Nobody But Yourself

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Dave Pollard
Living on the Edge 2

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being
can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know,
you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day,
to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.

– ee cummings

I confess I have not yet read Dawkins’ book The God Delusion (it sits, unopened, in favour of a collection of short stories by Amy Hempel, on my bedside table), though I think I have read more than a book’s worth of discussion about it. I may well write about it once I’ve read it, but in the meantime all the discussion of the book has caused me to think about something much more important, IMO, than the existence of superhumans: Our growing inability to think for ourselves.

The OED defines religion as “human recognition of superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal god entitled to worship and obedience”. Religions (plural) are in fact shared sets of beliefs about the nature of superhumanity and about which form to worship and obey. The word religion means “to bind” or constrain, to tie down.

In this sense a religion is merely a specific type of culture, culture being a shared pattern of beliefs or activities. We now live in a world with one overwhelmingly dominant Culture, within which a variety of religions and other subcultures exist which quibble among themselves (constantly, and often violently). This Culture and these subcultures can now hardly be escaped ñ there is no place to go to get away from Civilization Culture, its artifacts, its messages ñ to be, as Cummings says, “nobody-but-yourself”.

I find this terrifying. It is what I mean when I describe the modern world as a prison. There is no escaping it. The wardens are always watching you. Your fellow inmates are always correcting you, competing with you, pushing you around, compelling you to be “everybody else”. To stop trying to be nobody-but-yourself. To stop thinking for yourself. To be one with the BorgÖ er, I mean Culture.

I don’t believe in moral judgement, and I don’t view this reality as good or bad. It is just the way things are, and getting more so, as the last vestiges of cultures that differ significantly from Civilization Culture are extinguished, indoctrinated, and absorbed.

Why would this be? Because in the short run it is an evolutionary success. In a world with a natural human population level in balance with all life on Earth, there is room for diverse cultures to have their own space, and for individuals to have enough room and resources to be nobody-but-themselves. By contrast, in our horrifically overcrowded world, survival without constant war demands that we eliminate diversity, to have monoculture. Just as we have replaced permaculture (resilient, natural, self-managing, self-sufficient, abundant, sustainable) with monoculture agriculture (uniform, fragile, high-maintenance, unnatural, catastrophic, but efficient enough to keep many more humans alive, while it lasts), we have largely replaced astonishing indigenous human diversity (resilient, natural, self-managing, self-sufficient, abundant, sustainable) with human monoculture (uniform, fragile, high-maintenance, unnatural, catastrophic, but efficient enough to keep many more humans alive, while it lasts). Monoculture confers short-term evolutionary advantage and so it was probably inevitable. In the long run, it is unsustainable and hence will ultimately and inevitably collapse and be replaced with new diversity. Darwin’s rules.

We have, in addition to all the religions, political subcultures in the form of political parties, either owned by rich and powerful corporatists committed to Civilization Culture, or longing for a taste of power themselves, to perpetrate the variation of Civilization Culture that they believe in. And, in the pursuit of electoral popularity, they will compromise without limit, to the point that all that distinguishes the Tweedledum party from the Tweedledee party is the style and colour of their logos and their rhetoric.

And in addition to the religious and political subcultures we have the economic, social and technological ones. We have those who worship the ‘free market’. We have those who worship size and growth. We have those who pay homage to the latest edicts from the fashion world. Or the latest technology. Or the latest successful business tycoon. Or the latest sports/entertainment idol. We have those who follow their new age gurus and those who are obedient to their Twelve Steps. We have people who seek the promise of eternal life in nano-form, and those who believe technology will bring us salvation. And others who pursue the coming of a global ‘collective consciousness’.

These are all subcultures within the global Civilization Culture. The rich and powerful are delighted to have us endlessly distracted by these subcultures, to believe there are significant differences between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But you can’t jam the culture. Even the majority of the poor and disenfranchised eagerly support the culture, and aspire to ‘succeed’ in it. All the subcultures and the artificial choices and illusory differences between them keep us distracted from realizing that we have become everybody else. They keep us obedient to the larger Civilization Culture, keep us busy, keep us in line. Those in a monoculture must be kept in line. There is no room for anyone who is nobody-but-themselves.

