Friday, 18 April 2008
Religion and Revolution by HakimBey
Real money & hierarchic religion appear to have arisen in the same mysterious moment sometime between the early Neolithic and the third millennium BC in Sumer or Egypt; which came first, the chicken or the egg? Was one a response to the other or is one an aspect of the other?
No doubt that money possesses a deeply religious implication since from the very moment of its appearance it begins to strive for the condition of the spirit -- to remove itself from the world of bodies, to transcend materiality, to become the one true efficacious symbol. With the invention of writing around 3100 BC money as we know it emerges from a complicated system of clay tokens or counters representing material goods & takes the form of written bills of credit impressed on clay tablets; almost without exception these "cheques" seem to concern debts owed to the State Temple, & in theory could have been used in an extended system of exchange as credit-notes "minted" by the theocracy. Coins did not appear until around 700 BC in Greek Asia Minor; they were made of electrum (gold and silver) not because these metals had commodity value but because they were sacred -- Sun & Moon; the ratio of value between them has always hovered around 14:1 not because the earth contains 14 times as much silver as gold but because the Moon takes 14 "suns" to grow from dark to full. Coins may have originated as temple tokens symbolizing a worshipper's due share of the sacrifice -- holy souvenirs, which could later be traded for goods because they had "mana", not use-value. (This function may have originated in the Stone Age trade in "ceremonial" stone axe-heads used in potlach-like distribution rites.) Unlike Mesopotamian credit-notes, coins were inscribed with sacred images & were seen as liminal objects, nodal points between quotidian reality & the world of the spirits (this accounts for the custom of bending coins to "spiritualize" them and throwing them into wells, which are the "eyes" of the otherworld.) Debt itself -- the true content of all money -- is a highly "spiritual" concept. As tribute (primitive debt) it exemplifies capitulation to a "legitimate power" of expropriation masked in religious ideology -- but as "real debt" it attains the uniquely spiritual ability to reproduce itself as if it were an organic being. Even now it remains the only "dead" substance in all the world to possess this power -- "money begets money". At this point money begins to take on a parodic aspect vis-à-vis religion -- it seems that money wants to rival god, to become immanent spirit in the form of pure metaphysicality which nevertheless "rules the world". Religion must take note of this blasphemous nature in money and condemn it as contra naturam. Money & religion enter opposition -- one cannot serve God & Mammon simultaneously. But so long as religion continues to perform as the ideology of separation (the hierarchic State, expropriation, etc.) it can never really come to grips with the money-problem. Over & over again reformers arise within religion to chase the moneylenders from the temple, & always they return -- in fact often enough the moneylenders become the Temple. (It's certainly no accident that banks for along time aped the forms of religious architecture.) According to Weber it was Calvin who finally resolved the issue with his theological justification for "usury" -- but this scarcely does credit to the real Protestants, like the Ranters & Diggers, who proposed that religion should once & for all enter into total opposition to money -- thereby launching the Millennium. It seems more likely that the Enlightenment should take credit for resolving the problem -- by jettisoning religion as the ideology of the ruling class & replacing it with rationalism (& "Classical Economics"). This formula however would fail to do justice to those real illuminati who proposed the dismantling of all ideologies of power & authority -- nor would it help to explain why "official" religion failed to realize its potential as opposition at this point, & instead went on providing moral support for both State & Capital.
Under the influence of Romanticism however there arose -- both inside & outside of "official" religion -- a growing sense of spirituality as an alternative to the oppressive aspects of Liberalism & its intellectual/artistic allies. On the one hand this sense led to a conservative-revolutionary form of romantic reaction (e.g. Novalis) -- but on the other hand it also fed into the old heretical tradition (which also began with the "rise of Civilization" as a movement of resistance to the theocracy of expropriation) -- and found itself in a strange new alliance with rationalist radicalism (the nascent "left"); William Blake, for example, or the "Blaspheming Chapels" of Spence & his followers, represent this trend. The meeting of spirituality & resistance is not some surrealist event or anomaly to be smoothed out or rationalized by "History" -- it occupies a position at the very root of radicalism; -- and despite the militant atheism of Marx or Bakunin (itself a kind of mutated mysticism or "heresy"), the spiritual still remains inextricably involved with the "Good Old Cause" it helped create.
Some years ago Regis Debray wrote an article pointing out that despite the confidant predictions of 19th century materialism, religion had still perversely failed to go away -- and that perhaps it was time for the Revolution to come to terms with this mysterious persistence. Coming from a Catholic culture Debray was interested in "Liberation Theology", itself a projection of the old quasi-heresy of the "Poor" Franciscans & the recurrent rediscovery of "Bible communism". Had he considered Protestant culture he might have remembered the 17th century, & looked for its true inheritance; if Moslem he could have evoked the radicalism of the Shiites or Ismailis, or the anti-colonialism of the 19th century "neo-Sufis". Every religion has called forth its own inner antithesis over & over again; every religion has considered the implications of moral opposition to power; every tradition contains a vocabulary of resistance as well as capitulation to oppression. Speaking broadly one might say that up until now this "counter-tradition" -- which is both inside & outside religion -- has comprised a "suppressed content". Debray's question concerned its potential for realization. Liberation Theology lost most of its support within the church when it could no longer serve its function as rival (or accomplice) of Soviet Communism; & it could no longer serve this function because Communism collapsed. But some Liberation theologians proved to be sincere -- and still they persist (as in Mexico); moreover, an entire submerged & related tendency within Catholicism, exemplified in the almost Scholastic anarchism of an Ivan Illich, lingers in the background. Similar tendencies could be identified within Orthodoxy (e.g. Bakunin), Protestantism, Judaism, Islam, and (in a somewhat different sense) Buddhism; moreover, most "surviving" indigenous forms of spirituality (e.g. Shamanism) or the Afro-american syncretisms can find common cause with various radical trends in the "major" religions on such issues as the environment, & the morality of anti-Capitalism. Despite elements of romantic reaction, various New Age & post-New-Age movements can also be associated with this rough category.
In a previous essay we have outlined reasons for believing that the collapse of Communism implies the triumph of its single opponent, Capitalism; that according to neo-liberal global propaganda only one world now exists; & that this political situation has grave implications for a theory of money as the virtual deity (autonomous, spiritualized, & all-powerful) of the single universe of meaning. Under these conditions everything that was once a third possibility (neutrality, withdrawal, counter-culture, the "Third World", etc.) now must find itself in a new situation. There is no longer any "second" -- how can there be a "third"? The "alternatives" have narrowed catastrophically. The One World is now in a position to crush everything which once escaped its ecstatic embrace -- thanks to the unfortunate distraction of waging an essentially economic war against the Evil Empire. There is no more third way, no more neither/nor. Everything that is different will now be subsumed into the sameness of the One World -- or else will discover itself in opposition to that world. Taking this thesis as given, we must now ask where religion will locate itself on this new map of "zones" of capitulation & resistance. If "revolution" has been freed of the incubus of Soviet oppression and is now once again a valid concept, are we finally in a position to offer a tentative answer to Debray's question?
Taking "religion" as a whole, including even those forms such as shamanism that belong to Society rather than the State (in terms of Clastres's anthropology); including polytheisms, monotheisms, & non-theisms; including mysticisms & heresies as well as orthodoxies, "reformed" churches, & "new religions" -- obviously the subject under consideration lacks definition, borders, coherence; & it cannot be questioned because it would only generate a babel of responses rather than an answer. But "religion" does refer to something -- call it a certain range of colors in the spectrum of human becoming -- & as such it might be considered (at least pro tem) as a valid dialogic entity & as a theorizable subject. In the triumphant movement of Capital -- in its processual moment so to speak -- all religion can only be viewed as nullity, i.e. as a commodity to be packaged & sold, an asset to be stripped, or an opposition to be eliminated. Any idea (or ideology) that cannot be subsumed into capital's "End of History" must be doomed. This includes both reaction & resistance -- & it most certainly includes the non-separative "re-linking" (religio) of consciousness with "spirit" as unmediated imaginal self-determination & value-creation -- the original goal of all ritual & worship. Religion in other words has lost all connection with worldly power because that power has migrated off-world -- it has abandoned even the State & achieved the purity of apotheosis, like the God that "abandoned Anthony" in Cavafy's poem. The few States (mostly Islamic) wherein religion holds power are located precisely within the ever-shrinking region of national opposition to Capital -- (thus providing them with such potential strange bedfellows as Cuba!). Like all other "third possibilities" religion is faced with a new dichotomy: total capitulation, or else revolt. Thus the "revolutionary potential" of religion clearly appears -- although it remains unclear whether resistance might take the form of reaction or radicalism -- or indeed whether religion is not already defeated -- whether its refusal to go away is that of an enemy, or a ghost.
