KOYAANISQATSI
The Anatomy of World Decay
The Anatomy of World Decay
…the seeming explosion of cases of depressive disorder is puzzling. What has happened to create the appearance of this epidemic? - Horwitz & Wakefield (The Loss of Sadness)
How many of us know about “negative happiness,” and what it means? Do we know why it exists and why so many people love experiencing it?
How does negative happiness differ from its opposite? What do we actually know about the phenomenon of happiness? Are we aware that its an earned virtue that comes at a price?
More to the point, how many of us are actually happy? Is it possible for a poor person, at the bottom of the social heap, to be genuinely happy? Usually we’d say no, and yet it’s been proven that happiness is common among the world's most economically deprived and desperate people.
How many of us know about “negative happiness,” and what it means? Do we know why it exists and why so many people love experiencing it?
How does negative happiness differ from its opposite? What do we actually know about the phenomenon of happiness? Are we aware that its an earned virtue that comes at a price?
More to the point, how many of us are actually happy? Is it possible for a poor person, at the bottom of the social heap, to be genuinely happy? Usually we’d say no, and yet it’s been proven that happiness is common among the world's most economically deprived and desperate people.
Piss poor but capable of spontaneous joy. Are we losing this virtue in the West, and are others in danger of losing it due to the influence of the faustian elements of Western culture?
Negative happiness defines the kind of pseudo-happiness anesthetizing one against authentic feeling and the desire for true wholesome pleasure and fulfilment. Why does this condition exist, and why do we prefer a paltry simulacrum over the reality? Why be against true feeling, and why replace empathy, sensitivity and contentment with genuine fakes?
Many would say we live in a pleasure-soaked culture, although close inspection contradicts this. It's more a case of chronic self-deception on steroids, a case of signing on for the promise of happiness.
Closer observation reveals that, despite the veneer of opulence and affluence, most people in the West are far from contented with their lives:
Three decades ago, the average age of the first onset of depression was 30. Today it is 14 - John F. Schumaker
Research shows that the rate of depression in modern consumer culture is doubling with each generational cohort. At this rate, more than half of our current younger generation aged 18-29 will develop depression by middle age. Taking this one generation further, we come to the dismal conclusion that EVERYONE will become depressed - ibid
Major Depression afflicts about 10% of adults in the United States each year and nearly a fifth of the population at some point in their lives. Rates among women are even higher, about twice as high as in men. Depending on the definition employed, depression can afflict as many as half of the members of some groups, such as female adolescents and the elderly - Horwitz & Wakefield
Antidepressant medications, such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, and Effexor, are now among the largest selling prescription drugs of any sort. Their use among adults nearly tripled between 1988 and 2000. In any given month, 10%, of women and 4%, of men now use these drugs. During the 1990s, spending for antidepressants increased by 600% in the United States, exceeding $7 billion annually by the year 2000 - ibid
…by 2020 depression will become come the second leading cause of worldwide disability, behind only heart disease. The WHO estimates that depression is already the leading cause of disability for 15 to 44 year-olds - ibid
Many would say we live in a pleasure-soaked culture, although close inspection contradicts this. It's more a case of chronic self-deception on steroids, a case of signing on for the promise of happiness.
Closer observation reveals that, despite the veneer of opulence and affluence, most people in the West are far from contented with their lives:
Three decades ago, the average age of the first onset of depression was 30. Today it is 14 - John F. Schumaker
Research shows that the rate of depression in modern consumer culture is doubling with each generational cohort. At this rate, more than half of our current younger generation aged 18-29 will develop depression by middle age. Taking this one generation further, we come to the dismal conclusion that EVERYONE will become depressed - ibid
Major Depression afflicts about 10% of adults in the United States each year and nearly a fifth of the population at some point in their lives. Rates among women are even higher, about twice as high as in men. Depending on the definition employed, depression can afflict as many as half of the members of some groups, such as female adolescents and the elderly - Horwitz & Wakefield
Antidepressant medications, such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, and Effexor, are now among the largest selling prescription drugs of any sort. Their use among adults nearly tripled between 1988 and 2000. In any given month, 10%, of women and 4%, of men now use these drugs. During the 1990s, spending for antidepressants increased by 600% in the United States, exceeding $7 billion annually by the year 2000 - ibid
…by 2020 depression will become come the second leading cause of worldwide disability, behind only heart disease. The WHO estimates that depression is already the leading cause of disability for 15 to 44 year-olds - ibid
Eighty percent of Americans are now overweight, with forty five percent being morbidly obese. The rates of teenage suicide are chronically high throughout America and Europe, while rates of addiction, homicide and gender dysphoria have reached astronomical proportions everywhere. Few are the accurate explanations for any of it, and proposed theories are hopelessly superficial and unsustainable, focusing on everything except psychology.
Millions of young people today have no idea that happiness, like most virtues, is to be earned. They’ve never heard of virtue and that leading an impeccable moral life leads to inner contentment. Instead they’ve been taught that happiness, joy and meaning are bestowed solely by external sources.
Happiness remains elusive simply because people don't really want it. What they desire is approval not happiness. It's the burning need at the base of ego-consciousness, and it's not easy to uninstall, especially when doing so entails confronting the problem of Adultism, the real cause of human unhappiness.
