of their deities hermaphrodite, and used the term ——(characters in ancient greek), or Man-Virgin, to denote the union of the two sexes in the same divine person." A.G. Backley, The symbolism of Freemasonry. 1882
Isis in more recent cycles of mythologies is mostly portrayed as female. Yet she finds also origins in Mut, who has both sexual attributes. The breast and the phallus. All is outwards, the nourishment by the breast, the fertility of the land by the phallus. No tools of procreation. Athena the "Woman-Virgin" is in fact a Man Virgin. Never had child or bearing, never married, no love affairs, always dressed, never portrayed in her nudity.
Wisdom should be viewed as a state where both forces, male and female, are united into one. In earlier cycles of Ancient greek Mythology, Athena's Hermaphrodism is more present, and in the later Greco-Rman mythology, Minerva is Anthena, and both have the ability to morph into a young man….
"the Veil of Isis has persisted through the centuries from ancient Egyptian Saïs—where Athena and Isis were identified as one—to the present day."
The Veil of Isis: The Evolution of an Archetype Hidden in Plain Sight
The Goddess of Willendorf – In search of the Feminine Divine
Sean Arthur Joyce
A great reminder that atheistic materialism has proven an utter disaster in society. The presence of soul and spirituality persists no matter what the soulless technocrats think. As to the Davos cult and Schwab's sci-fi fantasies, I'm encouraged by Vandana Shiva's new book, Oneness vs. the 1%, where she debunks the notion that gene editing will become the way of the future. Having been a staunch advocate for Indian farmers fighting the use of their country as a GMO dumping ground, she writes of how attempts to introduce genetically engineered 'golden rice' has repeatedly proven a failure. But here's the kicker: Shiva cites a study on the CRISPR gene editing technology noting "hundreds of unintended mutations into the genome of mice." Thus, she writes, "it is technically not possible to make a single… genetic change to a genome using CRISPR and to ensure that it has done so…" Invariably, there are "off-target effects." No surprise then the many off-target adverse reactions to the mRNA "vaccine" (really a gene therapy). The entire basis of genetic engineering is thus based on a fallacy: the idea that genetic alterations can be made with 100% predictable results every time. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Herr Schwab! A pretty flimsy foundation for his trans humanist fantasy…
Clive William
9. UK, population 1970-2020 has increased roughly from 56 to 66 million.
Soo 1970-2120 it will be what? Who knows the author is speculating.
Btw a mate is a mate, A chum will never let you down.
Reply to Clive William
I'm probably quite a bit older than you, but I distinctly remember my primary school teacher telling us in 1957 that there were 58 million of us in the UK, and it was expected that we would be 60 million by 1960.
He even told us about Malthus, and the notion of there being 'standing room only' by 2000…
In those days, teachers were allowed to tell us anything they knew about, not just what was tied to the curriculum, and they knew a lot.
Political correctness didn't exist, and this particular teacher even smoked while he was teaching us.
I learned a lot from him about b/s, although he was very strict – like almost all teachers back then.
All the boys were scared most of the time, because the teachers ruled. The girls not so much, because they just didn't have any naughty role models to copy, and always behaved well in class.
But the discipline we learned was what served us well in adult life, and our teachers knew they were doing something good. It wasn't like the army, because we all knew that the lives of others didn't literally depend on us, so the goodwill behind our best teachers shone through. It wasn't discipline for its own sake.
The importance here is that we learned how to sense goodwill – between the lines, as it were.
Nowadays, teachers are compelled to show 'goodwill' at all times, although many of them don't even know what it is, so they fake it.
My generation of students would have seen through the fake. We were taught how to see through things.
Today, I'm not so sure they know the difference – and, boy, is there a difference.
We are not supposed to see through things any more.
Reply to wardropper
I'am 67, agree, '50-'70 '72-'82 are all good years for projections of a UK Citizenship and those temp. or permantely living in Spain for example.
It's difficult thats why I went back say 50yrs then forward 100yrs.
regarding the statement that veganism can make brain shrink and " recent decline in reasoning ability or the ever more pervasive infantilism" – all those masses of masked and antisocialy distanced Coroni Witnesses and believers in The Holy Jab the Saviour, are they all vegans?
Guenonsbitch
Reply to Donnie
I am not a coroni witness and I am vegan. One need but take a quick glance at Greek philosophers to see that they also refrained from eating meat as it dulled the higher senses and faculties. So yeah, while I agree with a lot of what he says, I am going to disagree with this. I'm not saying everyone should be vegan, but it wasn't until I stopped participating in the carnage of animal agriculture that the veil lifted from my eyes.
Robert Hughes
Aug 9, 2021 11:50 AM
An absolutely brilliant essay . Highly perceptive , funny , life-affirming – I could laud it endlessly , I won't : suffice to say it's truly a light of hope in these worrying times of hypnotised masses and extremely suspect bogus * humanitarian * billionaire * philanthropists * and the idiot politicians who hang on their every utterance ( and -selective- largesse ) with their demented plans for all of us .
Dearest John Griffin, a wonderful and extraordinary article for which you would deserve Athena's owl in pure gold.
The voices of dissent are becoming louder and I hope with you, that the 'armed forces' realise that they are ordinary citizens in uniform, which have parents, grandparents, friends and children. They also have the duty to protect not just their loved ones but all citizens.
Yet what also comes to mind is Nietzsche's: "Aber das Denken der Philosophie ist unzeitgemäß!" and Heidegger's: "Wissenschaft denkt nicht."
This article is why most people think philosophy is a load of old cobblers.
Reply to Steve
I don't think it's because of articles like this. Rather, I think it's because the term "philosophy" has been so cheapened by our mass culture that it can no longer be taken seriously.
