AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 8:07 pm
Sure, I agree with it. It follows the broad principles of esoteric science, the Ahr-Lu archetypal influences, which of course are related to more particular political manifestations. But I am not even speaking of democrat v. republican or liberal v. conservative in that sense. I probably should not have even used these political distinctions to begin with - I just wanted a convenient conceptual label to focus my intuition into.
I am simply conveying a phenomenology right now - the phenomenology of my interactions with people as I try to convey the phenomenology of spiritual activity and their reactions to it. Many of these reactions fit into a pattern of instinctive thinking that I focused into the conceptual label 'liberal ideology', but it could just as easily be focused into some other conceptual label. We could call it 'Western cultural cynicism'. I am just trying to point to a certain constellation of thinking habits that, for whatever reason at this point in history, often fall on the 'liberal' spectrum of political ideology.
With that said, I wonder what you think about the reasoning in the rest of my comment
You are right, I haven't developed. Here's the rest of your comment:
Ashvin wrote:It is true that all ideologies are a hindrance in so far as they channelize our thinking into rigid conceptual boxes and cut off deeper avenues of exploration, but I notice a gradation within this zone of mental constraints as well. It's just my experience that people enchanted by 'liberal' ideology (which correlates with modern mystical thinking as well) are not even willing to lend an ear to certain phenomenological considerations - the latter immediately strike them as offensive and disgusting, so that avenue of thinking is permanently closed as long as the ideology remains firm.
I think the more conservative-leaning ideologies also find it difficult to expand thinking states into the inner life, but it seems to me that they are at least willing to listen to what someone has to say for a little while. They seem too respectful of free-thinking and individual autonomy to feel that anything they instinctively disagree with should be entirely shut out of their consciousness and out of societal discourse more generally. It's pretty easy to notice this in the US/Canadian cultural discourse as well - the conservative ideological side is significantly more willing to entertain the views of others in a reasoned and level-headed way.
That's the issue that I noticed in Chad's comments as well. Hopefully, this is not the case for him specifically, but speaking generally, people who think about the results of spiritual scientific research in such a way are unlikely to ever give themselves a chance to evaluate it more expansively and fairly. Everything they encounter when reading further will only reinforce the 'racism' and 'misogyny' and whatnot that they suspected. The ideology gets to the point where the mere act of making evolutionary distinctions and tracing their threads of lawfulness is viewed as inherently corrupted.
But, that being said, I realize this reasoning is based on my limited sampling so far, and I mostly have exposure to the 'liberal' side since I am on these idealist forums. I am sure things wouldn't go so well if I joined a Christian fundamentalist forum and started discussing esoteric science
Although my guess is still that, if it was approached phenomenologically, some people would at least listen to what was expressed for a while and would not ban me for simply expressing my views.
Because it so happens that I deal and discuss with many different people from many different cultures and environments, I am familiar with the attitude you describe. Trying to put myself in the shoes of those who express it (and I agree that, all in all, “liberal” is not the right label for it) here’s what I find. It’s not so much because of cynicism or mistrust that they don’t lend an ear to your invitations to introspect phenomenologically. I rather believe their rejection originates from a feeling of a sort of galactic loneliness. More and more people are collapsing under the burden of the dissociated bubble of consciousness. The more BK theorizes it and disseminates its message, the more Rupert Spira utters the words "separate self", the more these become heavy realities for more and more people. For many, the "boundary" has come to constitute an undetected but permanent attack to the neutrality and stability of soul, sort of a finishing blow to the hope that life is worth something, and leads somewhere. And so when they read your essay, and begin to glance at the phenomenological task, many just don’t have enough bandwidth to set up for even more solitude, isolation, and the lone work that phenomenology inevitably requires. Since they don’t suspect, let alone see, the spiritual interconnectendness of reality, the prospect of focused introspection that you present them with sounds as terrible as a maximum security prison.
The deeply unsatisfied longing for spiritual connection emerges on the surface of consciousness as a longing for camaraderie, for a feeling on being on the same boat, for gregariousness. And so when discussing core questions, questions that agitate the soul around themes such as our reason for being, and the meaning of life, they don’t want to be taught, instructed, or equipped. Instead, they want to
feel that you are side by side with them. They want to be approached by a fellow being, who has, and shares, similar struggles and existential quests, to receive a sense of solidarity, so that the loneliness can be appeased. I believe an example of this mood is in Lorenzo’s last posts. He wants you and Cleric to "
share". He doesn't accept that you 'coldly' indicate methodologies, and conceptualize from afar, through essays and objective communications. I believe that Lorenzo, Marco, Chad, and anyone else who instinctively rejects the phenomenological approach through the attitudes you describe, would like you to open your souls to them, that you speak of
your own struggles, questions, longings, experiments, feelings, vicissitudes, advances and achievements. No matter how objectively insightful and illuminating the essays may be, they crave to find commonalities - a "
mirror", as Lorenzo said. In that reflection there’s the hope to be relieved of the boundary’s heavy yoke.
Trying to tie that in with your sense that the attitude correlates with liberal ideology: this hyper-loneliness explains not only the rejection of phenomenology, but also, more generally, the calls for "authenticity", "vulnerability", "servant, non-hierarchical leadership" (it reminds me of the recent business best-seller "Leading without authority") and, of course, "inclusion", with all its editions and add-ons. All these trends originally come from understandable and positive drives
to some extent, but have, through recent years swelled up, added up, and degenerated. There's been the pronoun trend, the "does it work for you" trend, the "how to say no" trend, and many other similar trends, that are now resulting in a sort of madness of inclusivity, a deconstruction, in practice a whole range of bizarre and excessive phenomena, like for example - it's recent news from last month - the dean of the University of Trento, Italy, has now decided that from now on, all administrative paperwork in the university shall refer to individuals, no matter their gender, by means of an extensive feminine gender. You don't have that in English, but in Italian grammar all nouns have either a feminine or a masculine grammatical gender, for example the word "dean" ends differently depending on whether the dean is a man or a woman. So imagine, now everyone gets the feminine epithet, and so the dean (a man), and everyone else in the university's official documents for that matter, is referred to in writing by means of feminine nouns and pronouns. From now on.
Like writing in the press: "Actress Tom Cruise's new role" as an appropriate way to create "inclusivity". This seems to me a clearly degenerative take on the innovative essence of "liberal"
Back to the initial question, I imagine that the ones who have a definite preference for conservative political views tend to be more open to your arguments, not because of their political orientation directly, but only because, for personal reasons, they suffer less from spiritual isolation and loneliness, hence they don't feel attraction for those narratives and ideologies of gregariousness, hence they lean towards conservatism.
What do you think, does that make any sense to you?