Our Civilization Culture’s subcultures are remarkable not for their differences but for their crushing sameness: Like the ‘choice’ between McDonalds or Burger King, they offer an illusion of freedom to choose. They all tempt you to ‘join’, to sign up for their ‘brand’ of Civilization Culture. To stop thinking for yourself and be everybody else. (Ah, but sir, just look, our brand of everybody else suits you so well!) We have thousands of subcultures, many of them at war with each other (in order to keep the members ‘bound’ together through having a common ‘enemy’). The prosperity of the Tweedledum subculture depends on its unifying enmity for the Tweedledee subculture, and vice versa. The continuation of Civilization Culture depends on us being everybody else, through one subculture or another.

Dawkins takes issue with those who seek a reconciliation between the religious subcultures and the science & technology subcultures. He doesn’t think we should be tolerant of subcultures which preach hate for other subcultures or which question the truths of the science & technology subcultures. Like a preacher or an advertiser or a car salesman, he wants to convert us from one subculture to another. We debate, we fight wars and elections, but its all about which ‘everybody else’ everybody should be.

Let me put it in simpler terms. Religions and other subcultures are all forms of groupthink. Groupthink is easy, it is comforting. It enables more people to live in crowded, unpleasant and unnatural conditions, because we have the group, ‘our’ beliefs to fall back on. They explain away everything. They promise a better future in return for suffering, obedience and worship today. They keep us in line and in thrall.

Groupthink, as Cummings was I think trying to tell us, is essentially a form of self-loathing. For some this takes the form of self-prostration or confession or admitting we’re addicted or other forms of self-abasement. But there are newer forms: Screaming hysterically at the mere sight of a celebrity. Doing what you’re told, 9-5 every day, without question. Living in a squalid, over-crowded, unnatural urban or suburban world among neighbours you don’t know or don’t like, without question or complaint. Longing for, and working to ‘earn’, the latest cult artifact that shows you belong to the brand of your ‘choice’. 

I don’t disrespect religions and other subcultures. I empathize with their members, as I empathize with inmates of jails and hospitals and institutions and personal hells, confined as they are in a hollow figment of a real life, never free just to be themselves. We are all in the same boat.

What is now called ‘low self-esteem’ is absolutely essential to the continuation of Civilization Culture. You must believe that others have the inherent right to tell you what to do and how to think. You must believe that the choice between Tweedledum or Tweedledee is your most important decision. You must know your place in the line and the hierarchy. And you must be kept busy enough doing meaningless work, and scared enough about the scarcity lurking just around the corner if you stop, that you never dare think for yourself.

Our planet’s remaining indigenous cultures are based more substantially on respect for and trust in the individual to know what to do, and the freedom to make one’s own decisions. Their cultures respect all life on Earth, and respect their elders and ancestors, but they do not worship them or necessarily even obey them. They have evolved in a way that is antithetic to groupthink because, unlike us, they have had space to accommodate diversity and are not dependent on the constraints of monoculture agriculture. Where there is room for diversity, it’s an evolutionary advantage, since it makes the culture more resilient.

We have learned enough about our world to know, intellectually, emotionally, instinctively, that there are no superhumans, that No One is In Control, and that Civilization Culture, in its headlong race to self-perpetuate and grow without limit, has launched our planet’s sixth Great Extinction. Still, we take turns reassuring ourselves everything will be alright. We have met the enemy and he is us.

There are readers who have claimed that I am religious and that my ‘god’ is nature or Gaia. But while I am in awe of nature’s ability to evolve self-organization for the collective well-being of all life on Earth over millions of years (you have to admit, unless you’re a creationist, that that’s a remarkable achievement), I do not ‘worship’ nature. Nature is merely a remarkable adaptation, though not without its cruelties. It has its rules, and they have evolved to work. Nature just is. It is not a god, or superhuman, or all-powerful, or divine.

I am and probably always will be in thrall to Civilization Culture. I have been fortunate to have had the time and opportunity to step back and study and learn about our world and our history and different cultures. And I’ve acquired a capacity to imagine possibilities very different from the reality in which we live today. As a result, I am very slowly extracting myself from the hold of this culture, by spending time thinking for myself. I am still far from being nobody-but-myself, but I am getting closer. As I get further from the Centre and closer to the Edge of Civilization Culture, its hold on me is weakening.