Everybody is living in bondage, because everybody who brought you up wanted to have power over you, to enjoy the mastery over you. And children are the most helpless people in the world, the most exploited class. It is not the proletariat who are the most exploited class, it is not women who are the most exploited class. It is the children who are the most exploited class - Osho
The demand for external admiration and approval is, however, doomed from the start, as most of us sooner or later discover. Indeed, the compulsive demand for it leads to many derivative neurotic tendencies. It leads to abject conformity and a personality type which easily submits to tyrannical leaders in all walks of life, from the coach to the warlord.
Political leaders and social engineers do not offer genuine happiness, and never have. They offer only the promise of it. And how we fall for it time and again. Begging for the chimera, we fall right into the hands of smiling demagogues.
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection – Sigmund Freud
Unable to attain the ideal, we soon settle for something far less alluring. We settle for fleeting satiation and petty distraction. We crave appeasement by way of the media and artificial consumer culture it relentlessly and absurdly parades before us.
But what kind of contentment and happiness is it which kills us slowly? What kind of satiation damns us to everlasting mediocrity and unfulfilled craving? What of the exorbitant price paid for dispensed banality? The various tawdry “highs” titillating us don’t come free. By now we must be able to realize the cost in terms of physical and psychological health.
Millions of young people today have no idea that happiness, like most virtues, is to be earned. They’ve never heard of virtue and that leading an impeccable moral life leads to inner contentment. Instead they’ve been taught that happiness, joy and meaning are bestowed solely by external sources.
Happiness remains elusive simply because people don't really want it. What they desire is approval not happiness. It's the burning need at the base of ego-consciousness, and it's not easy to uninstall, especially when doing so entails confronting the problem of Adultism, the real cause of human unhappiness.
Everybody is living in bondage, because everybody who brought you up wanted to have power over you, to enjoy the mastery over you. And children are the most helpless people in the world, the most exploited class. It is not the proletariat who are the most exploited class, it is not women who are the most exploited class. It is the children who are the most exploited class - Osho
The demand for external admiration and approval is, however, doomed from the start, as most of us sooner or later discover. Indeed, the compulsive demand for it leads to many derivative neurotic tendencies. It leads to abject conformity and a personality type which easily submits to tyrannical leaders in all walks of life, from the coach to the warlord.
Political leaders and social engineers do not offer genuine happiness, and never have. They offer only the promise of it. And how we fall for it time and again. Begging for the chimera, we fall right into the hands of smiling demagogues.
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection – Sigmund Freud
Unable to attain the ideal, we soon settle for something far less alluring. We settle for fleeting satiation and petty distraction. We crave appeasement by way of the media and artificial consumer culture it relentlessly and absurdly parades before us.
But what kind of contentment and happiness is it which kills us slowly? What kind of satiation damns us to everlasting mediocrity and unfulfilled craving? What of the exorbitant price paid for dispensed banality? The various tawdry “highs” titillating us don’t come free. By now we must be able to realize the cost in terms of physical and psychological health.
There is no anti-depressant that will cure a depression that's spiritually based, for the malaise doesn't originate from brain dysfunction, but from an accurate response to the desecration of life - David R. Hawkins
Many thinkers believe we’re already far beyond the point of return, and that culturally speaking there’s no way back to any sensible understanding of community, belonging, virtue and meaning.
All that’s left for children of the near future is complete immersion in the artificial world of negative happiness. It's a world that comes with other horrors, such as negative freedom (the favorite chimera of government), negative faith (the chimera of religion) and negative individuality (the favorite chimera of the media). In each case the negative is negative because it blocks our route to the genuine article. Posing as the “real thing,” they arrest our search for true happiness, freedom, knowledge and independence. They cement us into familiar socially-approved routines and outlooks, and inundate us with mediocrity and artificiality.
The psychologically insightful person asks whether they really desire worldly acknowledgement and success. And even if one does, is it worth losing what one values most by pursuing it? More importantly, if one’s will and identity have already been compromised, in the early days of youth, how can one be sure of being happy later in life? How do we set out to achieve the chimera and what do we lose in human terms should we only meet with failure?
Perhaps a good man’s sense of happiness comes from not doing as others do. Maybe it comes by not listening to other people and going along to get along.
Maybe it comes after years of believing in oneself, going one’s own way and having absolute faith in the universe. In other words, maybe the highest sense of achievement comes from never imposing limits and lack on life itself, and from being spontaneously and heroically able to follow the universe’s directives, even if it means losing every friend, advisor, benefactor and comfort one has.
But of course, to walk this path – the Siddhartha Road – means that in the end no one else is qualified to gauge our progress. One must judge it for themselves without input from anyone else. This self-commitment is known as Individuation, its opposite being habituation, the choice of the multitude, signed, sealed and approved by the herd.
…most people die of unlived life – R. M. Rilke
This is not to say that the course taken by society is to be completely ignored. For a time it serves as a useful coordinate helping one assess progress on their journey. Ultimately, the trajectory of the herd has no lasting impact on one's sovereign decisions, and does not prevent one attaining their dharma or true purpose.
Under no circumstances should it prevent one doing the Great Work of turning within to attain complete Self-transparency.
Many thinkers believe we’re already far beyond the point of return, and that culturally speaking there’s no way back to any sensible understanding of community, belonging, virtue and meaning.