In Russia & Serbia the Orthodox Church appears to have thrown in its lot with reaction against the New World Order & thus found new fellowship with its old Bolshevik oppressors, In Chechnya the Naqshbandi Sufi Order continues its centuries-old struggle against Russian imperialism. In Chiapas there's a strange alliance of Mayan "pagans" & radical Catholics. Certain factions of American Protestantism have been driven to the point of paranoia & armed resistance (but even paranoids have some real enemies); while Native-american spirituality undergoes a small but miraculous revival -- not a Ghost Shirt uprising this time, but a reasoned & profound stand against the hegemony of Capital's monoculture. The Dalai Lama sometimes appears as the one "world leader" capable of speaking truth both to the remnants of the Communist oppression & the forces of Capitalist inhumanity; a "Free Tibet" might provide some kind of focus for an "interfaith" bloc of small nations & religious groups allied against the transcendental social darwinism of the consensus. Arctic shamanism may re-emerge as an "ideology" for the self-determination of certain new Siberian republics -- and some New Religions (such as Western neo-paganism or the psychedelic cults) also belong by definition or default to the pole of opposition.
Islam has seen itself as the enemy of imperial Christianity & European imperialism almost from the moment of its inception. During the 20th century it functioned as a "third way" against both Communism & Capitalism, & in the context of the new One World it now constitutes by definition one of the very few existing mass movements which cannot be englobed into the unity of any would-be Consensus. Unfortunately the spearhead of resistance -- "fundamentalism" -- tends to reduce the complexity of Islam into an artificially coherent ideology -- "Islamism" -- which clearly fails to speak to the normal human desire for difference & complexity. Fundamentalism has already failed to concern itself with "empirical freedoms" which must constitute the minimal demands of the new resistance; for example, its critique of "usury" is obviously an inadequate response to the machinations of the IMF & World Bank. The "gates of Interpretation" of the Shariah must be re-opened -- not slammed shut forever -- and a fully-realized alternative to Capitalism must emerge from within the tradition. Whatever one may think of the Libyan Revolution of 1969 it has at least the virtue of an attempt to fuse the anarcho-syndicalism of '68 with the neo-Sufi egalitarianism of the North African Orders, & to create a revolutionary Islam -- something similar could be said of Ali Shariati's "Shiite socialism" in Iran, which was crushed by the ulemocracy before it could crystallize into a coherent movement. The point is that Islam cannot be dismissed as the puritan monolith portrayed in the Capitalist media. If a genuine anti-Capitalist coalition is to appear in the world it cannot happen without Islam. The goal of all theory capable of any sympathy with Islam, I believe, is now to encourage its radical & egalitarian traditions & to substruct its reactionary & authoritarian modes of discourse. Within Islam there persist such mythic figures as the "Green Prophet" and hidden guide of the mystics, al-Khezr, who could easily become a kind of patron saint of Islamic environmentalism; while history offers such models as the great Algerian Sufi freedom-fighter Emir Abdul Qadir, whose last act (in exile in Damascus) was to protect Syrian Christians against the bigotry of the ulema. From outside Islam there exists the potential for "interfaith" movements concerned with ideals of peace, toleration, & resistance to the violence of post-secular post-rationalist "neo-liberalism" & its allies. In effect, then, the "revolutionary potential" of Islam is not yet realized -- but it is real.
Since Christianity is the religion that "gave birth" (in Weberian terms) to Capitalism, its position in relation to the present apotheosis of Capitalism is necessarily more problematic than Islam's. For centuries Christianity has been drawing in on itself & constructing a kind of make-believe world of its own, wherein some semblance of the social might persist (if only on Sundays) -- even while it maintained the cozy illusion of some relation to power. As an ally of Capital (with its seeming benign indifference to the hypothesis of faith) against "Godless Communism", Christianity could preserve the illusion of power -- at least until five years ago. Now Capitalism no longer needs Christianity & the social support it enjoyed will soon evaporate. Already the Queen of England has had to consider stepping down as the head of the Anglican Church -- & she is unlikely to be replaced by the CEO of some vast international zaibatsu! Money is god -- God is really dead at last; Capitalism has realized a hideous parody of the Enlightenment ideal. But Jesus is a dying-&-resurrecting god -- one might say he's been through all this before. Even Nietzsche signed his last "insane" letter as "Dionysus & the Crucified One"; in the end it is perhaps only religion that can "overcome" religion. Within Christianity a myriad tendencies appear (or have persisted since the 17th century, like the Quakers) seeking to revive that radical messiah who cleansed the Temple & promised the Kingdom to the poor. In America for instance it would seem impossible to imagine a really successful mass movement against Capitalism (some form of "progressive populism") without the participation of the churches. Again the theoretical task begins to clarify itself; one need not propose some vulgar kind of "entryism" into organized Christianity to radicalize it by conspiracy from within. Rather the goal would be to encourage the sincere & widespread potential for Christian radicalism either from within as an honest believer (however "existentialist" the faith!) or as an honest sympathizer from the outside.
To test this theorizing take an example -- say Ireland (where I happen to be writing this). Given that Ireland's "Problems" arise largely from sectarianism, clearly one must take an anti-clerical stance; in fact atheism would be at least emotionally appropriate. But the inherent ambiguity of religion in Irish history should be remembered: -- there were moments when Catholic priests & laity supported resistance or revolution, & there were moments when Protestant ministers & laity supported resistance or revolution. The hierarchies of the churches have generally proven themselves reactionary -- but hierarchy is not the same thing as religion. On the Protestant side we have Wolfe Tone & the United Irishmen -- a revolutionary "interfaith" movement. Even today in Northern Ireland such possibilities are not dead; anti-sectarianism is not just a socialist ideal but also a Christian ideal. On the Catholic side... a few years ago I met a radical priest at a pagan festival in the Aran Islands, a friend of Ivan Illich. When I asked him, "What exactly is your relation to Rome?" he answered, "Rome? Rome is the enemy." Rome has lost its stranglehold on Ireland in the last few years, brought down by anti-puritan revolt & internal scandal. It would be incorrect to say that the Church's power has shifted to the State, unless we also add that the government's power has shifted to Europe, & Europe's power has shifted to international capital. The meaning of Catholicism in Ireland is up for grabs. Over the next few years we might expect to see both inside & outside the Church a kind of revival of "Celtic Christianity" -- devoted to resistance against pollution of the environment both physical & imaginal, & therefore committed to anti-Capitalist struggle. Whether this trend would lead to an open break with Rome and the formation of an independent church -- who knows? Certainly the trend will include or at least influence Protestantism as well. Such a broad-based movement might easily find its natural political expression in socialism or even in anarcho-socialism, & would serve a particularly useful function as a force against sectarianism & the rule of the clerisy. Thus even in Ireland it would seem that religion may have a revolutionary future.
