Evil abstraction: the psychology of totalitarianism

[Soul_of_Shu]

It may very possibly be like this...

I dunno, is it really that black and white? The whole sorry affair seems more like a messy grayscale mudball that some are trying to spin and mold into a dorodango, bound to turn arid and crack apart.

[Lou Gold]

It may very possibly be like this...

I dunno, is it really that black and white? The whole sorry affair seems more like a messy grayscale mudball that some are trying to spin and mold into a dorodango, bound to turn arid and crack apart.

The symbol does not suggest something simplistically black and white but rather a cyclic living/dying dynamism in which there's a crack in everything where the light gets in. It is by navigating the difficult punctuations of peaceful equilibrium that we evolve toward the next cycle. Turn, turn, turn.

Like most people I prefer calmer waters but for us whirlpools at least it's still a nuanced mess, perhaps like this...

[Soul_of_Shu]

The symbol does not suggest something simplistically black and white but rather a cyclic living/dying dynamism in which there's a crack in everything where the light gets in. It is by navigating the difficult punctuations of peaceful equilibrium that we evolve toward the next cycle. Turn, turn, turn.

And likewise, how about word from the wise on Blake's vision, here expressed via Vernon, of forging Golgonooza?

[Jim Cross]

Dana and Jim: You (and I would hope Bernardo) are aware, surely, that there is an opposing view to the Ukraine war, in which the US and its puppet regime in Kiev are the bad guys and the Russians are the good guys (trying to end the war the US started in 2014, with 10,000+ killed)? In attempting to peer through the fog of war, in which, as is usually accepted, truth is known to be the first casualty, I tend to side with that opposing view. It is not that I want to debate it here -- it is all blatantly political -- but will if you want (actually, I would probably just point to blogs and essays because I'm lazy.), I just hope you don't think the Western (US and European) narrative that you and Bernardo seem to be following is established truth.

No matter what the relationship between the US and Ukraine is, there is hardly justification for the invasion of Ukraine and mindless shelling of civilians. Apparently Russian TV is calling for the invasion of the Baltics too.

Certainly you don't believe the opposing view - Putin's rationale of denazification of the Ukraine?

[Soul_of_Shu]

Dana and Jim: You (and I would hope Bernardo) are aware, surely, that there is an opposing view to the Ukraine war, in which the US and its puppet regime in Kiev are the bad guys and the Russians are the good guys (trying to end the war the US started in 2014, with 10,000+ killed)? In attempting to peer through the fog of war, in which, as is usually accepted, truth is known to be the first casualty, I tend to side with that opposing view. It is not that I want to debate it here -- it is all blatantly political -- but will if you want (actually, I would probably just point to blogs and essays because I'm lazy.), I just hope you don't think the Western (US and European) narrative that you and Bernardo seem to be following is established truth.

No matter what the relationship between the US and Ukraine is, there is hardly justification for the invasion of Ukraine and mindless shelling of civilians. Apparently Russian TV is calling for the invasion of the Baltics too.

Certainly you don't believe the opposing view - Putin's rationale of denazification of the Ukraine?

Be it resolved that ... yada yada yada ... I'm now intrigued to see if Scott will indeed step into the mire

[AshvinP]

It may very possibly be like this...

I dunno, is it really that black and white? The whole sorry affair seems more like a messy grayscale mudball that some are trying to spin and mold into a dorodango, bound to turn arid and crack apart.

I think Lou's symbol is appropriate here, if it is understood as living polar dynamic which unfolds through the course of World Evolution. You guys may be interested in the quote from Steiner posted on the TCT thread, re: Lightness and Darkness, Thought and Will. Here is some further commentary from Steiner on this topic.

It is a one-sided view of the world to consider it, like Hegel, as permeated by what one might call cosmic thought. It is equally one-sided to consider, like Schopenhauer, that Nature has a basis of free-will. These two particular tendencies apply to western human nature, which leans more towards the side of thought. Hegel's philosophy has another form in the eastern view of the universe. In Schopenhauer's there is a tendency which really suits the oriental, and is shown by the fact that Schopenhauer has a particular preference for Buddhism, and the oriental view in general.

But really every such method of observation can be judged only if surveyed from the point of view which is given by Spiritual Science. From this point of view such a grouping together of the world under the heading either of thought of will appears to be something abstract, and, as we have often said, the more modern development of man still leans towards such abstractions. Spiritual Science must bring man back again to a concrete view of the world, in agreement with reality. And it is precisely to such a view that the inner reasons for the presence of these one-sided philosophies will appear. What such men as Hegel and Schopenhauer, who are after all great and important intelligences, see, is of course visible in the world; but it must be seen in the right way.