All that’s left for children of the near future is complete immersion in the artificial world of negative happiness. It's a world that comes with other horrors, such as negative freedom (the favorite chimera of government), negative faith (the chimera of religion) and negative individuality (the favorite chimera of the media). In each case the negative is negative because it blocks our route to the genuine article. Posing as the “real thing,” they arrest our search for true happiness, freedom, knowledge and independence. They cement us into familiar socially-approved routines and outlooks, and inundate us with mediocrity and artificiality.
The psychologically insightful person asks whether they really desire worldly acknowledgement and success. And even if one does, is it worth losing what one values most by pursuing it? More importantly, if one’s will and identity have already been compromised, in the early days of youth, how can one be sure of being happy later in life? How do we set out to achieve the chimera and what do we lose in human terms should we only meet with failure?
Perhaps a good man’s sense of happiness comes from not doing as others do. Maybe it comes by not listening to other people and going along to get along.
Maybe it comes after years of believing in oneself, going one’s own way and having absolute faith in the universe. In other words, maybe the highest sense of achievement comes from never imposing limits and lack on life itself, and from being spontaneously and heroically able to follow the universe’s directives, even if it means losing every friend, advisor, benefactor and comfort one has.
But of course, to walk this path – the Siddhartha Road – means that in the end no one else is qualified to gauge our progress. One must judge it for themselves without input from anyone else. This self-commitment is known as Individuation, its opposite being habituation, the choice of the multitude, signed, sealed and approved by the herd.
…most people die of unlived life – R. M. Rilke
This is not to say that the course taken by society is to be completely ignored. For a time it serves as a useful coordinate helping one assess progress on their journey. Ultimately, the trajectory of the herd has no lasting impact on one's sovereign decisions, and does not prevent one attaining their dharma or true purpose.
Under no circumstances should it prevent one doing the Great Work of turning within to attain complete Self-transparency.
In this sense, true happiness equates with rebellion, individuality and Selfhood. It is not something one finds at the end of a road, but something one actually walks with and is. It’s not a separate quality one pockets or installs. Rather it's a consequence of one’s heroic commitment to their vocation.
Happiness intensifies for the vocational being. His abandonment of the recreational and occupational spheres of existence brings him a sense of well-being unknown to others.
Troubling I sit, day and night. My friends are astonished at me: They forgive my wanderings. I rest not from my great task: To open the eternal worlds! To open the immortal eyes of man inward: into the worlds of thought: into eternity. Ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human imagination - William Blake
So there is really no head-scratching involved. Happiness is only elusive to non-selves or pseudo-selves imprisoned by the will of others. Thanks to the abysmal level of education, and complete disinterest in psychology, self-analysis and Selfhood, we find ourselves amid a generation of smiling-depressives in danger of crumbling to pieces without the reassuring approval of others in the same mess.
Those incarcerated within recreational and occupational spheres of operation are not only not genuinely happy, they are often deeply depressed and neurotic. This occurs because they are plagued by non-conscious shame for living inauthentically. This in turn means they've spent a lot of time evading the call of their dharma. Or it's likely that their attempts to commit to their vocation have repeatedly met with overwhelming resistance from others.
In any case, existential shame can be so severe that most people cannot face it without experiencing psychological meltdown. Fortunately, given the complexion of modern society, the neurotic personality type is sure to be well taken care of. There's absolutely no need to endure bouts of existential suffering. Experts know how to dispense negative happiness and restore that glowing "Prozac smile."
Today, many people feel they cannot afford the luxury of examining their lives and psychiatrists prescribe mind-numbing chemicals to help them hide from themselves – Thomas Szasz
Happiness intensifies for the vocational being. His abandonment of the recreational and occupational spheres of existence brings him a sense of well-being unknown to others.
Troubling I sit, day and night. My friends are astonished at me: They forgive my wanderings. I rest not from my great task: To open the eternal worlds! To open the immortal eyes of man inward: into the worlds of thought: into eternity. Ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human imagination - William Blake
So there is really no head-scratching involved. Happiness is only elusive to non-selves or pseudo-selves imprisoned by the will of others. Thanks to the abysmal level of education, and complete disinterest in psychology, self-analysis and Selfhood, we find ourselves amid a generation of smiling-depressives in danger of crumbling to pieces without the reassuring approval of others in the same mess.
Those incarcerated within recreational and occupational spheres of operation are not only not genuinely happy, they are often deeply depressed and neurotic. This occurs because they are plagued by non-conscious shame for living inauthentically. This in turn means they've spent a lot of time evading the call of their dharma. Or it's likely that their attempts to commit to their vocation have repeatedly met with overwhelming resistance from others.
In any case, existential shame can be so severe that most people cannot face it without experiencing psychological meltdown. Fortunately, given the complexion of modern society, the neurotic personality type is sure to be well taken care of. There's absolutely no need to endure bouts of existential suffering. Experts know how to dispense negative happiness and restore that glowing "Prozac smile."
Today, many people feel they cannot afford the luxury of examining their lives and psychiatrists prescribe mind-numbing chemicals to help them hide from themselves – Thomas Szasz
For Freud self-knowledge means that man becomes conscious of what is unconscious; this is a most difficult process, because it encounters the energy of resistance by which the unconscious is defended against the attempt to make it conscious - Erich Fromm
The bad news is that because we attempt to tranquilize natural anxiety, we find ourselves plagued by a cocktail of derivative syndromes arising from our denial and denial of denial. Avoidance of existential shame also condemns us to suffering of a physical kind. Many diseases and maladies - such as insomnia, obesity, anorexia, awkwardness, breakouts, addiction, irritability, envy and anger, etc - are traceable to underlying shame forced to the surface in displaced form.