I expect these ideas will meet with very little acceptance within traditionally atheist anarchism or the remnants of "dialectical materialism". Enlightenment radicalism has long refused to recognize any but remote historical roots within religious radicalism. As a result, the Revolution threw out the baby ("non-ordinary consciousness") along with the bathwater of the Inquisition or of puritan repression. Despite Sorel's insistence that the Revolution needed a "myth", it preferred to bank everything on "pure reason" instead. But spiritual anarchism & communism (like religion itself) have failed to go away. Indeed, by becoming an anti-Religion, radicalism had recourse to a kind of mysticism of its own, complete with ritual, symbolism, & morality. Bakunin's remark about God -- that if he existed we would have to kill him -- would after all pass for the purest orthodoxy within Zen Buddhism! The psychedelic movement, which offered a kind of "scientific" (or at least experiential ) verification of non-ordinary consciousness, led to a degree of rapprochement between spirituality & radical politics -- & the trajectory of this movement may have only begun. If religion has "always" acted to enslave the mind or to reproduce the ideology of the ruling class, it has also "always" involved some form of entheogenesis ("birth of the god within") or liberation of consciousness; some form of utopian proposal or promise of "heaven on earth"; and some form of militant & positive action for "social justice" as God's plan for the creation. Shamanism is a form of "religion" that (as Clastres showed) actually institutionalizes spirituality against the emergence of hierarchy & separation -- & all religions possess at least a shamanic trace.
Every religion can point to a radical tradition of some sort. Taoism once produced the Yellow Turbans -- or for that matter the Tongs that collaborated with anarchism in the 1911 revolution. Judaism produced the "anarcho-zionism" of Martin Buber & Gersholm Scholem (deeply influenced by Gustav Landauer & other anarchists of 1919), which found its most eloquent & paradoxical voice in Walter Benjamin. Hinduism gave birth to the ultra-radical Bengali Terrorist Party -- & also to M. Gandhi, the modern world's only successful theorist of non-violent revolution. Obviously anarchism & communism will never come to terms with religion on questions of authority & property; & perhaps one might say that "after the Revolution" such questions will remain to be resolved. But it seems clear that without religion there will be no radical revolution; the Old Left & the (old) New Left can scarcely fight it alone. The alternative to an alliance now is to watch while Reaction co-opts the force of religion & launches a revolution without us. Like it or not, some sort of pre-emptive strategy is required. Resistance demands a vocabulary in which our common cause can be discussed; hence these sketchy proposals.
Even assuming we could classify all the above under the rubric of admirable sentiments, we would still find ourselves far from any obvious program of action. Religion is not going to "save" us in this sense (perhaps the reverse is true!) -- in any case religion is faced with the same perplexity as any other former "third position", including all forms of radical non-authoritarianism & anti-Capitalism. The new totality & its media appear so pervasive as to fore-doom all programs of revolutionary content, since every "message" is equally subject to subsumption in the "medium" that is Capital itself. Of course the situation is hopeless -- but only stupidity would take this as reason for despair, or for the terminal boredom of defeat. Hope against hope -- Bloch's revolutionary hope -- belongs to a "utopia" that is never wholly absent even when it is least present; & it belongs as well to a religious sphere in which hopelessness is the final sin against the holy spirit: -- the betrayal of the divine within -- the failure to become human. "Karmic duty" in the sense of the Bhagavad Gita -- or in the sense of "revolutionary duty" -- is not something imposed by Nature, like gravity, or death. It is a free gift of the spirit -- one can accept or refuse it -- & both positions are perilous. To refuse is to run the risk of dying without having lived. To accept is an even more dangerous but far more interesting possibility. A version of Pascal's Wager -- not on the immortality of the soul this time, but simply on its sheer existence.
To use religious metaphor (which we've tried so far to avoid) the millennium began five years before the end of the century, when One World came into being & banished all duality. From the Judao-Christiano-Islamic perspective however this is the false millennium of the "Anti-Christ"; which turns out not to be a "person" (except in the world of Archetypes perhaps) but an impersonal entity, a force contra naturam -- entropy disguised as life. In this view the reign of iniquity must & will be challenged in the true millennium, the advent of the messiah. But the messiah is also not a single person in the world -- rather, it is a collectivity in which each individuality is realized & thus (again metaphorically or imaginally) immortalized. The "people-as-messiah" do not enter into the homogenous sameness nor the infernal separation of entropic Capitalism, but into the difference & presence of revolution -- the struggle, the "holy war". On this basis alone can we begin to work on a theory of reconciliation between the positive forces of religion & the cause of resistance. What we are offered here is simply the beginning of the beginning.
Dublin, Sept. 1, 1996 by HAKIM BEY
Note on Nationalism by HakimBey
Viewed as the quintessentialization of hierarchy & separation, the State can replicate itself on any level of experience -- from the individual psyche to the laws of nations. And yet society can exist in theory without the State -- & did so in fact for nearly a million years, 99% of the time span of the human species, thanks to the persistence of customs & institutions -- and mythemes -- that appear to have been designed for just this purpose, i.e. the suppression of the State & realization of the Social. War itself can be one of these institutions of "Society against the State", since (in its "primitive" form) it acts to disperse power & wealth rather than concentrate it. On another level we might say that shamanism also tends toward centrifugality of power in its emphasis on direct experience rather than mere symbolization (i.e. the shaman must "really" heal the patient, the medium must "really" be possessed, otherwise their prestige evaporates: -- in some tribes shamanic failure was punishable by exile or death). The proto-State then must emerge in the moment of breakdown of centrifugal force in war & religion. Changes in economic structure appear to follow upon this breakdown rather than cause it. [Note: The "breakdown" itself may have had economic causes but we cannot perceive them -- certainly overpopulation and climatic change are inadequate "explanations"!] For instance, the replacement of hunting/gathering by agriculture failed to produce the proto-State. We cannot even blame the State on specialization of labor, since we are perfectly capable of imagining (with Fourier) a State-less Society based on fairly complex economics. The State seems almost sui generis -- its birth is shrouded in a certain mystery. Something went wrong somewhere -- the old myths (based on reciprocity & redistribution) collapsed before the power of a new "story" based on separation & accumulation. The precise instant is lost, although the true State lurches into archaeological view sometime around the 4th to 3rd millennium in Sumer & Egypt. In both cases the realms of war & religion seem to have coalesced to produce figurative & literal pyramid-structures impossible to conceive without tribute & slavery. The centrifugality of the social is gradually supplanted by the centripetality of power & wealth till a crisis point is reached in the catastrophic emergence of a "priest-king" & a nascent bureaucracy -- the infallible signs of the true State.
The essence of the State is found in symbolization as mediation, & in mediation as alienation. These abstractions denote a brutal reality: -- The appearance of History's Bootheel. Separation & expropriation must be accomplished simultaneously on both the symbolic & actual plane. Symbols must be made to do the "work" of accumulation -- the State cannot expend its energy in re-creating itself in every moment. Writing for instance technologizes symbolization to the point where power can "act at a distance" -- hence the "magic" of writing, its Hermetic origin -- but writing itself may have been invented in order to implement an even more basic form of symbolization -- i.e. money.
Let's examine the hypothesis that the State is impossible without money as symbolic exchange. Even the most primitive king (as opposed to "elder" or "chieftain") can only be defined by the creation of scarcity & the accumulation of wealth -- & this double process can only be reproduced in symbolization. Generally this means that the king is somehow "sacred" & thus in himself (or herself) symbolizes the very motion of energy in or between surplus & scarcity. But this motion must be impeded if the energy-transfer can only take crude material form (actual cows or jars of wheat etc.). The essential exchange of protection-for-wealth that defines the true State must be symbolized in order to transcend what might be called the inherent egalitarianism of the material, its recalcitrance, its natural resistance to accumulation. "Protection" moreover has no overt material base, whereas wealth does -- hence the State will be at a disadvantage in the exchange unless it can present its power in symbolic (non-material) form -- as nothing for something.
If however the State remains impossible without money (even in its most unexpected or exotic or primitive form), money seems to be quite possible without the State. Our best evidence for this comes not only from the Past but also -- so to speak -- from the Future.
In the past we can discern money in the symbolic exchange & social construction of the sacrifice. When the tribe grows beyond the point where it can re-create itself in the sharing of a sacrificial animal, for instance, we might surmise that one's "due share" could be symbolized by some token. Once the "spiritual content" of these tokens is transferred to an economic sphere outside the sacrifice (as for example in the Lydian temple-coins of the 7th century BC) the existence of the tokens would then facilitate the "creation of scarcity" by symbolizing the accumulation of wealth. Thus money would precede the State. If we wish to push the origin of money even farther back into the past, we could examine the mysterious clay tokens that appeared in the Neolithic "Near East" around the 7th millennium BC, apparently as counters for commodities. Real goods that are present only in symbolic form already express the possibility of scarcity -- & in fact these clay counters almost certainly stand for debt. When the symbolic counters themselves are then symbolized by writing -- a concept that appears at a very precise moment datable to about 3100 BC in the city of Uruk -- we can speak not only of money but of banking: the centralization of debt at the religio-political focus of power, the Temple. Thus, to put it crudely, money exists for 4000 years before it mutates into a form that makes possible the emergence of the true State.