For about, I would say, the last ten years, you almost never hear "philosophy" as a stand alone discipline. In its place, you constantly hear the phrase "philosophy of" – philosophy of this or of that. As if philosophy is nothing more than a bullet list of some or another trendy nonsense.
Your comment states what most people would like to believe about philosophy, but it just doesn't work.
As with classical music, if you have never heard any, it is so unbelievably easy just to jump onto the bandwagon of those who say, "I never listen to that rubbish".
It makes you feel accepted by the majority crowd, but it's also a cheap way of avoiding actual confrontation with something that is greater than oneself.
"What?" I hear them say, "I have never encountered anything greater than myself!"
Yes. Precisely because you avoid it.
Aug 9, 2021 8:02 AM
On your comment re left brain thinking – I read a thought provoking book written by Leonard Shlain "The Alphabet versus the Goddess" regarding the shift away from gestalt thinking during the time of the goddess religions, mainly driven by an understanding of nature, with the advent of the printing press, which trained left brain more linear thinking.
John Griffin, I love you! In the Philia sense of course. That is one of the best articles I have read in decades about philosophy, which has been an interest of mine for a long time, albeit something which has always seemed so elusive. And spot on regarding food, and the faux science of climate change, and young people! Another John Griffin special to add to my folder for future visits.
banjocat
What a fantastic article! A snippet from the article that lit up my philosopher's light or God particle… "Cave dwelling, since the advent of modern science, has been celebrated. Practising the most elaborate mental gymnastics ever conceived, troglodytes are prepared to discount inner or subjective knowledge, while imagining real knowledge is a sort of consensus drawn from whatever observables appear on the cave wall." In my despair over relationships lost in Year Zero I wrote the following…
Am I dangerous
Am I crazy
With ideas that
make you shame me
My convictions
My suspicions
They unnerve you
Shake your virtue
You are righteous
You have slain me
With your vitriol
to enslave me
Do forgive me
If I don't cry
When you cut me
and I don't die
The well of fear
it has run dry
Would you burn me
Light that fire
Burn the witch cast
upon the pyre
Preach your dogma
Obey your masters
Wear the badge of
wicked spell casters
Watch the TV
Feed your bias
Lick the boots of
all the liars
False affliction
where's the room for
A dereliction
Self addiction
It's no wonder
you threw me under
I grow stronger
I grow bolder
Gaining wisdom
as I get older
my heart breaking
Where's the logic
Where's the reason
the act of thinking
is this now treason
A contradiction
Straight up fiction
As the world waits
for revolution
do you hear the call
do you see the signs
it's a battleground
over hearts and minds
Oh, do forgive me
You're like a bird
that cannot fly
You'll never learn
to touch the sky
No, you'll never learn
what not to buy
I wish I knew why
Oh, there is no life
if we're not brave
Get off of your knees
and out of Plato's cave
Before it's all too late…
Reply to banjocat
Well… I had second thoughts on posting this but it won't let me delete it now… Commentators remorse. I would have preferred to simply state the following…
What a fantastic article! Loved… "Cave dwelling, since the advent of modern science, has been celebrated. Practising the most elaborate mental gymnastics ever conceived, troglodytes are prepared to discount inner or subjective knowledge, while imagining real knowledge is a sort of consensus drawn from whatever observables appear on the cave wall."
I've been glaring at the shadow casters and slapping the hypnotized across the face for a long time now to no avail… It seems to me that few come into this world with their default setting in the correct position – the on switch is broken from birth. There seems to be no words, no truth, that can repair the faulty wiring. I pray that I am wrong…
Grace Johns
Don't have second thoughts banjo – I loved this and like the article, copied many lines for my archive. Cheers.
Reply to Grace Johns
Thank you! It was late. I was tired LOL. Words are magic to me and I'm really glad you got something from it. Take care and Stay Strong!
Fahlstrom
Thank you John for this great article, which I really had fun reading. More generally, thank you to all those who participate and contribute directly or indirectly to this website. Since they sounded the extra times of this pandemic along with the political slump that followed, your writings have helped me staying sane. Greetings from France, Marseille! <3
Sgt Oddball
…*Masterful*…
"The Willy-G version manifests as a schoolboy with too much pocket money who just wants to be loved."
…- And *Preferably* by other schoolboys…
…Incidently I am, myself, a Philosopher… – My specialism is in the field of *Guerrilla Ontology*…
…For instance, did you know that the *Complete Experimental Verification* (at this point) of the inequalities postulated by physicist John Stuart Bell in his seminal 1964 theorem, entirely materially establishes as *Fact* the existence of an entirely immaterial non-local *And* non-physical 'Ground' to Reality itself?…
…- Such a Ground is, of course, *Necessarilly Identical* with the 'Metaphysical Dimension' that John Griffin mentions in his article…
…- *WOOF… – WOOF, WOOF*!!…
(…- That's my *other* Dawg impersonation… – *Mm-Hmm*… 😉 )
There's a grim irony in that so many are following injunctions to re-breathe the demonized carbon dioxide in their masks while those with sufficient access to oxygen in their private jets plan "climate" lockdowns.
As a vegan for over a decade, I have experienced no discernible brain shrinkage, depression, or DHA deficiency. The body converts short chain to long chain Omega 3 fatty acids fairly well. For those who may be deficient, there are plenty of supplements available.
Reply to P J
65% to 75% of mankind have lactose intolerance. This is because we are the only species whose adults consume milk. Whole cultures don't traditionally consume the stuff – the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Melanesians, the Polynesians, West Africans, Native Americans and many others. Some cultures adapted genetically to milk consumption through the ages. This happened in prehistory when the wild auroch was domesticated and the milch cow created. Professionally dieticians are brainwashed, are unaware of this history and push the consumption of milk.