Thank goodness, says the wise man, that we have underlying shame, and something within that doesn’t tolerate living a lie. Thanks be that underneath the persona lurks a Shadow Self that demands we rebel against society's obscene norms and normies.
Top psychologists, such as Freud, distinguished neurotic from legitimate suffering. Slightly rephrasing Freud, things become clear when we distinguish neurotic misery from legitimate suffering. The former arises due to our obsessive need for the world’s approval, whereas the latter occurs if and when we heed the voices of the conscience and Shadow, and put an end to our conformity.
This ambivalent relationship with Self - and the existential conflicts it breeds - is one of the main reasons for unhappiness and depression. Our shame at committing to an inauthentic life ensures we remain recreational and occupational. It's the reason we live in a state of decay without being profoundly concerned and critical.
Conversely, our anti-suffering societies have everything to lose once we turn to face the legitimate anxiety and despair arising as a true expression of the essential Self. Evil in all its forms collapses once its origins are uncovered. When we make our authentic suffering our best friend and counselor, we end our self-deception and return to psychosomatic wholeness. Unable to bear the light kindled within, evil releases its deadly grip on our being.
With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair increases: the more consciousness, the more intense the despair – Soren Kierkegaard
As for the phenomenon of negative happiness, we see that it is the favored reality for evaders of Selfhood. It’s the result of repression, dissociation, auto-hypnotism, and one’s obsession with domestic and social approval. It is, in effect, the result of one’s crimes against Self.
The effects of this predicament are seen on the social level. It is one of the primary causes not only of neurotic misery on the one hand, but of political wrangling and histrionics on the other. It’s the cause of the many imbalances and paradoxes plaguing Western culture.
…one sees the triumphant spread of pretentiously eccentric mediocrity, one sees the drunken glorification of unconsciousness; one sees unintelligible splashes of paint, representing nothing, displayed on the walls of famous museums; one seeks unkempt young men, in denims and T-shirts, lecturing on Zen Buddhism in distinguished universities; one sees whims for the sake of whims, absurdity for the sake of absurdity, destruction for the sake of destruction, becoming fashionable – Nathaniel Branden
The bad news is that because we attempt to tranquilize natural anxiety, we find ourselves plagued by a cocktail of derivative syndromes arising from our denial and denial of denial. Avoidance of existential shame also condemns us to suffering of a physical kind. Many diseases and maladies - such as insomnia, obesity, anorexia, awkwardness, breakouts, addiction, irritability, envy and anger, etc - are traceable to underlying shame forced to the surface in displaced form.
Thank goodness, says the wise man, that we have underlying shame, and something within that doesn’t tolerate living a lie. Thanks be that underneath the persona lurks a Shadow Self that demands we rebel against society's obscene norms and normies.
Top psychologists, such as Freud, distinguished neurotic from legitimate suffering. Slightly rephrasing Freud, things become clear when we distinguish neurotic misery from legitimate suffering. The former arises due to our obsessive need for the world’s approval, whereas the latter occurs if and when we heed the voices of the conscience and Shadow, and put an end to our conformity.
This ambivalent relationship with Self - and the existential conflicts it breeds - is one of the main reasons for unhappiness and depression. Our shame at committing to an inauthentic life ensures we remain recreational and occupational. It's the reason we live in a state of decay without being profoundly concerned and critical.
Conversely, our anti-suffering societies have everything to lose once we turn to face the legitimate anxiety and despair arising as a true expression of the essential Self. Evil in all its forms collapses once its origins are uncovered. When we make our authentic suffering our best friend and counselor, we end our self-deception and return to psychosomatic wholeness. Unable to bear the light kindled within, evil releases its deadly grip on our being.
With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair increases: the more consciousness, the more intense the despair – Soren Kierkegaard
As for the phenomenon of negative happiness, we see that it is the favored reality for evaders of Selfhood. It’s the result of repression, dissociation, auto-hypnotism, and one’s obsession with domestic and social approval. It is, in effect, the result of one’s crimes against Self.
The effects of this predicament are seen on the social level. It is one of the primary causes not only of neurotic misery on the one hand, but of political wrangling and histrionics on the other. It’s the cause of the many imbalances and paradoxes plaguing Western culture.
…one sees the triumphant spread of pretentiously eccentric mediocrity, one sees the drunken glorification of unconsciousness; one sees unintelligible splashes of paint, representing nothing, displayed on the walls of famous museums; one seeks unkempt young men, in denims and T-shirts, lecturing on Zen Buddhism in distinguished universities; one sees whims for the sake of whims, absurdity for the sake of absurdity, destruction for the sake of destruction, becoming fashionable – Nathaniel Branden
The end of the human race occurs when it eventually dies of civilization – R. W. Emerson
The Hopi refer to this endemic state of imbalance, falsity and depravity as Koyaanisqatsi. They define it as a condition in which a thing is so irrational, corrupt and unsustainable that it eventually implodes in upon itself without external forces acting upon it.
It's a rather sophisticated account of a decaying civilization, and must be taken seriously. This is because when good people witness or experience injustice, degeneracy, delinquency and crime, etc, they automatically want to actively combat it in some way, usually with the help of others. That’s very commendable say the ancients. But there’s another more fundamental and subtle law at work.
And law it is, in the full sense of the word. It’s the law that declares that within evil lies the seeds of its own destruction.