Now let us today, to begin with, understand clearly that we, as human beings, experience thought in ourselves. When a man speaks of his thought-experiences, it means that he has this thought-experience direct. He could naturally not have it unless the world were filled with thought. For how should a man, who perceives the world by his senses, be able to think, as a result of this sensory perception, unless the thought were already in the world?
...When someone like Hegel regards the world, he really looks at the perpetually dying part of it. Those who have this particular tendency, become, for the most part, men of thought. And in dying the world becomes beautiful. The Greeks, who were really people of innate human nature, had their external pleasure when beauty shone in the dying world. For the world's beauty shines in the light in which it dies. The world does not become beautiful if it cannot die, for in dying the world becomes luminous. So that it is really beauty which is created from the radiance of the continuously dying world. Thus we regard the world quantitatively. The modern world began with Galileo and others to consider the world quantitatively, and our Scientists today are particularly proud when they can put natural phenomena into terms of lifeless mathematics. It is true Hegel used more pregnant concepts than the mathematical ones to understand the world; but what attracted him most was maturity and decay. Hegel's attitude to the world was like that of a man in front of a tree laden with blossom. At the moment when the fruit is about to develop, but is not yet there, when the blossom is at its fullest, there works in the tree that power of light, which is light-borne thought. That was Hegel's position. He looked at the blossom at its maximum, at that which becomes most completely concrete.

Schopenhauer was different. In order to test his influence, we must look at the other side of human things, at the beginnings. It is the will-element which we carry in our bodies. And we experience this — I have often pointed out — just as we experience the world in sleep. It is unconscious in us. Can we look at this will-element from outside, as we look at thought? Let us take the will developing in some human limb or other, and let us ask ourselves: if we were to look at this will from the other side, from the standpoint of Imagination, of Inspiration, and of Intuition, what then happens? What is the parallel here to seeing thought as light? What do we regard the will if we look at it with the trained power of sight, with clairvoyance? Yes: if we do this, we also get something which we can see from outside. If we look at thought with the power of clairvoyance, we perceive light. If we look at will with the power of clairvoyance, it becomes always thicker and thicker till it becomes matter. You have no other option, if you agree with Schoenhauer, but to believe that man is really a being of will. Had Schopenhauer been clairvoyant, this being of will would have confronted him as a matter-machine, for matter is the outer side of will. Within, matter is will, as light is thought. From outside, will is matter, as thought is outwardly light. For this reason I pointed out tin former addresses: If man dives down mystically into his will-nature, then those who only toy with Mysticism and really only strive after a sensuous experience of their Ego and of the worst egoism, believe they will find the spirit. But if they went far enough with this introspection, they would discover the true material nature of man's interior. For it is nothing less than a diving down into matter. If you dive down into the will-nature, you will find the true nature of matter. The scientific philosophers of today are only telling fairy-stories when they talk about matter consisting of molecules and atoms. You find the true nature of matter by diving down mystically into yourself. There you find the other side of will, and that is matter. And in this matter, that is in Will, is revealed finally the continually beginning, continually germinating world.

Schop did not develop higher cognition, so he failed to notice this polar dynamic - instead he isolated Will and ignored Thought. At a certain point, it is no longer perceived how the dying Thought-world can be renewed through the inner Will. That point is the modern age of materialism and mysticism, but even idealism in the tradition of Hegel could not imagine the further evolution of Spirit. We can understand much of what BK has written lately if we consider these polarized perspectives on the world. When the capacity of actively willed human reasoning is left in the blind spot, the capacity for dying thoughts to find their new beginnings at higher levels of integration through our participatory consciousness, there seems to be no other option apart from apathy and/or political activism in one form or another. Then we are simply being steered around by subconscious forces which Will and Think for us. There is also another consideration here. 

Can our conceptual definitions of Good and Evil stand in for their realities at the level of Being-Nothingness itself? Anyone with a mind can see there is great suffering, pain, violence, and torture in the world. But is this evil 'out there' or is it within us as well? Is our desire to conceptually define and substitute the definition for understanding complicit in the evil? And if the evil is within us as well, then are we to destroy ourselves or seek redemption of our evil nature through Heart Thinking? Through a reasoned trust that there is a genuine path to redemption, even if we cannot conceptually define it? Perhaps the realities of Good and Evil still exist 'behind' our conceptual perspective and, while they certainly shape it, that perspective itself is mostly oblivious to its deeper nature. We then awaken to the fact that evil cannot be redeemed by finding it 'over there' in someone or something else, by reducing and defining it with our mineralized concepts, but only by coming to experientially and deeply know our higher Self.