What freed me most of all was John Gray’s book Straw Dogs, because that book made me realize that we aren’t going to save the world, it’s just not in our nature, and that you cannot change culture (even counter-cultures are really just subcultures that either self-extinguish or become part of the larger Civilization Culture). Ultimately we cannot be what we are not. So despite the title of this blog (which has once again become ironic), I have no desire to sway people to think like me. I’m merely keeping a public journal of my experiment in learning to think for myself, and of my journey to our Civilization’s Edge.

If my writing provokes you to acknowledge that you’re in thrall to Civilization Culture but are making the arduous, life-long journey in the hope that you might just briefly understand what it means not to be everybody else, well then I wish you fare well (or as Eliot said, fare forward), wherever that journey may take you.

Postscript: Thinking about and writing this article has made me realize why I am so impatient with, and tardy in responding to, comments and e-mails about my articles.  I’ve come to realize that I don’t much care what others think of my writing or my ideas. I write to think out loud, to clarify my own thinking and feeling and sensing and instincts. Whenever I’ve written an article espousing the starting of some movement or collective action (and boy is it tempting to do so!) an alarm bell goes off in my head, saying don’t do that. So I’m going to stop worrying about and apologizing for not replying to e-mails and comments. I read them all, I appreciate them all, but giventhe choice between a dialogue on what I’ve written and writing something new, there is no contest. 
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24 Responses to Nobody But Yourself

  1. Bharat says:
    March 12, 2007 at 22:02

    Hi Dave, I don’t know where to begin. Since you said you don’t care what others think, i won’t bother writing a long comment.You say, “we aren’t going to save the world”, “I don’t much care what others think of my writing or my ideas”. And without proper analysis you say, “Religions and other subcultures are all forms of groupthink”, “Groupthink, as Cummings was I think trying to tell us, is essentially a form of self-loathing”. So, this is the message you want to give in the Blog ? No Thanks from me.

  2. Jessica says:
    March 13, 2007 at 00:06

    This comment is not related to this post in particular. Just curious if you’ve seen The Global Warming Swindle. If so, your thoughts?

  3. MLU says:
    March 13, 2007 at 01:34

    Terry Eagleton’s review of Dawkins is interesting. Eagleton is a lefty, but not as ignorant of religion as most lefties, including Dawkins:

  4. Bharat says:
    March 13, 2007 at 07:24

    OK. I was very angry at the arrogance and self-righteousness of this post this morning.However, this is no time and age for anger. This is the time for listening to each otherand acting.First of all, lets be clear on something: Thought cannot prove or disprove the existanceof God. If someone says they believe in God. It’s just a belief. They can’t prove it.If someone says they don’t believe in God. It’s just a belief. They can’t prove it.God is a personal experience.Iam a Hindu and i live in India. I’ll tell you what Hinduism says. To be precise, whatthe “Advaitic” school of Hinduism says. Advaita means non-duality. It says God is bothTranscendent and Immanent. To put it plainly, God is beyond the material world (Transcendent) andalso at every point of the material world (Immanent). The whole universe is a manifestationof God. There is nothing but God in the Universe. Every human, every particle of sand,every insect, every bird, every star, every galaxy, is God’s manifestation.What is life ? Life is an effort of this manifested energy to realize the God. Thismanifested energy has worked it’s way through the inert-matter, celled organisms,plants, animals, and now in man, this energy evolved the “thought” instrument. Hinduism says this thought is imperfect instrument to realize the reality. So, man,as a rational being cannot realize God through thought alone. Thought is a vibrationof “SELF”. HOw can thought, which is “self”, realize the universal ? One needsto completely silence thought, that is go beyond the idea of “self”, to realize God. There is a beautiful analogy — When all the little waves of the lake (thoughts of mind) are completely stilled, you see the bottom of the lake, which is your inner most essense — which is God. What is Meditation ? It is the process of quieting ofthe mind. Quieting of the thoughts. Intense meditation, which is complete quietingof thought, will lead to realization of God. It’s a state of consciousness calledSamadhi.Now, you may ask why i believe in such a concept. Because it’s the most comprehensiveand satisfying. It’s most compatible with science. Because, as an Indian i know there were so many well meaning Yogis who have given up their entire lives and pursued this thought and realized the truth in their lives. Not through thought. By going beyond throught.Any mode of action, that is against this universalization of life-energy is goingto lead to disaster. This is exactly what is happening today with respect to ecologicaldevastation. It’s because of the emphasis on “self”, material possession for the self. Universaland ecological perspective is completely lost in common man. So, the problem is not”God Delusion” but “Self Delusion”. Even the religious fundamentalists live in this”self delusion”. Because they believe only in transcendent God. God somewhere sittingout there in the universe, waiting to rescue them. That is nonsense. You can seewhy they are against evolution. Because they lack this concept of God in materialuniverse, and life as a process of realization of God.I see a similar problem with some of the environmentalists. I suspect you are in thesame category. Because people who have a wrong notion of God (GOd as an external savior)perpetrate ecological havoc, you reject God all together. But, you don’t realize thatwhat is being practice today is not real religion, not even real christian religion.If you want to know what real christianity is read “Second coming of christ” byParamahansa Yogananda. The author gives a great interpretatino of christ’s sayings.If you want to read an evolutionary perspective of religion, read works of Sri Aurobindo.Not rationalists like Richard Dawkins.Actually, religion is not a “prison” as you said. Being entangled in matter and thinkingmatter alone is the real, is prison. The idea that life is simply a freak occurance, which could disappear at an accidental hit by meteor is so hopeless. If that’s whatinspires you so be it. Isuspect most of mankind needs better vision, and we aregoing to get through this ecological havoc only through better vision, not by promisesof going back to some romantic hunter gatherer socieites.