Reply to Peter
Perhaps something to do with pasteurisation creating intolerance? Milk consumption seems to work perfectly, along with meat and blood, for the masai. Some of the healthiest people on the planet.
mgeo
Reply to Glenda
One has to maintain consumption beyond infancy. This works for just about any race including East Asians. If intolerance arises, there are alternative treatments for that.
Banning unpasteurised milk may be meant constrain small-scale farmers and favour packaged milk of unknown provenance.
Geoffrey Skoll
What is their (Masai) median lifespan? What is their rate of infant/maternal mortality? Asserting something like "the healthiest" requires what measure you are using. By the three I mentioned residents of the USA are among the unhealthiest.
Nick Hill
I love this article, I really do. I feel hope. Thank you John.
even producing consciousness from matter
whoa there, cowboy!
Of liberalism to the point of overthrowing all traditional cultural patterns.
What tradition and culture do you refer to? The one that burned witches and their knowledge of natural cures, exterminated or enslaved entire populations after taking their land by force, that destroyed our indigenous cultural heritage and replaced it with spirit-destroying symbolism and distorted myths and doctrine and victimhood and a hatred of the body, the feminine and the earth?
Otherwise, I really enjoyed this! Great wit and an excellent synopsis of the condition we're in.
Reply to Zardoz
Feminism is the hatred of the feminine.
The late theoretical physicist Steven Hawking said philosophy is dead.
Philosophy means love of wisdom and Hawking was not wise. Hawking was an idiot savant who is dead, while philosophy will remain immortal.
It is indicative of what culture we're in that a malfunctioning human being who is essentially little more than a computer-like brain is awarded a god-like status..
Hawking probably died in the 1980's and was replaced by a series of impostors. No one lives with ALS for 55 years.
Did not need to replace him..do you have any proof that his talking computer was actually the direct quote of his writings…anybody could have written that. It was a series of astronomical metaphors mostly meant to guide…presented as scientific vulgarization but always with an affirmed moralistic tone.
WE should talk about Hawking as one of those "Men with Nurses"…like Micheal Jackson, and other VIPs of importance on the planet. You are never sure how the nurses have hijacked the narrative.
Hsuan
This might be the best post I've read here at Off-G since arriving two years ago. Bravo!
Thank you John. Maybe because I am selfish, and you altruistic, I have read this piece and progressively got the feeling it was written just for me…Let's hope they are many many many more who felt exactly the same way.
Van Cliburn once questioned at how one prepares to play a master work exactly the way one feels to his audience, explained that it was the opposite, the he always prepared by imagining how his audience would like to play the piece.
Interestingly, I finally feel out how one may feel when he trades out his Freedom for his Security…I am temporarily on Proton Pump Inhibitor medication. While not advertised much as a side effect, I have been experiencing with brain Fog for 2 weeks now. Cannot concentrate, cannot succeed at my first thing in the morning Chess problem, difficulty writing on the keyboard…PPIs modify a metabolism (Cholinergic) associated with Acetyl Choline key in brain performance. Can't wait to finish this treatment. My own freedom with the years has mostly been experienced from within and alone.
On the lighter side, if Mu is to Cow, than what is Mew to…How do you call something with a Mew and 2 tails: A Distribution.
You know, on Wisdom…from my standpoint…femininity was born in the male brain, and in that sense Wisdom is very feminine indeed.
NixonScraypes
I'm not too sure about Plato, his Republic sounds a bit eugenic and control freaky to me. However I found the rest of very stimulating, I think I'd like John Griffin.
Caltrop
……….And it is an illusion that the Chinese government owned the Wuhan laboratory –
THE SNAKES ARE COMING OUT.
"The Chinese biological laboratory in Wuhan is owned by GlaxoSmithKline!!!
The masks begin to fall off ! "The Chinese biological laboratory in Wuhan is owned by GlaxoSmithKline, which (accidentally) owns Pfizer!" (the one who makes the vaccine against the virus which (accidentally) started at the Wuhan Biological Lab and which was (accidentally) funded by Dr. Fauci, who (accidentally) promotes the vaccine !
"GlaxoSmithKline is (accidentally) managed by the finance division of Black Rock, which (accidentally) manages the finances of the Open Foundation Company (Soros Foundation), which (accidentally) manages the French AXA !"
Soros (accidentally) owns the German company Winterthur, which (accidentally) built a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan and was bought by the German Allianz, which (coincidentally) has Vanguard as a shareholder, who (coincidentally) is a shareholder of Black Rock, which (coincidentally) controls central banks and manages about a third of global investment capital. "Black Rock" is also (coincidentally) a major shareholder of MICROSOFT, owned by Bill Gates, who (coincidentally) is a shareholder of Pfizer (which – remember ? sells a miracle vaccine) and (coincidentally) is now the first sponsor of the WHO !
Now you understand how a dead bat sold in a wet market in China has infected the WHOLE PLANET !""
Now you know, pass it on until whole world knows
Reply to Caltrop
Great. They think the earth and all of it are an accident too.
Yess, a good one, and flashbacks stacking high.
Listen, I may sometimes sound a bit grumpy, I my self, hate grumpy people, but maybe one have to let go of this, from time to time to soute our self, equelibrium, and not to strange atractores, witch can be easy if one looses the footing, like mountain climbing, the day you are not afraid is the day to sentnce your self to death.
But, I never ends to be amazed by the, I am not sure to what I shal label it, fear, no, ignorance, well the future is not known as we speak, but think about it, recap, to the birth of internal combustion engines to my laptop, we already have nuclear facilitys whom have whats called an closed loop, full circle, call it whatever you want, it can burn out radioactive substances entirly, that alone is a magnificent achivement, and with this short back drop, what can we expect in the future, like 50 years from now, I dont bother to drool about AI nor transhumanism, witch I see as silly people, but imagine, we dont have an course of energy witch can be harvested cheeply and reliable witch the effect of been completely sutable regarding sustainability, why the bloody fear, I dont belive in the AGW at all, but I know humanity will find an way, I never doubted that, but to go there we all most do our part, science in that scale should be transparent, universal and cheep.