If we look to the future -- i.e. to the "logic" of the present -- we can see even more clearly that money exists beyond the State. In a situation where money is "free" to move across borders in defiance of all political economy, as in "neo-liberal" free-market internationalism, the State can find itself abandoned by money, & re-defined as a zone of scarcity rather than wealth. The State remains by definition mired in production, while money attains the transcendence of pure symbolization. In the last five years money has achieved almost absolute lift-off, since more than 90% of all money now refers to nothing in the sphere of production, not even to the dirty outmoded symbolic tokens called "cash" -- although the entire productive world remains utterly in the power of money, such that scarcely a tomato can be grown & eaten without the mediation of symbolic exchange.
Paracelsus once told a petty German king, "Your Majesty is the true alchemist, not me (a mere puffer)! Your Majesty has only to empower a bank with a monopoly to coin money, and then borrow it. Thus you will create something out of nothing, a far more puissant act than making lead into gold!" The joke here is that the king was not the real alchemist. The locus of the magical act lay in the bank not the court. When all thrones in the world were hopelessly in debt to their own self-created central banks, the focus of power shifted. When governments resign their ancient role of protection, money breaks free at last -- governments can now provide only nothing for nothing -- their power is shattered. Their power has migrated into the alchemical sphere of pure symbolization.
Thus money & the State have never -- at any point -- been exactly identical, or even necessarily in alliance. Like the paradoxical relation of money & religion, money & the State are sometimes in conspiracy, sometimes in competition, occasionally even at war. God & Moloch, Mammon & Moloch -- the intricacies of their cosmic dance might be revealed in the legend of the Templars -- or the IMF! Money & the State (& religion) do not possess the simple paradoxicality of the ancient riddle about chicken & egg, but a far more complex relation; the question about cause & effect is the wrong question.
Money, the State, & religion: -- all are powers of oppression, but not the same power of oppression. In fact, when deployed against each other, they can act as powers of liberation. Money "buys freedom" for example; the populist State can suppress the banks, thus freeing its citizens from "money-power"; and religion has been known to deploy its "higher morality" against both economic & political injustice.
Moreover, the State does not appear all at once in its "absolute" form. If "primitive" societies possess institutions which successfully prevent the emergence of the State, nevertheless the emergence of the State cannot erase these institutions all at once. The "early" State must still co-exist with "customs & rights" that enable Society to resist its power. In ancient Ireland for example the kingship had to depend on (and often contend with) semi-independent warrior bands, the fianna, whose lives were devoted to sources of power (raiding) and wealth (hunting) that remained essentially outside the control of the State. The anthropology of "Society against the State" can be extended to a sociology of historical State systems *such as "feudalism") where some potent institutions & mythemes work against the total accumulation of power -- usually at the cost of violence. Moreover, as Karl Polyani noted, money is also held in check in "pre-modern" cultures, not just in "primitive" societies (where money simply fails to appear), but also in quite complex State systems. "Classical civilizations" such as Mesopotamia, Greece, Mesoamerica, Egypt & even Rome retained structures of redistribution of wealth to some extent -- if only as panem et circenses; no one could have conceived of a "free" market in such circumstance, since its obvious inhumanity would have violated every surviving principle of reciprocity -- not to mention religious law. It was left to our glorious modern era to conceive of the State as absolute power, & money as "free" of all social restraint. The result might be called the Capital State: the power of money wedded to the power of war. Ultimately, once the struggle against Communism was won, it would be logical to expect a last & final struggle between Capital & the State for power pure & supreme. Instead the Molochian State appears to know that it was already secretly beaten long ago (all thrones hopelessly in debt...) & has capitulated without a whimper to the triumph of Mammon. With a few exceptions the nations are now falling all over themselves in their eagerness to "privatize" everything from health to prisons to air & water to consciousness itself. "Protection" -- the only real excuse for the State's existence -- evaporates in every sphere of government's influence, from tariffs to "human rights". The State seems somehow to believe it can renounce not only its vestigial power over money but even its basic functions, & yet survive as an elected occupying army! Even the US, which boasts of itself as the last & final "superpower", found itself in the very moment of its apocalyptic victory reduced to a mercenary force at the bidding of international Capital -- blustering bush-league bully boasting of its crusade to overthrow a "Hitler" of the Middle East, but capable only of serving the interests of oil cartels & banks. National borders must survive so that political hirelings can divert taxes to "corporate welfare"; & so that huge profits can be made on arbitrage & currency exchange; & so that labor can be disciplined by "migratory" capital. Otherwise the State retains no real function -- everything else is empty ceremony, & the sheer terrorism of the "war on crime" (i.e. the State's post-Spectacular war on its own poor and different). Thatcher & Reagan foretold with true prescience what government should & would do once it had fulfilled its last historical goal -- the overthrow of the Evil Empire. Government would voluntarily dismantle itself (at the "people's" bidding of course) & gracefully submit to the real Hegelian absolute: -- money.
Of course to speak of the "end of History" when there has been no ending (for example) of writing -- nor for that matter of material production -- is merely a form of insanity -- perhaps even a terminal form! Like religion, the State has simply failed to "go away" -- in fact, in a bizarre extension of the thesis of "Society against the State", we can even re-imagine the State as in institutional type of "custom & right" which Society can wield (paradoxically) against an even more "final" shape of power -- that of "pure Capitalism". This is an uncomfortable thought for a good anarchist; we've always tended to view the State as the enemy, & capitalism as one of its aspects or "accidents". The ideal opposite of the anarch is the monarch. [In fact there were some amusing & futile attempts in fin-de-siècle France to forge links between anarchism & monarchism against the common enemy, the fading illusion of "democracy" -- & the emerging reality of Capitalism.] In this sense we may have been out-thought by syndicalism & by "council-communism", which at least developed more mature economic critiques of power. Like the left in general however anarchism collapsed in 1989 (a growing North-american movement for example suddenly imploded) in all likelihood because at that moment our enemy the State also secretly collapsed. In order to move into the gap left by the defeat of Communism we needed a critique of Capitalism as the single power in a unified world. Our careful & sophisticated critique of a world divided into two forms of State/economic power was rendered suddenly irrelevant. In an attempt to rectify this lack, I believe we need a new theory of "nationalism" as well as a new theory of Capitalism (and indeed a new theory of religion as well). So far the only interesting model for this is the EZLN in Mexico -- (it's gratifying to see Zapatista slogans scrawled all over Dublin!) -- & it would be worth analyzing their theory-&-praxis for inspiration. The EZLN is the first revolutionary force to define itself in opposition to "global neo-liberalism"; it has done so without aid or influence from the "Internationale" because it appeared in the very same moment that "Moscow" disappeared. It has received the support of the remnants of Liberation Theology as well as the secret councils of Mayan shamans & traditional elders. In the Native-american sense of the word it is a "nationalist" movement, & yet it derives its political inspiration from Zapata, Villa, & Flores Magon (i.e., two agrarian anarcho-syndicalists & one anarcho-communist). It is concerned with "empirical freedoms" rather than purist ideology. [As Qaddafi says, "In need, freedom remains latent".] No wonder the NYTimes called Chiapas the first "post-modern" revolution; in fact, it is the first revolution of the 21st century.