  5. Janene says:
    March 13, 2007 at 07:54

    Hey Dave –Looks like the masses are angry with you today… so I thought I’d pop in and say ‘I hear you’…I really like the nobody-but-yourself frame. It really does get right to the heart of the matter. We cannot ‘save te world’. But a world full of nobody-but-yourself’s would look far different, neh?Janene

  6. Marty says:
    March 13, 2007 at 11:02

    I often enjoy this website, but today’s post seems bitter. My first reactions echoed those of Bharat. What could I say that could possibly add to anyone’s knowledge or reflection on this topic, especially given your addendum? But perhaps some of the other readers would be interested. I think people should revist Milton Rokeach’s work; he is most famous for a book, the Open and Closed Mind, written in 1960. Rokeach was attempting to grapple with our inhumanity toward one another, especially in response to World War II. We cannot help but be defined by our culture to a certain extent. People have a tendency to gravitate towards certain authorities that they trust, be they religious, scientific, tribal, or academic. Within that framework, some are open to new information, and others are not. It was ever thus.Dave, while I too appreciate the contributions of indigenous cultures, my impression is that you have a romantic view of their ability to think independently, to reach beyond the bonds of their own cultural prisons/prisms.Another framework that helps me think about your entry is the book Spiral Dynamics, by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan (drawing on lots of other thinkers). Our consciousness as humans is continually evolving… and to new positions that include the potential to not only be free of slavery to what other people think, but to similtaneously have a degree of openness to the wisdom of other views. Dave, you are obviously in the midst of an evolutionary process, so I do value your transparency. No apology needed for not responding. I also value the opportunity to put my thoughts in writing!

  7. Mariella says:
    March 13, 2007 at 11:24

    Hi Dave….”I write to think out loud, to clarify my own thinking and feeling and sensing and instincts…..” —– I guess in one way or another we all do this….. At least that is the reason why I write and interchange thought…. “to make sense”… Good for you..this is an important sense to make for a writer……. It must have been a heavy burden to feel obliged to answer…. My feeling is that no one can do more than what his own capacities allow him to…. no one can know less than what he already knows…. all “nobody but themselves” involved in an endless interactive learning process….. all of us trying to make sense of the reality happening in front of our eyes….. and each time we make sense we receive our endorphine reward that gives us the released feeling of having understand something….. the “brainal orgasm” for having conceived an understanding…..Ha ha…! of course I feel myself a part and a nothing of the universe…. interacting with you too even if you do not answer… Nice senses to you all…!