How come hemp is stil out of the question, that alone is a but baffling, when you probably dont know it can be used even to make airplanes, car bodys, etc.
But, what is it that stops us, who is forcing us to accsept moronic solutions, where they have created an marked like Carbon taxes, etc, centralized power suply and all this have trippled our power bills, after all, we pay for f…. everything.
Why, when the land is as much ours as theirs.
I would focus in the future and what can be done, and what acctually works.
The present green ones stinks high heaven and is basing their religion on reduction of everything, aka pushing us all back to the stone age, and so on, electric cars are ok enough, but the grid is maxed, and alternative sources, like Hydrogen, if they cant obtain it without an elecrtolytic process witch is sucking insane amount of energy to separate H and Ox.
If not, forget it.
Solar panels works on cabins, and thats it.
Not bad, but not good enough.
Windmills, the meat chopping shit things, well, await some years and then we can talk again, the sole reason for all this scammers can survive is that we pay for everything and gov subsdizes everything the ind. can build, above the chimenys, income, is secured because they can always just make power more expencive, to uh…. reduce our consumption, right.
Biofuel, hurmf, half of the corn produced in the imperial banana republic goes to biofuel, because the AGW cult and the fake left thinks biofuel is the solution to everything, while they denie the fact that this biofuel is one of the main reasons for deforeting.
What could possibly go wrong.
You see, so, the people whom runs everthing right now, is the enemy of man, they are the force that keeps us back, to evolve, we need an rEvolution.
No, I am not afraid of humanity, hope is, that we avoid an long walk into an dark narrow vally, but again, they eventually always fall, no matter the height and glory, always.
We dont need to go there, what we need is unity, thats the word that scares them most, unity, why do you think they hammer on with their insane policy, to divide us.
Be the light.
This article is pure 5.
Since I consider myself an amateur philosopher I can't agree 100% (naturally), about this later.
Not ones I've heard something like philosophy is just mental masturbation. Of course people like this are full of inconsistencies, conflicting beliefs that are often taken as facts, most are: beware of people who don't' know that they don't know.
Philosophy, even in its unconscious and incoherent form present in majority, defines World-View and world-view is the ultimate tool for control of the people according to E.V. Alekseyevich . Damn, people in truth-community should totally into (but they are not really).
How rule the world. Lecture at the FSB (KGB)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuf9d3sci-w&t=1140s
Hawking was in a way right. Look at today philosophy: analytic and continental, for the beginning. Analytic philosophy is not philosophy at all and if I borrow author's words it is: "Practising the most elaborate mental gymnastics ever conceived…". Philosophy according to Whitehead, Russell's teacher, is about critique and speculation. Analytic philosophy rejects speculation. Continental philosophy took Kant's subjectivism, abused it and with a help of notorious self-centered provocateur Nietzsche drive it into absurd of postmodernity.
Then there is an area in modern philosophy called applied ethics, one of its constituents, for example, bioethics. I will skip rant about adjective 'applied' (grrrrr). It seems like "wise heads" think that by dismembering ethics into small pieces, something that strongly reminds on scientific method of reductionism, we will at the end get, by some miracle synthesis, a well defined ethics. No way, never, impossible. My conjecture: the only meaningful ethics is universal ethics.
Science&technologism is today's religion. I've asked some friends how they will heat themselves in the winter in few years time when co2 syndrome will be in full swing. They believe papa government and mama science won't leave them stranded. How mam&pa will achieve this, by ex-nihilo creation???? They will, I've been assured. Holy shit.
Believers, of course don't know how the sausage is made. I have met just few who were able to grasp the meaning of Goedel's theorems, that prove, that any mathematical theory powerful enough (arithmetic and above) cannot be consistent and complete. Maths, the queen of sciences, cannot be complete and consistent. What can then be complete and consistent?? Physicists, who still believe in theory of everything, certainly don't want to contemplate Goedel.
All those poor souls who still believe in biotechnology, modern medicine and so on might check the following article about limits of prevailing scientific method, reductionism.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reduction-biology/
And now my objections to the author. I'm not sure completely, but I think he is too much inclined towards individualism, prevailing paradigm on the west, most of western philosophy is built around an individual. Certainly, I'm critical about individualism.
There is not a one individual that is not a product of society. We are social creatures, no one grows in a vacuum, fact. Even the most self-made entrepreneur needs so called free-market, that is very often assumed to be a real thing and it this way a Misplaced Concreteness Fallacy is committed. Free-market is an (unjustified) abstraction, abstraction of society.
I think it would be very powerful to introduce some eastern philosophy and start thinking with a concept individual/society, like ying/yang, not opposites, but unity.
We must reconsider focus on individual, most of the problems we are facing today are of societal nature. They cannot be solved on the individual level. Society is not just a sum of individuals, it's more.
Thinking with a concept individual/society is the wise path between individualism and collectivism.
Reply to mik
That's politics or maybe sociology or some ology or other,not philosophy. Different animal.
Western philosophy has been neutered by the christian church- there was much more than reason and logic going on in Greece before the J-Christians invaded via Roman Empire.
Heraclitus ain't too bad.
Christians, you say and sound so nietzschean. Well, they cannot be blamed for analytic philosophy went astray. to reason and logic.
"I have met just few who were able to grasp the meaning of Goedel's theorems, that prove, that any mathematical theory powerful enough (arithmetic and above) cannot be consistent and complete."