[Soul_of_Shu]

It may very possibly be like this...

I dunno, is it really that black and white? The whole sorry affair seems more like a messy grayscale mudball that some are trying to spin and mold into a dorodango, bound to turn arid and crack apart.

I think Lou's symbol is appropriate here, if it is understood as living polar dynamic which unfolds through the course of World Evolution. You guys may be interested in the quote from Steiner posted on the TCT thread, re: Lightness and Darkness, Thought and Will. Here is some further commentary from Steiner on this topic.

Oh no, what metaphysical esoterica is this being proposed for dialogos, as a distraction from the upcoming Jim vs Scott slugfest—which now may have to be moved to the comments section of Jim's blog, if he has one.

Seriously though, thanks for the attempt to keep it focused on what the forum is intended to be focused on.

[Lou Gold]

Can our conceptual definitions of Good and Evil stand in for their realities at the level of Being-Nothingness itself? Anyone with a mind can see there is great suffering, pain, violence, and torture in the world. But is this evil 'out there' or is it within us as well? Is our desire to conceptually define and substitute the definition for understanding complicit in the evil? And if the evil is within us as well, then are we to destroy ourselves or seek redemption of our evil nature through Heart Thinking? Through a reasoned trust that there is a genuine path to redemption, even if we cannot conceptually define it? Perhaps the realities of Good and Evil still exist 'behind' our conceptual perspective and, while they certainly shape it, that perspective itself is mostly oblivious to its deeper nature. We then awaken to the fact that evil cannot be redeemed by finding it 'over there' in someone or something else, by reducing and defining it with our mineralized concepts, but only by coming to experientially and deeply know our higher Self.

Perhaps a favorite Thich Nhat Hanh poem Please Call Me by My True Names is relevant here. I feel a similarity between what you call "Heart Thinking" and what Thay calls "Heart of Compassion". Yes, I grok that the name "thinking" has a different trajectory in Eastern and Western cultural gestalts. The West being more committed to rational linear (Cartesian) reason at the time seems to obligate philosophers like Steiner to not throw the baby out with the bath and thus a bridge name like Spiritual Thought or Spiritual Science was necessary for dialogue. Alternately, I suspect the Eastern tradition felt less need for a semantic bridge and could thus speak directly of a compassionate heart or Tao that would flow naturally through one who was empty of conceptual thinking. As a non-philosopher I'm just offering a speculation and not setting the stage for a debate.

From a more folksy perspective, I very much agree with Pogo that, "We have met the enemy and he is us." I also believe that "We have met the friend and he is us" and the ongoing evolutionary challenge is to more truly grok both the friend and the enemy in all of us and to know, even if only temporarily, the difference as we seek to do our best. That process of deep ingoing and ongoing inquiry within a dynamic ever-changing living situation (embodied or not) would seem to me as a true spiritual science. Meanwhile, perhaps we might agree that moving too deeply into abstraction carries the risk of separation from the senses, which would inform us palpably of the differences between good and evil. I believe this is the point that BK is trying to make.

[Lou Gold]

The symbol does not suggest something simplistically black and white but rather a cyclic living/dying dynamism in which there's a crack in everything where the light gets in. It is by navigating the difficult punctuations of peaceful equilibrium that we evolve toward the next cycle. Turn, turn, turn.

And likewise, how about word from the wise on Blake's vision, here expressed via Vernon, of forging Golgonooza?

No word to the wise from me other than a confession that my mistakes have been my best teachers. I found Vernon's video on Blake to be BRILLIANT, well beyond the analytics of Chomsky and Kastrup, and I want to shout it from the highest hill. I thank you deeply for yet another synchronous contribution to our ongoing dialogue. I should mention that the recent last night (23 April 2022) of the Jewish Passover Seder ends with the ritual shout, NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM. May it be!

Pitifully unskilled artist that I am, but like a child playing in a photoshop sandbox of litter, I look imaginatively for the extraordinary ordinary of treasure beneath every step and see not a reality but an ongoing faith in possibility. My portrayal is tainted with a seeming "more or better of the same" but it is meant as a hope for things yet to be seen.

[ScottRoberts]

No matter what the relationship between the US and Ukraine is, there is hardly justification for the invasion of Ukraine and mindless shelling of civilians. Apparently Russian TV is calling for the invasion of the Baltics too.

Certainly you don't believe the opposing view - Putin's rationale of denazification of the Ukraine?

What you say follows along with the point of view of Western mainstream media which, if one lives in the West, one can't help but be exposed to. My question for you is: what sources do you use to be exposed to the opposing, pro-Russian view?