  8. Theresa says:
    March 13, 2007 at 12:18

    I confess I didn’t read the whole post…it was quite long. I did read most of it and skimmed over a few of the paragraphs. I’ll get back to it later. I did however read enough of it to feel that it is on the slippery slope toward the despair and meaninglessness that you used to express in some of your posts last year. I remember I used to follow your blog very closely because of your interesting and different ways of looking at current history but taking it all apart bit by bit, and then putting it back together, and then following to the next idea….I would sometimes feel I had been led to the edge of a cliff, looking into a black void of nothingness. Anyway, so you can see why it didn’t always provide a useful map or point of reference that I could calibrate to my own perspective and place along the trail (if that makes any sense).I could share a few side thoughts on the post: firstly, I was wondering if those circles in the chart couldn’t be expressed as overlapping circles, and secondly, the discussion about the one big mind related to something else that has been on my mind, a website called twitter (sorry no link) where people just throw their thoughts out there into a brew via sms. It made me think, on the one hand its a scary groupthink excericise and on the other hand could be an excellent stimulation for creative ideas. Hope these thoughts help or at least provide a diversion.

  9. Jim says:
    March 13, 2007 at 12:50

    Your comment, “I don’t disrespect religions and other subcultures.” followed by “I empathize with their members… confined as they are in a hollow figment of a real life, never free just to be themselves” is in fact words of disrespect. I am well aware of groupthink and have seen it occur in church and have on occasion lead groups in the church to work to avoid it. Groupthink is by the way what caused that probe to crash on the dark side of Mars, so science in not immune to it either. Since when is providing someone with a job, or a meal, or shelter or a mentor through religious outreach (and in my church we do it without no evangelical obligation on the part of the recipient, but out of our compassion for others after the example of Chirst), or the social and spiritual encouragement one recieves by participating in religious activity… a “hollow figment of a real life”. I think you need to step out of your cloistered office once and awhile and see what real life is all about! Lose your job, become homeless for a change and maybe you will wake up to real life!By citing the OED definition of religion… you succombed to the very same travesity Dawkins made by proposing a definition as if it is the definitive and then refuting it based on the weaknesses of that very definition. For the OED and for you, perhaps religion means “The word religion means “to bind” or constrain, to tie down.” and you will search for every bit of written opinion to support your perspective, but that doesn’t make it so. To believe it is, is just as lame as the gay-bashers who pick and choose scripture to support their claim or those who use the “clearing of the temple” as the foundation to suggest that Jesus was all about violence and aggression, or to make snake handling a religious practice out of some obscure verse. Dare I say, “thou hypocrit, you are just like the ones you supposedly criticize”. But hell Newt was a hypocrit too and we forgive him right?I happen to be an individual, who belongs to a church that acts independently of its denominational ties and utilizes them when it is helpful. My particular denomination is very democratic instead of top-down it is congregational. For you to sit on the outside looking in and to claim that you know what takes place in churches or suggest that based on your outside observation of a particular religion is indicative of every transaction by individual believers or churches is on your part blatantly arrogant and a display of your ignorance.

  10. Jon Husband says:
    March 13, 2007 at 13:58

    Re: thinking for yourself and being a whole person .. check out Erich Fromm’s “Man For Himself – An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics”. Powerful book, clear thinking. I’mn getting more out of this re-read than I ever have before.Re: comments … why have them then, why tempt readers who do want to explore further (with you, mainly, since you were / are the source of the thinking) ? Verging on condescending, maybe ?

  11. Joan says:
    March 13, 2007 at 14:18

    wow, the comments! i didn’t get condescension or doom-and-gloom or lack of respect from this post at all. i thought you sounded like someone who was trying to assert himself, someone trying to be “nobody-but-himself”. if others found offense in that, then perhaps you hit just the right nerve – stop going against the groupthink!!i do find merit in parts of Bharat’s second comment. i try not to confuse God with religion, if at all possible. and please do keep the comments – it is a conversation that doesn’t have to be between you, Dave, and the individual commenter. i find comments much more interesting when the commenters have conversations.