James Connolly, one of the founders of the IWW, developed in Ireland a theory that socialism & nationalism were parts of one & the same cause -- & for this theory he suffered martyrdom in 1916. From one point of view Connolly's theory might lead toward "National Socialism" on the Right -- but from another point of view it leads to "third wold nationalism" on the Left. Now that both these movements are dead it is possible to see more clearly how Connolly's theory also fits with anarchist & syndicalist ideas of his own period, such as the left volkism of Gustav Landauer or the "General Strike" of Sorel. These ideas in turn can be traced back to Proudhon's writings on mutualism & "anarcho-federalism". [The quarrel between Marx & Proudhon was for more unfortunate for history than Marx's much noisier & more famous quarrel with Bakunin.] Inasmuch as we might propose a "neo-proudhonian" interpretation of the Zapatista uprising, therefore, Connolly's ideas may take on a new relevance for us [and thus perhaps it's not surprising if the EZLN sparks a response from the Irish left!]. Nationalism today is headed for a collision with Capitalism, for the simple reason that the nation per se has been redefined by Capital as a zone of depletion. In other words, the nation can either capitulate to Capitalism or else resist it -- no third way, no "neutrality" remains possible. The question facing the nation as zone of resistance is whether to launch its revolt from the Right (as "hegemonic particularity") or from the left (as "non-hegemonic particularity"). Not all nations are zones of resistance, & not all zones of resistance are nations. But wherever the two coincide to some extent the choice becomes not only an ethical but also a political process.
During the American Civil War the anarchist Lysander Spooner refused to support either side -- the South because it was guilty of chattel-slavery, the North because it was guilty of wage-slavery -- & moreover because it denied the right to secede, and obvious sine qua non of any genuinely free federation. In this sense of the term, nationalism must always be opposed because it is hegemonic -- & secession must always be supported inasmuch as it is anti-hegemonic. That is, it can only be supported to the extent that it does not seek power at the expense of others' misery. No State can ever achieve this ideal -- but some "national struggles" can be considered objectively revolutionary provided they meet basic minimal requirements -- i.e. that they be both non-hegemonic & anti-Capitalist. In the "New World" such movements might perhaps include the Hawaiian secession movement, Puerto Rican independence, maximum autonomy for Native-american "nations", the EZLN, & at least in theory the bioregionalist movement in the US -- and it would probably exclude (with some regrets) such movements as Quebec nationalism, & the militia movement in the US. In Eastern Europe we might see potential in such states as Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia, the Ukraine -- but not in Serbia nor in Russia. In the "Mid-East" one cannot help supporting Chechnya & the Kurds. In Western Europe the EU must be opposed, & the smaller nations most likely to be crushed by the weight of Eurotrash & Eurodollars should be encouraged to stay out of the Union or to oppose it from within. This includes the Atlantic littoral from Morocco (where Berber resistance & Saharan independence have our sympathy) to Ireland, Denmark, perhaps, Scandinavia, the Baltics, & Finland. Celtic secessionism should be encouraged in Scotland, Wales, Brittany, & Man; this would add a strong socialist & green tint to any possible coalition of small Atlantic States. In Northern Ireland the best possible solution to the "Troubles" might be an independent Ulster based on socialist anti-sectarian solidarity -- a dream perhaps but far more interesting than "Peace" at any price -- & a free revolutionary Ulster would no doubt release an unbelievable burst of energy into the anti-Capitalist movement -- despite its size Ulster would emerge as a leader of any such movement -- it would possess tremendous moral prestige.
Since we're indulging in dreams let's imagine that an anti-Communist/anti-Capitalist movement emerges in E. Europe, & allies itself with new movements within Islam, no longer "fundamentalist" & hegemonistic but definitely anti-Capitalist & opposed to "One World" culture. In turn an alliance is made with the anti-capitalist anti-"Europe" states of the Atlantic littoral -- & simultaneously within all these countries revolutionary forces are at work for social & economic justice, environmental activism, anti-hegemonic solidarity, & "revolutionary difference". NGOs & religious groups lend their logistical support to the struggle. Meanwhile we can imagine Capitalism in crisis for any of a myriad reasons, from bank-collapse to environmental catastrophe. Suddenly the radical populist critique of "neo-liberalism" begins to cohere for millions of workers, farmers, tribal peoples, x-class drop-outs & artists, heretics, & even "petit-bourgeois" shopkeepers & professionals...
..."After the Revolution" of course all nationalist forms would have to be carefully reconsidered. The goal of "neo-Proudhonian federalism" would be the recognition of freedom at every point of organization in the rhizome, no matter how small -- even to a single individual, or any tiny group of "secessionists". No doubt these freedoms would have to be ensured through constant struggle against the "natural" tendencies to greed & power-hunger inherent within every individual & every collectivity. But that's a matter for the future. In the present we are faced with the monumental task of constructing an anti-Capitalist resistance movement out of the shattered remnants of radicalism, some glue, some tissue paper, & some hot rhetoric. We can no longer afford the luxury of ignoring politics. This does not mean I'm about to ruin a perfect anarchist record & vote for the first time -- since in my country voting means nothing & gains one nothing, not even $5 or a free drink (as in the old days of Tammany Hall). I mean politics in the Clauswitzian sense. And war makes for strange bedfellows -- even for unexpected comrades & allies. I'd like to believe that revolution could be a non-violent "war for peace" -- but like a good scout, one should be prepared.
Dublin, Sept. 23, 1996 by HAKIM BEY
The Post-Larval Must Be Very Cautious in Communicating with Larval Humans
Exo-psychology holds that the human larval exists in a reality defined by the four survival imprints. Although the brain receives 100 million impulses a second, mundane consciousness is limited to signals which have been conditioned to one of the four imprinted game-boards.
Unconditioned sensations, the raw swirl of an unfiltered reality, exist as background noise.
In communicating with larvals the following points must, therefore, be remembered:
The larval has no interest in you, you do not exist, unless you can hook into Hir limited reality-island, transmit on Hir narrow mind-band, unless your behavior offers meaning in terms of possible benefit or threat to Hir:
1. cellular well being
2. emotional-hierarchical status
3. artifact manipulation game
4. socio-sexual security; domestic reassurance
All larval interactions are instrumental to one of the four survival attitudes. Larvals are comfortably adapted to this limited four-channel communication, scan automatically for the survival meaning of each stimulus and scuttle by each other like ants, each intent on Hir own "reality" - reacting automaticallly to relevant cues from others.
Larval communication occurs in terms of four systems, some of which are comprehensible to the entire species, some of which are limited to members of the same cultural-imprint group.
Larvals do not like to receive information unless the facts fit into their 3rd Circuit reality net and immediately reward their emotional status. Democrats were delighted to hear the facts about Nixon, but Republicans were irritated and resistant.
Larvals submit themselves to learn new symbols only under special motivational circumstances where the new connections build on and confirm established systems or give promise of future emotional rewards of which the teacher is model.
Larvals fervently resist new symbols which require a change in their network of associations. This resistance to learning is not psychological; it is neurological and biochemical. New ideas require a change in the wiring of associations and literally cause a "headache."
Communicating with a larval involves building onto the net of associations. You must literally wire each new idea to an existing neural connection. Larvals learn almost no new symbol systems after childhood. They simply add on or translate into symbols closely connected to the imprint. This accounts for the fact that it takes at least one generation for a new idea to be understood.
It is especially important in communicating with larvals to remember that few symbols now exist for post-larval processes.
You cannot use butterfly language to communicate with caterpillars.
Circuit 4 language involves domestic-moral and social values. Here we discover that there are great cultural differences. The basic sperm-egg invitations to orgasm are, of course, global, but the semantics of displacement, inhibition and sublimation become subtle. Indeed, the individuality, intimacy, specificity, inconsistency and volatility of value symbols requires the greatest caution on the part of post-larvals communicating with yokels.
Most larvals live in terror of being seen as sinful or "bad." Constant reassurance is required to maintain the feeling of being socially approved.
In communicating with larvals about sexual, philosophic, or ethical matters, one enters very dangerous terrain. It is almost impossible to discuss philosophy with yokels. Hypocrisy, unconscious motivation, irrational paradox, need for approval and fear-of-shame dominate every discussion of philosophy-religion.
Larvals may be bored by and may tune-out Circuit 3 symbols which do not fit their imprints and conditioned networks. But Circuit 4 moral symbols or behaviors which are sensed as different trigger off responses of passion and even violence. Because of this philosophic sensitivity, yokel humans tend to avoid philosophic discussions.