…- Your assertion requires elaboration, nik… – What Godel in fact proved was that any logical system (essentially) equivalent to mathematical arithmetic may be *EITHER* consistent *OR* complete, but *NEVER* both simultaneously…
…The implications of the incompleteness theorems are indeed *Profound*, but also happen to underpin the accepted contemporary view of the *Ongoing Endeavour* of Science, per the rigorous application of the scientific method, due initially to Karl Popper… – This view holds that scientific theories *Necessarilly* are, and can only ever be, *Approximate Descriptions* of natural phenomena and laws, of *Arbitrarily Increasing*, but never *Exactly Precise* accuracy…
…- This, between Godel's results and Popper's (correct) conception of the scientific endeavour, is why there *Can Never Be* a 'Theory Of Everything'… – Leastways one framed in Logic and/or Math, that is…
Reply to Sgt Oddball
Thanks for correction(either, or, never).
I found Goedel more profound because he played within the system and showed its absolute limits, not relative limits (Popper). Another implication from Goedel is, there are questions that cannot be answered, true propositions that cannot be proved. Sure, how this can be extended to other fields of human endeavor depends where you stand in philosophy of mathematics, if you are at least a bit mathematical realist, then I see no doubt it can be extended.
I'm making "a case against science" (part of my project), so thanks for Popper, he will fit well. Yes, induction on empirical data cannot bring universal truth.
In the Masonic world we inherited and inhabit, we are all stuck in Plato's cave. Everything around us is a manufactured illusion. From the so-called heroes to every facet of the way society is organized, controlled and information is disseminated.
How can you evade something that doesn't exist? It's a magic trick: A sleight of hand. Viruses and climate change, are as much of an illusion as monarchies, religions, governments, corporations and courts.
I prefer Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio as a more accurate and nuanced allegory to the world around us.
"A mighty flame follows a tiny spark."
wow! Hermes, Steiner and Plato all in one brilliant essay! excellent piece 🙂
Reply to draeger
I have read Steiner's work for many decades, after first coming across it in my late teens. But where people commonly refer to the quote, "familiarity breeds contempt", this man's output never ceases to astonish me. I sometimes feel as if I have a thousand eyes and ears, all of which would be closed if he had not opened at least a few of them.
The word, 'mystic' hardly begins to describe Steiner, since that is a word we also use disparagingly about hermits, eccentrics and other people who are 'different'.
I reckon I am now old enough to state as categorically as I reasonably may, that this is in every way the equivalent of a great prophet and teacher of mankind.
After giving, I think, over 5,000 lectures on every subject under the sun, no one could have done more to present, for our perusal, acceptance, or rejection, such a spectrum of information, more than relevant, but of burning significance for those who care about our future as a race.
He is particularly important in a historical context, since he refers to what is happening now, rather than speculating on what might happen in a hundred, or a thousand years' time.
Yet there is no sensationalism in any of what he achieved, and he was always encouraging people to be active, whether physically or spiritually, rather than merely meditating and concentrating on being 'spiritual'…
The link given in this article points to a lecture which could not be more appropriate to our current situation, 104 years later…!
I have read hundreds of such published transcripts of his lectures, but this is arguably the most important I have seen.
All the information in it is delivered in Steiner's usual calm, friendly tone, quite devoid of cultish or sensational extras.
What he has to say here about 'the spirits of darkness' indicates perfectly what is going on right now, but of course this is not a field of contemplation which the general public can be bothered with, and so they see only a small fraction of it on the surface.
Perhaps Steiner is not for everyone, just as Bach, Mozart or Beethoven may not be for everyone, but it is foolish – even tragic – not to give them at least a fair hearing.
None of them pulled their punches, and their honesty within their own creative spheres was glorious to behold – and beautiful.
These are the people who really represented the best in us, and who worked for us.
Why do we so easily tolerate 'representatives' who represent the worst in us, and who work against us?
Are we mad?
If we are mad, then Steiner can point to what it was that made us mad.
How many philosophers can really do that?
The remarkable thing about the most recent of those guys (Steiner died in 1925), is that he never speaks as if he considers future events as 'something that could happen', but rather what will happen.
He doesn't by any means take individual human choice out of the equation, but indicates what will happen in broad local, national, political, cultural and global terms.
He also points out what preferably should happen, according to his perception of long-term cosmic evolution, but also that there are real battles going on against equally real spiritual forces which seek to wreck human progress and force it to follow their own intentions.
At any rate I find it staggering what he had to say 104 years ago about vaccines – especially concerning young people…
How could that not be exactly what is happening to us now…?
Finally offg I know it's Sunday hope your having a good weekend.I'm not a spammer I'm not a troll I say what I think.
I don't know where it comes from but you know we are all surveyed big brother and the likes,I imagine the rich and elites have people running around their estates like game and they shoot them,Why are the cameras not facing the biggest criminals in human history?
I think we know why not.
Money and power keep them 'safe'…
steadydirt
corruption. not just money. corrupt.
I was disappointed when the name Stephen Hawkings was mentioned so didn't feel the need to read any further.
The photo of our Greta doing an impression of the alien from the film Alien is funny though. I very often get more useful insight and info from the wonderful comments here than I do from the (much appreciated) articles…..so thank you all again! X
Reply to Claret
Plus the fact that super-smart (PsyOp) Hawking was right on board with all the space exploration bullshit.
I don't think Hawking was mentioned particularly favourably.
It didn't discourage me from reading to the end at any rate.
I'd say there's a lot of good stuff in this article.