  12. ken says:
    March 13, 2007 at 14:19

    Isn’t this called naked blogging, it reads wonderfully, giving voice to deep feelings, not fearing reaction to a single post, but knowing the value of connecting over time, and over posts, in an unfolding view of a wider landscape. It makes me feel that the good books we value as gospel have meaning beyond the literal words, perhaps it is the literal culture that may be lacking, the worship of the left-brain objective analysis over the appreciative beauty of right-brain forms. Those who seek the quick-fix are seeking something, animated and motivated by a spirit fueled by feelings of not-knowing. Also drawn, instinctively, to gather together, in the family, herd, tribe (or contrarian fringe groups), to make sense of the mysterious things that go bump in the night. We record our collective intelligence as stories, long before we the written word, to keep each other safe, caring for, the wisdom and shared meaning above the data, and individual knowledge. And years later we look back at our childhood stories with fond affection, wondering how we could have ever believed them, literally, but pleased that others on their own journey find value in them. Just my rambling thoughts, not really caring how I’m judged either ;)

  13. DaveWalen says:
    March 13, 2007 at 15:14

    I think the world is getting closer to the inevitable (it doesn’t take a prophet to say that the world is a sphere and the things on it will increase if given enough impetus, and if a system grows in size, it eventually comglomerates into a homogeneous creature (with unique power to destroy itself, or reinvent itself (nanotech-biotech-socialtech etc))). Thus a Hive. And why not? Do you really believe the ant thinks itself unfortunate? Perhaps, and this is one possibility for evolution, in that we evolve our environment, and we extend parts of ourselves into it, to evolve it. The environment revolves and evolves around us and within us. It has its own extensions in us, with Bacteria, DNA, sun response, food intake, air addiction. Each organ in us is a unique piece in a network. And we are all cells in a body. Some a cell in a city, some a family, some a corporation (corpus collesium), so who can not say that we are already in a network, no more independent than the bee in a hive?So, what if the world becomes one nation? The real problem with money is this root questions anwer: we all pay a tax for a corporation that is so far out of scale for our needs that we seeth from anger and will never cease fighting! Isn’t this war’s root? One nation says my fence needs to be higher because ‘they’ are going to attack me and take my land (which probably belonged to some other creature befoe)! I say let us eliminate these nations, and decide to unify where it matters. I say, let us buy cable internet from any corporation we wish, and if they supply us ineffectively then we drop them. Communication is important, who communicates, what they communicate, and how they communicate it should be important. We should struggle to evolve past this 4-8,000 year old monarchic/patriachic singularistic creature we call simple city. We should be designing cities that look like termite nest. A termite nest is perfect, (except for the footprint of no-trees, or to the wood house that falls) it knows how to live.This is our only hope.

  14. Jon Husband says:
    March 13, 2007 at 17:56

    i didn’t get condescension or doom-and-gloom or lack of respect from this post at allI know FOR A FACT that Dave is as far from condescending as you can get in a human being, pretty much … but I was just responding to his public wondering about delays in or lack of response .. was just wondering about the purpose of comments if none or rare response is forthcoming from the author of that which generates the comments.

  15. David Parkinson says:
    March 13, 2007 at 18:52

    I hate you for challenging my belief system!! Yes, groupthink is a terrible thing; we can all agree on that. And anyone who doesn’t should be soundly abused by all of us independent thinkers.I wonder how many of these pointed responses are coming from people who might be relatively new to your blog, and mistake your tentative thinking-out-loud style with some kind of ex cathedra Pronouncement Of Truth. Maybe that’s what gets people’s goats so much.I like a conversation whose boundaries are loose enough to allow for the occasional stumble or half-formed thought or blunder into received wisdom or shibboleth. I have noticed that these things make many people feel very anxious. I always find it amusing when legitimate differences of opinion lead to these sharp exchanges. Although in the real world, they often lead to worse…

  16. Dave Pollard says:
    March 13, 2007 at 19:19

    OK, I asked for it. I’ve read all the comments (I always do, really!), and there’s a lot of wisdom in them. And I was totally full of shit when I said I didn’t care what others think of my writing. But I care more about writing my next article than debating my last one. That’s all, except to say sorry if I offended, and thank you to readers and commenters.