This phobia can cause painful reactions when a post-larval attempts to discuss exo-psychology with a mundane.
The reasons for this philosophic phobia:
1. Yokels are ignorant about where life came from, where it is going and why. They are thus terrified by their mortality. Each larval has accepted a flimsy philosophy of life-and-death which SHe does not really believe. Thus the irritation and panic when this basic hypocrisy is threatened by a scientific discussion about life-origin and life destination.
"The Lutheran church has always been based on the Bible," explains Phil Beck, Production Manager of a local paint company and the superintendent of the Church's Sunday School. "If you start questioning it, where do you stop? If I have to have that much education to sit down and understand Genesis, then why did God let Luther put it in the people's language? At what point do I throw the whole mad mess out the door?" Time magazine
2. Yokels are robot-slaves to DNA. They blindly labor to perpetuate the species, to breed, to establish domestic arrangements for rearing young and to transmit cultural survival patterns. Any discussion which threatens to expose or question this robothood is extremely painful. The larval cannot tolerate the insight into uneasy areas of uncertainty.
3. Expression and inhibition of sexual behavior is charged with terror, because orgasm and sperm-egg transfer must be domesticated to provide for stable child rearing.
In communicating with larvals one must realize that discussions about life, death, philosophic ultimates, child-rearing, sexuality - are highly individualistic. Reactions to these topics are unpredictable, depending on the intimacy and safety of the situation.
Hypocrisy and violent defensiveness is endemic.
Post-terrestrials, of course, think of little else except what happens after larval imprints are retracted. They are fascinated by communications with their body, their brain, their DNA.
Post-larvals emit vibrations which sometimes disturb yokels and other times seduce them into a temporary abandonment of philosophic repressions.
Post-terrestrials are usually funny, erotic, relativistic and philosophically provocative. Yokels can unconsciously sense the difference in a post-terrestrial. It is therefore advisable to be accurate and sensitive when interacting with larvals.
One must be careful not to seduce the yokel into betraying too much truth.
During a philosophic discussion with post-terrestrials, larvals will often get carried away in temporary enthusiasm, confess doubt about their cosmologies, admit ethical relativities and even accept post-larval strivings to leave the planet and escape death.
The post-terrestrial is urged to act with delicacy to avoid any overt or implied criticism of yokel values. It must be remembered that, to the larval, astronomy and genetics involve 4th Circuit ethical issues, which threaten loss of moral approval.
Discussing exo-psychology with a yokel is like discussing sexual experiences with a pre-adolescent. SHe just can't understand the new reality because Hir neural circuits have not been turned-on. And SHe may turn you in for philosophic child-molesting.
Sooner or later the larval is going to realize that, after the exciting flight conversation, SHe is going to remain grounded. At this point the yokel can become passionately moralistic, attacking the post-terrestrial for being elitist, callous to human suffering, anti-human, escapist, or even diabolical.
Immortals must be careful not to wound the sensibilities of mortals.
In particular, one must be diplomatic in discussing the future evolution of the human species. Larval humans naturally believe that evolution has already reached its highest stage with homo sapiens!
Circuit 7 discussions which suggest that evolution is just half-completed, that the human species is fetal and not yet born, that many new superior species will evolve from the present gene pool - are especially wounding to yokel hubris.
Science fiction writers and astronomers have often speculated on the problem of communication between human and interstellar entities. This problem is no longer academic. It is happening. This book is an example.
Post-terrestrials Must Also Be Cautious In Communicating with Premature Post-larvals
"The Hippy" and the "Yogi-Body Engineer" represent the first two of twelve post-terrestrial stages, transitional stages of "wingless butterflies," evolved beyond terrestrial attachments, no longer hooked to mundane symbols. The one-G earth and its survival routines are no longer "real." The Hippie-Zen adept is no longer reflexively reactive to emotional status cues, is unmotivated for dexterous success and unmoved by the virtue-shame systems by which society domesticates its workers; but has not yet evolved to the mastery of the newly activated circuits. The true post-terrestrial is shame-less.
The word "Hippy" is a generic term for the first post-larval stages describing those who genetically (Zodiac type) , neurologically (imprint) or historically (hedonic/sub-cultures) get trapped in passive-receptive hedonic life styles. Transcendental masturbation.
The first post-Hiroshima generation has produced millions of Zen "Hippies" who have evolved from the mundane but do not realize that they are extra-terrestrial.
The problem is, in part, one of historical linguistics. The only languages, the only symbols provided by primitive psychology for extramundane experiences were "larval religious." The new reality of the Hippy is symbolized by vague, mystical terms.
A communication vacuum develops. On the one hand, The Hippy, Yogi and Tantric relaizes that SHe has evolved somehow. On the other hand, the five-brained person, detached from larval symbols, lurches around grasping at any transcendental straw - magic, occultism, chanting, witchcraft, telepathy, guru-ism, mystical Christianity, Hassidism, experimental evangelism, the endless varieties of oriental charlatanism.
The trap of body-consciousness and sensory consumerism has been well summarized by Federico Fellini:
"People are losing faith in the future. Our [larval] education, unfortunately, molded us for a life that was always tensed towards a series of achievements - school, military service, a career and, as a grand finale, the encounter with the heavenly father. But now that our tomorrows no longer appear in that optimistic perspective, we are left with a feeling of impotence and fear. People who can no longer believe in a "better tomorrow" logically tend to behave with a desperate egotism. They are preoccupied with protecting, brutally if necessary, those little personal gains, one's little body, one's little sensual appetites. To me this is the most dangerous feature of the '70's"
Five-brained persons flopping around sporadically detached from mundane imprints, lacking a vocabulary and a methedology for extra-terrestrial movement, falll back on larval concepts of transcendence. Caterpillar fantasies about what post-larval life will be like.
A warning is in order. Many five-brained Hippies and Yogis are the most vehement opponents of extra-terrestrial evolution. They use three bland sets of criteria to resist practical plans for interstellar migration:
Look within. Astral travel, passive changing of consciousness will transport us to the promised land.
Return to nature. Back to the paleolithic! Simplify, avoid technology, stalk the wild asparagus, rely on body wisdom, organic purity, sensory pleasure.
All is one. The cosmos is a homogenous mist of flavorless cotton-candy. Exo-psychology and neurogenetics are attacked as unnatural, elitist attempts to differentiate the vanilla-pudding unity of simplistic Hinduism, Buddhism, u.s.w.
Underlying all three of these occult postures is a revulsion against science, technology, evolution and intellectual competence. Implicit in the occultist theory is the assumption that there is nothing left to learn except to rote-memorize some Hindu chants, to rote-recite some glib theosophical dogmas, to quiet the restless inquiring mind.
The three stages of the neurosomatic circuit - 13. Hippy, 14. Yogi, 15. Tantric - are body-oriented and involve a deliberate symbol-stupidity. It is understandable that the five-brained person reacts against the insectoid-cyborg materialism of larval technology, the scientism that produces plastic consumerism, military-industrialism, assembly-line anonomie, and polluted over-population. But the rejection of scientific inquiry becomes a know-nothing smugness. Occultists become long-haired rednecks.
The evidence from astronomy, bio-chemistry, genetics, nuclear-physics, defines the true frontier of philosophy and religion. Scientific American is more "far-out" than any occult magazine, the Periodic Table of Elements more prophetic than the Tarot deck. The nucleus of the atom is a realm more mysterious and omnicient than any theological fantasy. The cosmology of an expanding-universe-riddled-with-Black-Holes more bizarre than the eschatologies of Dante, Homer and Ramayana.
Despite this noble rejection of the artificial, the Hippie-Yogi-Tantric establishment is an entrenched, self-indulgent block to evolution - a transitional stage preparatory to planetary migration.
We see the limitations of neurosomatic contelligence most clearly in the teachings of don Juan. Castaneda's warrior-sorcerers are admirable in their dignified, humorous, disciplined attempts to retract social imprints. Don Juan has worked out an accurate, metaphorical neurologic. He precisely defines the larval-imprint reality-island (tonal) and the direct experience of the nagual.
But don Juan's philosophy is pessimistic: "There are no survivors on this earth." It fails to evolve to Stage 15 neurosomatic linkage: "And then I was alone," is the bleak conclusion.