…Oh, *That* was Alien?!… – And there I was thinking she was doing an, *Incredibly Good*, actually, impersonation of Haley Joel Osment's character out of 'AI'…
…- Now you mention it, she *Does* look kinda Xenomorphic… 😉
magumba
They're justified and they're ancient and they drive an ice cream van
Vaxxeen vaxeen
George Mc
Reply to magumba
I always thought there was something creepy about that song – especially that constant refrain from a mass chorus, "All bound for Mu Mu Land". It was like an enormous sea of zombified infants prancing and beckoning you down into the depths.
Reply to George Mc
What ARE they on about ? Creepy and really fckin irritating.
rubberheid
denied, it is hilarious mockery.
Reply to rubberheid
Aha! This time without sound, I just watched the vid for the second time since it was released (25 yrs or so?) Thanks, you're right.
"Without sound" is wise. Hear it more than twice and you're truly bound!
The KLF burned one million pounds in cash in a public space. They had made that money from the music industry which they roundly despised and mocked in a little book they wrote.
They were arrested for the cash burning and I suppose prosecuted .
The song has references to american acid head memes from the 70s/80s. Maybe Church of the SubGenius or Discordian Society .
More recently they almost predicted what is happening now with a travelling art installation which depicted the UK as a country in a constant state of emergency, with police sirens , police cars, ambulances and hi-vis jackets everywhere.
I am quite sure they are not "feemamason controlled opposition mkultra psyop" type of thing.
…Claret, Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond *Singlehandedly* pulled off *The Single-Most Epic* extended troll of the pop industry in the *Entirety* of human history…
…- Goolag: – 'KLF burn a million pounds'…
The fall of the empire and the death of little mu are imminent
Hahaha still a banging track,The White room cocooned me through the 90's (along with some rather splendid psychotropic 'medications' )
oddball, twas different post, but FNM front men? dunno, the first guy was grittier, the second guy an excellent showman if a bit more all American seeming?? dunno, enjoyed both.
Every single person that writes here are philosophers they know there own mind they know this is not right,And I bet before all this covid crap they knew it was coming.
Moneycircus
i must write fast. for the idea escapes. does that happen to you?
i may be wrong but i get the idea that diversity is lacking among our community. i don't raise this as a point of principle, merely an observation. my most recent jobs abroad saw me in mesopotamia and the arab lands. free-thinking english speakers there were, aplenty.
is there a force that is obstructs our mix? there is indeed. the jew as much as the arab is told to bury his identity in the new normal (the go-to phrase in place of the new world order) bureaucrats speak for the greek, the egyptian, the turk, the israeli, the saudi, the african and those privileged nations, the privileged english, french and germans, the influential spaniards, the artistic italians, the colonial dutch and portuguese — well, they are expected to fade into obscurity. to quietly cease to be.
is it any wonder that we don't experience people popping up from all corners of the globe to tell their story. instead the media is full of small, hairy, hermaphrodite globalist globulist troglodytes who presume to speak for you.
the jacinda tam metrosex-matt rachel-transexel bojo justin castrato freako — no, I am not a bigot. I am a seeker of diversity. and i don't see any.
Reply to Moneycircus
The media's true nature i.e. its dreary monolithic conformity has been revealed by covid thus implying that the previous nod to diversity was bollocks. The ruling class across the planet are a far more homogenous group than the rest and now they are showing it. Only one story. Only one angle. And the same forever and ever amen from the TV and the radio and the print media. It's a sign of how bamboozled I was previously that I am even angry at this i.e. that I keep expecting some group – some little fucking sign of dissidence. "Well", I tell myself, "this is what would have happened previously". Wrong! The nature of the show remains forever the same. But changing circumstances and a greater and greater threat of impending catastrophe impels the dropping of the veil. It is now Big Brother. Nothing else.
Well put. The ruling class is homogenous in its worship of Mammon — but I also think wealth is a sickness.
Due to my father's job in the foreign service I knew a few wealthy families. I decided they suffered a pathology — saw it as a child.
The mere existence of publications like the FT's How To Spend It is evidence.
A psychologically healthy person would have no problem allocating resources to a positive purpose. They would not need to be addressed as a drug addict.
Corarden
very true, and the evidence is so very much right in our face, along with the money grubbing collaborators who have sold their very soul for the 'chicken feed' that would last most of us over a lifetime
…- Homogenous as processed cheese… – And about as good for you…
Variety, tradition, scepticism, frugality, etc. all threaten the Godzilla of capital, at least until the principal and profit have been recouped.
Jim McDonagh
Because of its length i was tempted not to read this article , but once i started to read it i couldn't stop . A humorous and informative read beautifully crafted. Plato's idealism has indeed been perverted as people are forced to view it through the lens of materialism.
A simply outstanding article.
It's a keeper, to be read over and over again.
Kudos Mr Griffin! I'm now going to order your books…
Slightly off topic and very unscientific, here's a short article regarding the Hiroshima/Nagasaki lab tests. Science must be stopped. Period.
Hiroshima-Nagasaki: The Story They Want Us to Forget – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization
Reply to Howard
…Haven't you heard?… – "Now we are *All* sons of bitches"…
https://youtu.be/3gmj1tllzOA
Here, Bertrand Russell gives his explanation of what philosophy is about.
Reply to richard
The author provides a disclaimer at the start of this article as to its mockery and ironic statements ?
And yet the Ancients arrived at the concept of the atomic theory simply by logic and with none of the technical resources to verify it, as well as concluding the earth being a sphere and the almost exact circumference of it; Stephen Hawking having all the current technical resources available at the time proposed infinite universes in a single point, not a 'fact' but considered seriously by contemporaries, and serious enough to be put in a book with his name on it.
Anyway, the 'facts of science' are simply the beliefs of a time in history. We are in an age in which you can lose your livelihood for advocating what was self-evident truth a generation ago.
Actually, logical positivism and its variants was a 'new' philosophy. (Aren't they all? But they're really all just the ancient observation of subjective and objective universalism tarted up).