Take any organization, large or small. If nothing but corrupt, perverse people take command and decide upon its destiny, how long before the thing collapses under its own weight? The seeds of its fall are already in place due to the absence of goodness, truth and wisdom. When all is said and done, evil is absence.
This law of implosion, of self-obliteration, is evidently working in today’s world, bringing down many an degenerate person and state.
It’s working on the personal level, bringing about illness, toxicity and imbalance to unseat falsity, hypocrisy and corruption. It's also working socially to lead some very perfidious types into delirium.
Although we might only witness the effects of this cathartic deconstructive principle on the political level, it’s not working for superficial rectification. Its working for a radical cleansing of the psyche and soma, put off for far too long. It's presence facilitates a process of cultural sublation by which higher octaves of consciousness are manifested, primarily in heroic people dedicated to the exposure of evil in all its forms.
To correctly grasp the meaning of Koyaanisqatsi, we must understand the compensatory nature of consciousness. In other words, by foolishly accepting negative happiness we non-consciously send out a call for a new way of being - saner, truer and deeper.
It means that that those with hearts full of envy and self-loathing will not get their way. On the contrary, they'll simply see their rotten societies come to an end. The ancients spoke of at least four great civilizations of prehistory, each destroyed by cataclysms brought about by humankind's error and hubris.
There have been a thousand holocausts, which have occurred in a thousand ways and will recur, both by fire and by water and by many other means - (Priests of Egypt to Solon, father of Plato)
Even when we read between the lines of Biblical accounts, we see that the so-called "Fall" really alludes to man's disconnection from nature. In many cases the view of ancient shaman was that culture is little more than the grave of humanity. It's what we inherit when we abandon and ignore nature's superordinate laws.
The Hopi refer to this endemic state of imbalance, falsity and depravity as Koyaanisqatsi. They define it as a condition in which a thing is so irrational, corrupt and unsustainable that it eventually implodes in upon itself without external forces acting upon it.
It's a rather sophisticated account of a decaying civilization, and must be taken seriously. This is because when good people witness or experience injustice, degeneracy, delinquency and crime, etc, they automatically want to actively combat it in some way, usually with the help of others. That’s very commendable say the ancients. But there’s another more fundamental and subtle law at work.
And law it is, in the full sense of the word. It’s the law that declares that within evil lies the seeds of its own destruction.
Take any organization, large or small. If nothing but corrupt, perverse people take command and decide upon its destiny, how long before the thing collapses under its own weight? The seeds of its fall are already in place due to the absence of goodness, truth and wisdom. When all is said and done, evil is absence.
This law of implosion, of self-obliteration, is evidently working in today’s world, bringing down many an degenerate person and state.
It’s working on the personal level, bringing about illness, toxicity and imbalance to unseat falsity, hypocrisy and corruption. It's also working socially to lead some very perfidious types into delirium.
Although we might only witness the effects of this cathartic deconstructive principle on the political level, it’s not working for superficial rectification. Its working for a radical cleansing of the psyche and soma, put off for far too long. It's presence facilitates a process of cultural sublation by which higher octaves of consciousness are manifested, primarily in heroic people dedicated to the exposure of evil in all its forms.
To correctly grasp the meaning of Koyaanisqatsi, we must understand the compensatory nature of consciousness. In other words, by foolishly accepting negative happiness we non-consciously send out a call for a new way of being - saner, truer and deeper.
It means that that those with hearts full of envy and self-loathing will not get their way. On the contrary, they'll simply see their rotten societies come to an end. The ancients spoke of at least four great civilizations of prehistory, each destroyed by cataclysms brought about by humankind's error and hubris.
There have been a thousand holocausts, which have occurred in a thousand ways and will recur, both by fire and by water and by many other means - (Priests of Egypt to Solon, father of Plato)
Even when we read between the lines of Biblical accounts, we see that the so-called "Fall" really alludes to man's disconnection from nature. In many cases the view of ancient shaman was that culture is little more than the grave of humanity. It's what we inherit when we abandon and ignore nature's superordinate laws.
Nothing great enters the life of mortals without a curse - Sophocles
We find ourselves today in a world of people who despise independence, wisdom and genius. Their inner constitution has become so unspeakably toxic that there’s no way for empathy and Self-love to flourish. Without valuing the Self, one cannot rationally value anything else. One is condemned to live a lie courtesy of their social mask. This self-deceit breeds yet more non-conscious animosity toward the Self.
In the end the voice of the Self – of legitimate suffering – is unable to penetrate the adamantine facade. At this point existential vertigo of a chronic kind makes itself felt. The resulting disorientation is often so acute that the victim inwardly reels and compulsively clings to whatever supports prevent complete psychic collapse. In this fragile state they become enraged not only at themselves, but also at their politicians and leaders. They become obsessed with absurd radical causes and crusades, leading them to immerse their fragmented identities in the voracious Crowd.
To silence the voice within, members of the Thugocracy violently react against external obscenities and affronts. They get caught in a necrophilous cycle from which they cannot easily escape. Their Will-to-Meaning degenerates into a raw will-to-power which soon degenerates further into a blind will-to-negation. In their frenzied and disorganized condition they're unaware that it is themselves they wish to uproot and incinerate.