The first post-Hiroshima generation was truly a lost generation. Liberated from yokel imprints but with no place to go beyond body geography. The cynicism and malaise of the 1970's is the result of this disillusion.
For these reasons the exo-psychologist must speak with caution in communicating with the members of the "Woodstock" generation. They have imprinted their bodies but are too old and set in their ways (at age 25-35) [when this was written] to receive the neurophysical signals for extra-terrestrial migration.
. . .
This [information] is not for Every Body. The human species is now at a point of genetic fission. Assume that ninety-three percent of the species is going to adapt to life on the planet. Ecology is the seductive dinosaur science that will lead most of the post-human species to conform to terrestrial conditions, become reasonably comfortable, passive, robot-conditioned cyborg insectoids directed by centralized (ABC, NBC, CIA, CNN, MAO, KGB) broadcasting systems. For terrestrial readers this manual outlines the neurological steps necessary to adapt harmoniously to hedonic, five-brained cyborg existence.
This transmission flashes a different signal for the seven percent who we assume are DNA-designed to attain biological immortality, leave the womb-planet, become galactic citizens and fuse with superior interstellar entities.
This manual is not designed for conventional author-reader games.
It is a signal for mutation.
A test of intelligence.
A scan for personal power.
by Dr. Timothy Leary Ph.D
http://deoxy.org/8_larvals.htm
Political Ponerology
THE GENESIS OF EVIL
The ultimate cause of evil lies in the interaction of two human factors: 1) normal human ignorance and weakness and 2) the existence and action of a statistically small (4-8% of the general population) but extremely active group of psychologically deviant individuals. The ignorance of the existence of such psychological differences is the first criterion of ponerogenesis. That is, such ignorance creates an opening whereby such individuals can act undetected.
The presence of such “disease” on the individual level is described in the Almost Human section of this website. However, depending on the type of activity of psychopathic and characteropathic individuals, evil can manifest on any societal level. The greater the scope of the psychopath’s influence, the greater harm done. Thus any group of humans can be infected or “ponerized” by their influence. From families, clubs, churches, businesses, and corporations, to entire nations. The most extreme form of such macrosocial evil is called “pathocracy”.
PONEROGENIC ASSOCIATIONS
"In any society in this world, psychopathic individuals and some of the other deviant types create a ponerogenically active network of common collusions, partially estranged from the community of normal people... Their sense of honor bids them to cheat and revile that ‘other’ human world and its values at every opportunity." (Lobaczewski, 138)
“We could list various names ascribed to such organizations… gangs, criminal mobs, mafias… which cunningly avoid collision with the law while seeking to gain their own advantage. Such unions frequently aspire to political power in order to impose their expedient legislation upon societies in the name of a suitably prepared ideology, deriving advantages in the form of disproportionate prosperity and the satisfaction for their craving of power.” (Lobaczewski, 158, emphasis added)
"Gangs have always provided great opportunities for young psychopaths. Their impulsive, selfish, callous, egocentric, and aggressive tendencies easily blend in with - and may even se the tone for - many of the gang's activities. Indeed, there cannot be many other activities that produce so many rewards for violent psychopaths, with such impunity." (Hare, 176)
Living in a world whose morals and customs are meaningless to them and even seen as oppressive, psychopaths dream of a "happy" and "just" world where their depraved worldview is accepted as reality. They seek, by any means necessary, to achieve positions in government where their dreams can be brought to fruition. If injustice does exist in a society, their statements regarding the 'unfairness' of their situation can resonate with those who actually do experience such injustice. Thus, revolutionary doctrines can be accepted by both groups for diametrically opposed reasons.
Ponerogenic groups are those with a statistically high number of pathological individuals, to the point that the group as a whole exercises egotistical and pathological behavior. Deviants function as leaders and ideological spellbinders, and while normal people may act as members, they have typically accumulated various psychological deficiencies. Those not susceptible to such influence are excluded from the group. These groups can either infiltrate existing governments or exert their influence from "behind the scenes." Bribery, blackmail, murder and similar terror tactics are used to achieve these ends.
Structure: The command structure of ponerogenic associations is similar to that of normal groups: members specialize and complement each other's strengths. In this way different individuals with varying psychological defects will fill roles in which their particular ‘gift’ is applicable. “The earlier phase of a ponerogenic union’s activity is usually dominated by characteropathic, particularly paranoid individuals, who often play an inspirational or spellbinding role in the ponerization process. Recall here that the power of the paranoid characteropath lies in that they easily enslave less critical minds" (Lobaczewski, 162). Trauma victims, individuals with psychological deficiencies, and young people often fall into the category of ‘less critical minds’.
Ideological Mask: The group's stated goals are often at variance with its true nature. Colorful literature and humanitarian values often mask its true motivations. Take, for example, the disparity between the CIA's stated goals, such as "Creating special, multidisciplinary centers to address such high-priority issues such as nonproliferation, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, international organized crime and narcotics trafficking, environment, and arms control intelligence", and its widespread use of terrorism, torture, overthrowing democratically elected governments, installing foreign dictators, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, etc. Also, compare the public humanitarian front of the Anti-Defamation League with its sordid history of illegal domestic surveillance, character assassination, and collaboration with foreign spy organizations.
First Criterion of Ponerogenesis: “One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals as such, interpreting their behavior in fascinated, heroic, or melodramatic ways” (Lobaczewski, 158). When a group has succumbed to pathological influence its members soon lose the ability to distinguish normal human behavior from pathological. This atrophy of critical faculties in relation to such individuals becomes an opening to their activities. It can also be used to identify potentially dangerous groups.
Characteropathy and Psychopathy: Groups dominated by characteropaths engage in fairly primitive activities, and are thus easily broken by normal society. Psychopathic leaders, however, are often more clever, and use characteropathic individuals as subservient tools. When arrested, such individuals accept the paramoral ideals of their leaders, acting as the group's scapegoat and accepting the majority of the blame. Psychopathic leaders, when in court, will correspondingly shift the blame to their underlings. A large-scale example of this dynamic is the scapegoating of low-ranking military officers for war crimes condoned and/or ordered by higher-ranking authorities.
Primary and Secondary Ponerogenic Unions: There are two types of ponerogenic associations. Primary ponerogenic associations are those that were originally formed and designed to benefit its founding members using illicit (evil) means. Lobaczewski describes them as unions "whose abnormal members were active from the very beginning, playing the role of crystallizing catalysts as early as the process of creation of the group occurred,” e.g. criminal gangs (160). Such groups' antisocial activities and blatant disregard for moral values naturally disgust normal people, and thus their influence does not spread far before they lose their battle with society.
The secondary ponerogenic associations are groups founded with an independent and attractive social ideal, but which later succumb to moral degeneration. This degeneration leaves an opening for "infection and activation of the pathological factors within, and later to a ponerization of the group as a whole, or often its fraction” (Lobaczewski, 160). Governments, ideologies, and religions are institutions founded by people whose lack of awareness of specific psychological realities and other moral failings leave them open to covert infection and subsequent take-over by those without conscience. The fact that these institutions have been in existence and have a long-standing tradition has allowed them to acquire a much greater membership and notoriety. When such an organization, working towards some social or political goal, is already accepted by a large number of normal people (e.g. American Republicanism or Evangelical Christianity), ponerization of the group provides the widespread influence that primary ponerogenic unions lack.
After its takeover by psychopathic elements within (e.g. the Neoconservative takeover of American Republicanism), the ponerogenic group is protected by a “mask” of the group's traditional values. This will happen in spite of the fact that these values are obviously distorted and disregarded. For example, such a group will pass legislation and behave solely to benefit those in control, often becoming violent and starting wars of aggression. Normal members of such a group naively protect such deviant behavior, not realizing it is the work of deviants. Its pathology remains hidden by those who do not wish to see it objectively. Justifications and prepared ideologies are promulgated; subconscious selection and substitution take place, and the pathology is effectively cloaked behind a mask of sanity. Those who belong to ‘the party’ will label the opposition as pacifists, socialists, liberals or terrorists, or whichever label is most effective in order to invalidate their criticism. Unfortunately the government will only become more pathological in its behavior and egotistical toward other nations until the deviant psychological aspects are either purged or destroy themselves.