Wittgenstein's ideas, summarised well by Anthony Kenny, was not based necessarily on facts of science but the analysis of propositions, i.e. the product of human observation (which of course is only significant to humans), viz:
"Language consists of propositions which picture the world, propositions are the perceptible expressions of thoughts, and thoughts are logical pictures of facts."
Presumably, analyse all propositions and the truth of the world will be revealed.
Nonsense of course is anything than can be proved logically without necessary basis in fact, which is why much of the guidance we are presented with today by the government/media/state doctor complex regarding the 'pandemic' immediately falls to pieces after even a cursory examination. But people accept it, because they are lazy and don't think.
Fact: children are at near-zero risk from covid-19.
A media-doctor star who is inevitably presented in proximity to the headline numbers of 'cases' of covid is asked:
Shall we have pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children wear masks upon return to 'school' this fall?
His answer: 'It's worth a shot'.
Opinion poll: people think it's a good idea, and necessary.
These people vote; think about that. They also think children should be vaccinated, for no reason.
Excellent article, loved those Ancients of Mu too. Never realised Mu was lost land.
Anyway folks, i went and stood in a park today: in the absence of a militia it's the least i can do.
was miniscule. but good to met people with open eyes.
get busy folks, talk is cheap and time tik-toks away ; )
I always thought Mu had something to due with dogs and their nature?
The true face of our 'leadership' is coming into the light. Truth is coming out and tipping point numbers are already reached. This is failing. And, it is failing incredibly fast.
The injuries from the vaccines are going to push it over the edge, there were several teen deaths this past week and leaked memos from both Moderna & Pfizer coming to light exposing severe underreporting and risk
Full report here with documentation:
https://www.unite4truth.com/post/vaers-us-teen-deaths-reported-post-covid-19-vaccine-french-teen-dies-w-anaphylaxis-headlines
Reply to Rose
It didn't happen, I didn't see it on the Tele. ( I haven't got one but you know what I mean)
I'm with you Rose, but Nixon's point is still very valid.
Most of us here know that there is no substance to the scam, and we long for the general public to see an honest scientific article which they can understand – one which will open their eyes so that they can see the light.
But the media today give substance to the scam by using it to brainwash us 24/7, and the general public are simply overwhelmed by it.
Our significant, meaningful statistics and data mean nothing, because the public can't be bothered to look at them, and in any case the media censor the truth out of existence and intimidate those of us who insist that they try to make at least some sort of sense.
In that context, I see no 'failing fast' as yet, although I want to see it as much as anybody else.
"Failing fast", for me, would mean a sudden mass disappearance of politicians, health 'experts' and media 'scientists, along with a correspondingly huge increase in the numbers of good, unbiased journalists appearing on the news, telling us that the largest fraud in the history of mankind had just been brought to an end, thanks to the revelation of some private correspondence between 50 of the ringleaders, as well as earlier data going back many decades.
Is that going to happen?
Who is going to make it happen?
I'm interested to see what tactics the media use to stop Dr. Reiner Fuellmich from prosecuting the German Government for crimes against humanity.
Even the doctor himself must know what his enemies are capable of.
The ratio of what we "know" to what we don't "know" is a tiny fraction. Within that fraction, the difference between the most brilliant and the moron is a small number. Any time anyone presents their conclusions as the best possible way forward, they can be dismissed as thoughtless boobs.
The smallest, and most abused minority is the individual.
Anglo-Welsh mongrel
Two of my students have mentioned Plato's cave in seminars during the last academic year. They are two of the highlights of my career so far. Young, skeptical minds, one English and the other Chinese, who are aware of the situation. We see representations. Not only from the puppeteers but from within our own minds. The shadows depict a 'Pandemic'. If we don't turn our heads, then that is all we see. Indeed, our thoughts run wild with fearful associations conjured up by the shadowy needle. Turn. We have turned. Still unable to exactly make out what is out there, we are nonetheless discern the dim forms of manipulators, controllers. Thanks to articles like this on Off-G and others, we can see clearer. There is a fire and an opening as well as a controller holding up a cardboard cut out syringe. Turn, people turn.
The egalitarian in me doth protest (perhaps too much?). It's unfair to let one author write two articles in one: he should have to submit each separately.
The Philosopher (on whose every word I hung) departed the cave the moment the numbered sections began, to make room for the Pundit. The Pundit's words I skimmed over (I can get those words just as easily from my own comments).
The moment Mr Griffin brought the cast of media characters in, my interest waned. Partly because these clowns represent nothing but the status quo; and the status quo is nothing but Plato's shadows speeded up to give the impression of great worth.
Gates, Klaus, Greta? They have as much to do with their fields of famed accomplishments as the Archbishop of Canterbury with God.
There is no better way to poison philanthropy than plopping a Bill Gates in its center. Nor a better way to dilute climate crises than propping a Greta Thunberg atop a weather vane. Nor a better way to destroy society than cropping it into a Klaus Schwab ghost written treatise.
To the Philosopher I give the highest accolade: I didn't understand a word you said. To the Pundit I give the booby prize: tell me something I didn't already know.
rob2
Whew! So it's not just me!
First of all, its the year of the Ox.. last time I looked there is a huge difference between a cow and an Ox
In China and all throughout S.E.A .the Ox is a revered animal that you will have on your farm.
It is revered for its docile gentle nature yet very hard working and reliable.
Famous Taoist paintings show Lao Tzu with an Ox in the GuangZhu mountains, the quintessence of Taoist philosophy, man and nature in perfect harmony
As for corruption in the State, apparently the very reason we have today the ancient text the Tao Te Tzing, is because this " Old Man / Lao Tzu" had given up on a very corrupt society and was leaving to retire into the upper YangTze river to t for a peaceful life/
Likewise in the Taoist texts of Chuang Tzu, many references are made of the " corrupt courts, never to return( sound familiar?)