Their political histrionics merely cover their hatred of feeling, wisdom, truth, freedom, individuality and happiness. Depressed, anxious and deeply unvirtuous, they sign on for the various pseudo-pleasures offered by the world. Once these become insipid, they become more and more antagonistic, sadistic and outer-directed. Everything about the “other” is found offensive. If external enemies can’t be found, the self-haters within the Thugocracy quickly turn on each other in a frenzy of hostility and blame. Like all psychopaths they are completely unable to self-reflect and accept responsibility for their actions. There is absolutely no self-analysis because there’s a great big world out there full of other people to blame for everything that's wrong.
The pathogenic society creates millions of pathological people chronically dependent on one another’s approval. And to secure this approval there’s no depths to which one will not go. It never occurs to neurotic types that only by examining the causes of their psychic fragility can genuine happiness be secured. No! Psychology be damned, it's politics that wins the day, right?
We find ourselves today in a world of people who despise independence, wisdom and genius. Their inner constitution has become so unspeakably toxic that there’s no way for empathy and Self-love to flourish. Without valuing the Self, one cannot rationally value anything else. One is condemned to live a lie courtesy of their social mask. This self-deceit breeds yet more non-conscious animosity toward the Self.
In the end the voice of the Self – of legitimate suffering – is unable to penetrate the adamantine facade. At this point existential vertigo of a chronic kind makes itself felt. The resulting disorientation is often so acute that the victim inwardly reels and compulsively clings to whatever supports prevent complete psychic collapse. In this fragile state they become enraged not only at themselves, but also at their politicians and leaders. They become obsessed with absurd radical causes and crusades, leading them to immerse their fragmented identities in the voracious Crowd.
To silence the voice within, members of the Thugocracy violently react against external obscenities and affronts. They get caught in a necrophilous cycle from which they cannot easily escape. Their Will-to-Meaning degenerates into a raw will-to-power which soon degenerates further into a blind will-to-negation. In their frenzied and disorganized condition they're unaware that it is themselves they wish to uproot and incinerate.
Their political histrionics merely cover their hatred of feeling, wisdom, truth, freedom, individuality and happiness. Depressed, anxious and deeply unvirtuous, they sign on for the various pseudo-pleasures offered by the world. Once these become insipid, they become more and more antagonistic, sadistic and outer-directed. Everything about the “other” is found offensive. If external enemies can’t be found, the self-haters within the Thugocracy quickly turn on each other in a frenzy of hostility and blame. Like all psychopaths they are completely unable to self-reflect and accept responsibility for their actions. There is absolutely no self-analysis because there’s a great big world out there full of other people to blame for everything that's wrong.
The pathogenic society creates millions of pathological people chronically dependent on one another’s approval. And to secure this approval there’s no depths to which one will not go. It never occurs to neurotic types that only by examining the causes of their psychic fragility can genuine happiness be secured. No! Psychology be damned, it's politics that wins the day, right?
The right perspective...
The notion that mental health is to be equated with social adaptability is worse than false; it is actively dangerous; it encourages the development of mental illness - Nathaniel Branden
We are presently in a state of moral free fall, and there’s nothing much to do about it. What we must do, however, is observe the situation and carefully extrapolate the reasons – the real reasons – for it.
Too many people are satisfied with superficial accounts and explanations for today’s state of decay. I’ve explained why this is, and that it takes an open mind and tremendous will-power to discern what’s really going on. It takes a long process of inner transformation to view the state of world decay from the right perspective.
Fortunately, the reasons for human pathology have already been explained by sages of the past, and all the remedies and cures are before us.
Our difficulty is the pervasiveness of the Emotional Plague disabling decent people from fully grasping and applying solutions.
We have become inured to the artificial world we’ve created in total antipathy to truth, freedom and health. We not only enslave others to our faustian will, in our families and societies, but excel at enslaving our own minds to the will-to-negation. Doing so wins us the approval of the Crowd and the temporary luxury of negative happiness. Even when the cure is free and on the table before us, we find a hundred reasons not to take it.
Of course, in my work I insist that the fundamental disabilities and pathologies of humankind trace back to the inhuman oppression suffered by children before, during and after the Oedipal Stages that begin at 2 years of age and conclude around 7.
For most of this time infants and young children are under the auspices of their mother. If she is in fact a terrible mother (the world’s unhappiest creature), the outlook for the child’s future is bleak. At the very least they are destined to become a terrible parent themselves, thereby perpetuating the necrophilous cycle.
We are presently in a state of moral free fall, and there’s nothing much to do about it. What we must do, however, is observe the situation and carefully extrapolate the reasons – the real reasons – for it.
Too many people are satisfied with superficial accounts and explanations for today’s state of decay. I’ve explained why this is, and that it takes an open mind and tremendous will-power to discern what’s really going on. It takes a long process of inner transformation to view the state of world decay from the right perspective.
Fortunately, the reasons for human pathology have already been explained by sages of the past, and all the remedies and cures are before us.
Our difficulty is the pervasiveness of the Emotional Plague disabling decent people from fully grasping and applying solutions.
We have become inured to the artificial world we’ve created in total antipathy to truth, freedom and health. We not only enslave others to our faustian will, in our families and societies, but excel at enslaving our own minds to the will-to-negation. Doing so wins us the approval of the Crowd and the temporary luxury of negative happiness. Even when the cure is free and on the table before us, we find a hundred reasons not to take it.
Of course, in my work I insist that the fundamental disabilities and pathologies of humankind trace back to the inhuman oppression suffered by children before, during and after the Oedipal Stages that begin at 2 years of age and conclude around 7.