The same dynamic plays out in interpersonal relations. Take, for example, Ted Bundy, who had a reputation as a kind, intelligent, respectable man. When he was first accused of murdering several young women, his acquaintances staunchly defended his character. This situation follows the same pattern as the macrosocial dynamic. Such individuals will often denigrate the victims and accusers of such a previously esteemed individual. This not only has a negative effect on the victim, but encourages further deviant behavior on behalf of the perpetrator.
Macrosocial Disease: Social disease may be called macrosocial under either of two conditions: 1) ponerogenic processes encompass a society’s entire ruling class, or 2) opposition from normal people is stifled, via the mass use of spellbinding, censorship, and physical compulsion. Two general stages of macrosocial disease seem to apply to all its forms and variations: hysteria and pathocracy.
PONERIZATION
The first step in the ponerization of a group often appears as a moral distortion of the group’s original ideology. The existence of simplistic concepts (e.g., whether moral or legal) blocks any ability for critical thought in relation to the existence of psychopaths or their possible influence on the initial warping of the group’s ideology. Such doctrinaire concepts are prevalent in the neoconservative ideology. For example, “You’re either with us or against us (in the War on Terror)” and the completely arbitrary use of the labels “terrorist,” “terrorist sympathizer”, and “suspected terrorist.”
Just as it is normal in the life of any human to experience a decline in psychological or physiological resistance (thus leading to moral failings or bacteriological infection), groups experience such crises. The pressure leading to such crises may be caused by the influence of other groups, a heightened hysterical condition, or a general spiritual crisis in the environment.
The resulting weakness in proper reasoning and critical thinking skills leaves an opening for the activity of psychopaths and characteropaths. Their influence then results in a further decline in moral and intellectual functioning. The absurdity of such a dynamic can be seen in the fact that Richard Cheney, an obvious psychopath, is allowed to hold the position of vice-president. Even when he shoots a hunting partner in the face, the media and public will studiously rationalize his coarse and psychopathic behavior. (See Dave McGowan's analysis of the incident in question.)
When such individuals are treated as normal, more perceptive individuals will leave the group. When the group has become sufficiently pathological, members will either perceive its new direction in moral terms (e.g., “We must kill them all on the principle of justice and democracy”), or as a form of psychological terror. As more healthy people leave the group, taking on more counter-revolutionary positions, individuals with psychological anomalies join, removing their masks of sanity ever more often. Without adequate knowledge, normal individuals who have been ejected from such a group will suffer immensely, cut off from their original ideological reason for joining. Infected with unhealthy emotions and pathological material, they can assume positions opposite to those which they formerly followed.
New members are psychologically screened. No one with too much independence or psychological normality is allowed in the group. (Such screening should have taken place to root out psychological deviants in the first place.) Detractors are treated with paramoral condemnation. In short, the patients have overtaken the asylum.
Stages of Ponerization: When it is first infected by psychological deviants, the group maintains most of its original character. But eventually, the more normal members are pushed into fringe functions and are excluded from organizational secrets; some of them thereupon leave the group. “Individuals with inherited deviations then progressively take over the inspirational and leadership positions. The role of essential psychopaths gradually grows, although they like to remain ostensibly in the shadows… In ponerogenic unions on the largest social scale, the leadership role is generally played by a different kind of individual, one more easily digestible and representative. Examples include frontal characteropathy, or some more discreet complex of lesser traits.” (Lobaczewski, 162)
The initial stage of ponerization, where membership is increasingly pathological, requires specific psychological and factual knowledge in order to recognize. The second, more stable and overtly pathological stage, is readily apparent to most normal people, but is interpreted in moral or sociological terms (i.e., without knowledge of psychological differences).
Over time, as the group becomes more heavily ponerized, the spellbinders who originally led such a group are relegated to the task of repackaging the ideology for propaganda purposes. The leadership roles become saturated with more psychopathic individuals, while the "normal" group acquires more characteropathic individuals.
As is the case with the Neoconservative ponerogenic union's ostensible "unitary executive" George W. Bush, group propaganda maintains the erroneous overestimation of the ‘leader's’ real power. This leader "is dependent upon the interests of the union, especially the elite initiates, to an extent greater than he himself knows. He wages a constant position-jockeying battle; he is an actor with a director. In macrosocial unions, this position is generally occupied by a more representative individual not deprived of certain critical faculties; initiating him into all those plans and criminal calculations would be counterproductive. In conjunction with part of the elite, a group of psychopathic individuals hiding behind the scenes steers the leader, the way Borman and his clique steered Hitler. If the leader does not fulfill his assigned role, he generally knows that the clique representing the elite of the union is in a position to kill or otherwise remove him." In such a manner, George W. Bush is steered and controlled by a group of psychopathic advisors: Richard Perle to name but one.
PATHOCRACY
The first phase of macrosocial disease, i.e. social hysterization, is the opening through which pathocracy manifests. Such a period of societal spiritual crisis is associated with the exhausting of the ideational, moral, and religious values heretofore nourishing the society in question. Individuals and groups grow increasingly self-serving, and the links of moral duty and social networks loosen. People become concerned with trifling things, ignoring more important issues such as commitment to the future, or involvement in public matters.
The most characteristic feature of such a period is widespread hysteria, like that of the quarter century in Europe preceding WWI. “Happy” times of peace are necessarily dependant on social injustice, and children of the privileged class learn early to repress ideas that they and their families are benefiting from the injustice of others. Such unconscious defense mechanisms cause these individuals to disparage the values of those whose work they exploit. These processes lead to an hysterical state of inhibited logic and reasoning. This rigidity of thought then gets passed on to the next generation to an even greater degree.
The hysterical patterns finally get passed from the ruling class to the less privileged classes. This characteristic contempt for factual criticism, for normal thought patterns and nations, obviates the need for media censorship. A pathologically hypersensitive censor lives within each citizen. This has been repeatedly demonstrated by the American media in relation to the omissions and distortions of the Kean-Zelikow 911 Commission Report, the propaganda leading to the Iraq war, the death toll of Iraqi citizens, the reality in Palestine.
“When three “egos” govern – egoism, egotism, and egocentrism – the feeling of social links and responsibility toward others disappear, and the society in question splinters into groups ever more hostile to each other. When a hysterical environment stops differentiating the opinions of limited, not-quite-normal people from those of normal, reasonable persons, this opens the door for activation of the pathological factors of a various nature to enter in.” (Lobaczewski, 177)
This hysteroidal phase is often followed by a period of war, revolution, genocide, and the fall of empires: pathocracy.
Andrew Lobaczewski
http://www.ponerology.com/
THE PSYCHOPATH - The Mask of Sanity
Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.
You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.
In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.
How will you live your life?
What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?
The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]
Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.
If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]
Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population....
The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] - a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality - and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered "alarmingly high," is about 40 per 100,000 - one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.
The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.
Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system.
We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.
Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.
Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person.
Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.
The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.
What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference betwen an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.
What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions. [Martha Stout, Ph.D., The Sociopath Next Door]
http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm
The Power of Nightmares
The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. The series consists of three one-hour films, consisting mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis's narration, which were first broadcast in the United Kingdom in late 2004 and have been subsequently aired in multiple countries and shown in several film festivals, including the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
The films compare the rise of the American Neo-Conservative movement and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and noting strong similarities between the two. More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is in fact a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies.
The Power of Nightmares has been praised by film critics in both Britain and the United States. Its message and content have also been the subject of various critiques and criticisms from conservatives and progressives.
FURTHER READING
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares
PART1
PART2
PART3
The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom
The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is a BBC documentary series by English filmmaker Adam Curtis, well known for other documentaries including The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. It began airing on BBC Two on 11 March 2007.
The series consists of three, one-hour programmes which explore the concept and definition of freedom, specifically "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom."
PART 1
PART 2
Adam Curtis - The Trap Part 2: The Lonely Robot
PART 3
Adam Curtis - The Trap Part 3: We Will Force Them To Be Free
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