So the idea of corruption, despair, loss of family and community was nothing new to the Taoists of 3000 years ago
So what do the Ancient Chinese philosophers inform us that is relevant for the modern human?
Abuse of power from the state is age old and nothing new under the sun
There are times that the only way of preserving your humanity is to retreat
That there are some that have the capacity to see the value in old people and their life experiences
That part of the answer to surviving as a human species is coming into harmony with nature and our fellow human beings called the Tao, but that has a caveat called WuWei..see Alan Watts and his fantastic video on what that means.
That reverence for an Ox is not some form of idol worship or misplaced brainwashing from the state to be docile and compliant
Rather it is a symbol that there innumerous examples of beauty and compassion that surround us.
Lastly to qualify the Ox , it is specifically the year of the " metal ox"
Metal is Chinese astrology can be the most troublesome aspect as it refers often to death/change , the very aspects of life we loath
Anyhow the article is very long winded and I am afraid that has rubbed of here 🙂
Just my 2 farthings worth on the year of the Cow!
Reply to Marcello
yeah, had a singaporean pal who called me the "water buffalo", he assured me it was a high compliment – religious-folk culture – beef, milk, burden – revered staple of life ?? ; )
Thank you for that video! I had heard of, but never heard, Alan Watts. I am going to search for some more videos. What a voice. And what ideas
Without experience/externally acquired objective knowledge the differences between a Cow and an Ox are not obvious . Ask most city dwellers ? Water buffalo , yak , ox , can translate to cow in non specific modern English
alan watts: "go back to your childhood"
me: over 30yrs ago i started doing that, & you were in it
article/exposé ~ Alan Watts' road to Harvard – and the birth of Esalen
and esalen was birthplace & mecca of the human potential movement — its where i met alan, as well as gregory bateson, joseph campbell, & bf skinner.
since aldous & laura huxley helped to launch esalen, as did watts — methinks apropos to share a video from my bitchute channel: Alan Watts Conversation with Laura Huxley on Secrets of Aldous Huxley & His Art of Dying
Reply to victoria
Dam that brings back memories, such fascinating people, real thinkers.
Yes I have heard this interview..also sobering conversation.
controlled opposition can be captivating…
Alan Watts controlled opposition?
Then my cat Felix works for the CIA
I doubt if you spent the hour listening to it anyhow.
what hour? 'the principle of not forcing' video only 13:23 min
watts was a tool as were the rest of 'em
just realized you likely meant the interview, of course i listened to the whole thing, b4 i posted it to bitchute.
I meant the interview with Laura Archera( Huxely)
She came across as sincere to me.
Also I think even in the conversation you can feel the " post war" era group think. The rawness of that catastrophe was still very present at that time.
You would have to be an exceptional individual not to be affected by the troubles of the time you live in.
Now of course in retrospect we can be critical of the fantasies of that time
Also the idea of reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead to someone who did not grow up in that culture seems awfully naïve
laura's remembrance of aldous huxley was interesting, tho would need to listen to interview again to share details.
it was on alan watts 106th birthday, jan 6 (which is also epiphany feast day) this year that curiosity got the best of me & i endured listening to the enemy. had been a number of years since i'd heard alan watts voice, & part of why i chose to was to see how much it affected me… didnt bring murderous revenge fantasy like in the past, just left a bad taste in my mouth.
and speaking of leaving a bad taste, laurance rockefeller … hands-on installation of rainbow bridge construct with alan watts. during which i was seated in lotus pose & given mild electric shock at center- crown chakra of the palms of my hands, & i had to visualize a rainbow. the arc stretched across both hands, each hand as base of rainbow bridge, a key element in my new age rainbow warrior programme. wide ranging blend of science & spiritual mind control with a heavy dose of eastern thought, mysticism & practices. education & work involved quite a variety of perps, incl my elitist parents & grandparents who began my trng when i was preverbal. rape integral to the majority of programming, in this case often tantric… & kundalini raising ritual at 4yo more than a bit significant – 'make or break' – smh, fuckin evil.
Edwige
Just the sort of treatment that gets handed out to real oppositional figires:
Reply to Edwige
aye, Obummer MKII, worked so well last time, let's go again
NickM
"and one sentence in the area of East Asia, "Hic sunt dracones" which translates "Here are dragons".
Reply to NickM
The Komodo dragon as far as I know occurs only on the eponymous island in Indonesia. The similar looking water monitor occurs in tropical areas from India to Indonesia. I have forgotten whether I saw any in Africa.
The distillation of a wise life. Thank you for sharing. Inspiring!
Well, that was an awful lot of words.
Reply to ity
Well, that didn't take long.
What, no foreplay?
…- Would you'd rather had cartoons?…
They only drop by on meme day
it is always a pleasure to see a fellow traveler make it back safely to the Inn and a warm fire….
though one may be tempted to accuse plato of being elitist and perhaps a tad eugenicist in his mental meanderings, it would be more true to say that this is the mistake of 'intellectualizing' philosophy ( haha I know ) outside of a philosophical school that abides by its own precepts (and we can all see where this road to nowhere has brought mankind)..
and representative of the failings of modern 'ivory-towered' applied ignorance.. and the credentialed imbecilia that parasite the work of good men, because they are incapable of creating anything of value themselves….
forever re-interpreting what they fail to fundamentally 'grasp' (from beyond the mind).. and infecting society via their 'educated' progeny .. ( the infant state of 'being'… though we wont get into heidegger here)….
BRAVO..
Reply to dr death
NB: one could argue that modern 'philosophy' if one could could label it such (in reality the inverse).. is nothing more than critique…