For most of this time infants and young children are under the auspices of their mother. If she is in fact a terrible mother (the world’s unhappiest creature), the outlook for the child’s future is bleak. At the very least they are destined to become a terrible parent themselves, thereby perpetuating the necrophilous cycle.
It follows that if our world is chock full of these unsane types, we are not wrong to worry about the fate of Western civilization.
To avert disaster, we must bravely confront the ultimate source of pathology, making sure its mentality and habits are correctly understood.
Losers of the Dragon Fight emerge with their wills and identities crushed. Girls enter their teens and adulthood in a frightful psychological state. Their emotionality is disturbed and their sexuality compromised. They enter the masculine-solar world chiefly to find the weapons needed to overcome their nemesis, but in many cases have little love and compassion for the world. It's tolerated by recreative "fun-addicted" types, but that's it.
To avert disaster, we must bravely confront the ultimate source of pathology, making sure its mentality and habits are correctly understood.
Losers of the Dragon Fight emerge with their wills and identities crushed. Girls enter their teens and adulthood in a frightful psychological state. Their emotionality is disturbed and their sexuality compromised. They enter the masculine-solar world chiefly to find the weapons needed to overcome their nemesis, but in many cases have little love and compassion for the world. It's tolerated by recreative "fun-addicted" types, but that's it.
Next step motherhood!
The loser of the Dragon Fight is inclined to breed early in life, taking refuge in their biology in order to avoid dealing with their psychology.
These broken types raise a new generation of children doomed to become victims of unpleasure. The rage these children feel toward their parents must be suppressed if they are to function in society. In fact, technically speaking, it is the agent of psychic suppression - the superego - that makes it possible for any kind of Mitwelt (or culture) to arise.
However, as time passes the sado-masochistic young hot-heads cease obeying the social contract. The promises of a diseased society no longer bedazzle or keep the lid on their volcanic emotions.
What we must get clear is that the average unsane teen isn’t striking out against the evils of society or civilization, although that is what most duped people want to believe. The average delinquent and radical strikes out at their sick parents, too infected by self-deception, hypocrisy and denial to acknowledge the truth.
What does this mean for the present incendiary times? It means that until people are psychologically strong enough to face the problems of Adultism and Matrophobia, nothing will change for the better. Even if teens and young adults are compelled to conform to society's norms, their rage remains. Although misdirected, it’s a rational rage and wont go away. Nothing natural can be repressed and denied forever.
We see that Freud’s worries about the fate of civilization were rationally based. However, it’s not that man is by nature bestial that civilizations are doomed to fall into oblivion. It’s because children are treated bestially that the world turns dark.
A terrible mother’s tyrannous behavior toward a son or daughter is born out of her obsessive need to recast herself as a heroic victor. She seeks “happiness” by reliving the Dragon Fight from which she emerged a loser.
Her happiness is, however, necrophilous since she finds it by tyrannically subverting the will and identity of those in her care. One cannot find lasting happiness this way. Nor can they bring happiness to the world.
It’s a vicious cycle affecting many women, causing most of the “disorders” plaguing them. It’s also the cause of most of the troubles experienced in the world. Only a healthy mother who, regardless of past hurt, treats her children with respect is exempt from these problems. Rather than treating her children as crutches and toys, she teaches them the meaning of freedom, independence and Self-esteem. She teaches them that happiness cannot be “found.” Rather, it’s a condition one feels within as they live deeply and ethically. It's made real when one listens sensitively to the empowering voice of their Imperial Self.
…in our society it is not those who suffer that are weak but those who fear suffering – Arno Gruen
These broken types raise a new generation of children doomed to become victims of unpleasure. The rage these children feel toward their parents must be suppressed if they are to function in society. In fact, technically speaking, it is the agent of psychic suppression - the superego - that makes it possible for any kind of Mitwelt (or culture) to arise.
However, as time passes the sado-masochistic young hot-heads cease obeying the social contract. The promises of a diseased society no longer bedazzle or keep the lid on their volcanic emotions.
What we must get clear is that the average unsane teen isn’t striking out against the evils of society or civilization, although that is what most duped people want to believe. The average delinquent and radical strikes out at their sick parents, too infected by self-deception, hypocrisy and denial to acknowledge the truth.
What does this mean for the present incendiary times? It means that until people are psychologically strong enough to face the problems of Adultism and Matrophobia, nothing will change for the better. Even if teens and young adults are compelled to conform to society's norms, their rage remains. Although misdirected, it’s a rational rage and wont go away. Nothing natural can be repressed and denied forever.
We see that Freud’s worries about the fate of civilization were rationally based. However, it’s not that man is by nature bestial that civilizations are doomed to fall into oblivion. It’s because children are treated bestially that the world turns dark.
A terrible mother’s tyrannous behavior toward a son or daughter is born out of her obsessive need to recast herself as a heroic victor. She seeks “happiness” by reliving the Dragon Fight from which she emerged a loser.
Her happiness is, however, necrophilous since she finds it by tyrannically subverting the will and identity of those in her care. One cannot find lasting happiness this way. Nor can they bring happiness to the world.