  17. Quinterra says:
    March 13, 2007 at 21:02

    Okay, I have to add my opinion, though, I know most (if not all) of you will not read it. Most of you have it totally wrong. This post was NOT meant to be condescending, disrespectful, or arrogant: It simply conflicted with some of your own personal views. It’s actually quite inspiring when you look at it from a different point of view. Obviously, you’ve turned yourselves into “Tweedledum” and Dave into “Tweedledee”, reflecting the very enmity he described.All of you need to lose yourselves and get rid of any and all prejudices, religions, whatever, before trying to comprehend ANYTHING (not just pertaining to this blog).You can’t fill a cup that’s already full.Dave, you’ve obviously touched a lot of people. Not necessarily the right way, but it’s been quite controversial, and that IS an achievement.Fare Forward

  18. Bharat says:
    March 13, 2007 at 21:30

    I was thinking about nobody-but-myself phrase that Dave used, and suddenly realized that this could lead to intense meditation by itself. nobody-but-myself in the sense of complete emptying of all the conditioning in the mind. Complete emptying of all ideas and being in the present moment, and coming face-to-face with reality. I’ll leave with a fairly long quote of J.Krishnamurti, but it refers to this process:=================”Now, I say it is definitely possible for the mind to be free from all conditioning

  19. Jon Husband says:
    March 13, 2007 at 21:33

    Well, i read it Quinterra. I was the person that used the word “condescending”, as in vaguely, maybe .. and only with respect to Dave’s public comment about his relationship to comments and emails. Since I send him some emails reasonably regularly, I have come to terms long ago with his rhythm of responding.I found his blog post thoughtful, though-provoking and I share many of his thoughts and feelings (in my own ways using mmy own thoughts and conclusions, I might add ;-) In my experience, Dave Pollard is a deep, complex, tender and delicious human being (and I say so even if he thinks he can be cranky sometimes).

  20. Quinterra says:
    March 14, 2007 at 20:39

    As have I, Jon. It just strikes me sometimes how seriously people take themselves. Including me.

  21. Siona says:
    March 15, 2007 at 07:14

    Dave? No need to respond. I just wanted to express my own feelings about this post.You wrote; “. . . I describe the modern world as a prison. There is no escaping it. The wardens are always watching you. Your fellow inmates are always correcting you, competing with you, pushing you around, compelling you to be “everybody else”. To stop trying to be nobody-but-yourself. To stop thinking for yourself. “And the essay ends with a postscript that reads” given the choice between a dialogue on what I’ve written and writing something new, there is no contest.”This breaks my heart. I want so badly to understand what your view, and your feelings, and what you might need that would help, but I’m only human and I can only do so through dialogue; I can only do so if we weave meaning between us. I can listen, yes, but I’d prefer to participate. I want to feel heard, too, if only to know whether or not my presence or care makes a difference.And it breaks my heart because this, it seems, contributes to that feeling of entrapment. I wholly embrace your views on the environment; I love your blog and resonate deeply with your Edge, with the gasping near-death rattle of our current ecosystem, with the fevering of the Earth’s temperatures. But I don’t feel trapped or imprisoned; I feel surrounded by, and loved by, a networked community of individuals who care, deeply, about the planet, and our collective future, and who I can depend on to hold me and hear my despair and my hope. Yes, the world is in crisis, but it has always been in crisis and always will be, just as it has always been in perfect balance and always will be — even when we (individually, as a generation, as a species, and eventually, I imagine, as a biosphere) are long dead. The universe wends on. For me, it is not society or civilization that’s a trap — our very consciousness, both metaphysically and biologically — seems to depend on social systems, but our own chattering mind and the constellations that belief that comprise it. This is only my view, though, and elaboration here is probably unhelpful.I don’t know. It just makes me sad to feel so willfully cut off from you.

  22. Jon Husband says:
    March 15, 2007 at 16:08

    It just strikes me sometimes how seriously people take themselves. Including me.Good point, worrth working at remembering upon waking every morning.

  23. john says:
    March 18, 2007 at 01:33

    we all need to take a step back and see how we once were…. there should be a side effect on every label… like medicine. they put pecticideds in everything why not a label for all the stuff they spray on our food or feed the animals… you dont think what they put in the or plant… goes into us too…..

  24. Roger Tessier says:
    March 23, 2007 at 19:05

    “I find this terrifying.”Me too.

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