It’s a vicious cycle affecting many women, causing most of the “disorders” plaguing them. It’s also the cause of most of the troubles experienced in the world. Only a healthy mother who, regardless of past hurt, treats her children with respect is exempt from these problems. Rather than treating her children as crutches and toys, she teaches them the meaning of freedom, independence and Self-esteem. She teaches them that happiness cannot be “found.” Rather, it’s a condition one feels within as they live deeply and ethically. It's made real when one listens sensitively to the empowering voice of their Imperial Self.
…in our society it is not those who suffer that are weak but those who fear suffering – Arno Gruen
A wise Dragon Mother teaches her kids to be wary of any organization or philosophy that exonerates the perpetrators of falsity, criminality and abuse. She teaches them to disregard those in society who offer mitigation for abusers, wanting us to believe a parent’s obscene Adultism is due to previous experiences of trauma and hurt. A goodly Dragon Mother's example demonstrates that this is not the case. If she experienced abuse and sorrow in her past, she informs her offspring that she's all the stronger for it. She rationally explains that rather than collapsing into hopelessness and dependency, she chose the path of masculine heroism.
The hallmark of healthy self-assertiveness in a child is his visible delight in the action of his mind, his desire for the new, the unexplored, the challenging, his refusal to accept on faith the platitudes of his elders – Nathaniel Branden
No! It’s not a parent's previous hurts and losses that make them destroy the will and identity of a child. No! It’s not that they were abused, prostituted, addicted, ignorant or coerced. It’s because they secretly loathe life, freedom, virtue, wisdom, genius and Selfhood.
Tyrants are to be judged by what they do, not how they feel. They are not to be given free reign because they offer unfalsifiable excuses for their sick behavior. In fact, by normalizing this kind of exoneration, time and again, we increase the instances of people citing past “trauma” as an excuse for deviant behavior.
With more and more feminized males and females loose in the world - and more terrible mothers infesting government, politics and key social positions - this type of convenient mitigation becomes all the more pervasive. Soon all deviance and criminality will be normalized, setting the scene for total Adultism. No terrible parent will be condemned for their child-abuse. They need only claim to have been "abused" themselves to have society hand them their “get out of jail free” card.
The hallmark of healthy self-assertiveness in a child is his visible delight in the action of his mind, his desire for the new, the unexplored, the challenging, his refusal to accept on faith the platitudes of his elders – Nathaniel Branden
No! It’s not a parent's previous hurts and losses that make them destroy the will and identity of a child. No! It’s not that they were abused, prostituted, addicted, ignorant or coerced. It’s because they secretly loathe life, freedom, virtue, wisdom, genius and Selfhood.
Tyrants are to be judged by what they do, not how they feel. They are not to be given free reign because they offer unfalsifiable excuses for their sick behavior. In fact, by normalizing this kind of exoneration, time and again, we increase the instances of people citing past “trauma” as an excuse for deviant behavior.
With more and more feminized males and females loose in the world - and more terrible mothers infesting government, politics and key social positions - this type of convenient mitigation becomes all the more pervasive. Soon all deviance and criminality will be normalized, setting the scene for total Adultism. No terrible parent will be condemned for their child-abuse. They need only claim to have been "abused" themselves to have society hand them their “get out of jail free” card.
ALL ANXIETIES TRANQUILIZED?! Sure, but not only by psychiatry and medication. By way of consensus and auto-hypnotism we excel at explaining away the causes of our existential shame. We rarely willingly confront the abusive disciples and perpetrators of Adultism. Consequently, we're choking on our own duplicity, hypocrisy and compliance to the status quo.
What will it mean for the sorry victims of Adultism when they find out there’s no agency anywhere willing to sincerely take their side and dole out justice for their unspeakable suffering? What will it mean for our already debilitated civilization? It means that we are disasters waiting to happen, and that although happy pills may be ingested in their millions by the world’s smiling-depressives, it won’t stop the coming extinction of freedom, independence, genius and virtue.
The reason for the world’s state of decay is primarily the terrible mother who instigates the Dragon Fight, ensuring her wretched children grow up incapable of experiencing genuine happiness.
Her broken children go on to favor negative happiness and a pain-free world in which they need never face their cache of rage against the oppressor who, in the name of "love," deprived them of independence and identity.
Of course, only by facing one’s psychosomatic pain can one make room for genuine appreciation and joy. Both pain and pleasure heighten Self-awareness, although one without the other cancels the other.
That so many people in the West still think happiness is to be found via political action shows how far we have to go and how far off are the true solutions to humankind’s direst and most pervasive problems.
The reason for the world’s state of decay is primarily the terrible mother who instigates the Dragon Fight, ensuring her wretched children grow up incapable of experiencing genuine happiness.
Her broken children go on to favor negative happiness and a pain-free world in which they need never face their cache of rage against the oppressor who, in the name of "love," deprived them of independence and identity.
Of course, only by facing one’s psychosomatic pain can one make room for genuine appreciation and joy. Both pain and pleasure heighten Self-awareness, although one without the other cancels the other.
That so many people in the West still think happiness is to be found via political action shows how far we have to go and how far off are the true solutions to humankind’s direst and most pervasive problems.
Certainly, without broaching the subject of female psychology, one hasn’t a hope of rectifying anything in the world. Every occupant of the human world is born from woman and is a product of womankind. The main cause of one’s beliefs, outlooks, interests, ambitions, activities – and hang-ups - is one’s mother. But what do we really know about “motherhood?” What do we know about the terrible mother and her overwhelmingly destructive influence on the psyche and world at large?
. . .
Michael Tsarion (2020)