The Age of Untruthfulness

Right up front, I should state, as a disclaimer, that my area of “expertise” is not Hindu scriptures (I wish it were). The other day, browsing through the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, which some misguided souls call the “Hindu Bible” – it seems to me a way to relegate this masterpiece to something less than second best – I was struck by the poignant description of our current epoch of evolution/history in a document that is dated from around 500 AD, or later, although I believe its sources are likely much, much older... probably primordial. Nevertheless, in our confounding times, it does help to give me a little perspective.

Predictions of our current, decadent epoch are not new, but since our cultural decay is so pervasive, these seldom come to the fore. And, you have to admit that when the predictions are spot-on, and they come from a much older source, it does tend to have its impact. 

Subconsciously, and some of us consciously, have come to know that as the “human race” we’re not covering ourselves in glory. And the dissonance and imbalance of our modern existence – our small, vulgar, decadent existence – seems to echo everywhere, rousing our existential fears for the future. We live in a very dark and small age. You know the one I mean, the one mired in nothing but falsehood, and pettiness, the hallmark of the age of Kali Yuga – the Age of Darkness.

According to some, who are far better acquainted with the facts than I, we are either in the aftermath, what could be called the “afterglow,” riding the expansion wave of the final gasp of Kali Yuga (ended in 1899), or in the throes of it for some time to come. The more traditional claim that each Yuga is approximately 12,000 years long. Others, fewer in number, lengthen that timeframe considerably, and they may not be wrong. For they claim that each Yuga extends not over 12,000 solar years, but rather “divine” years. A fair distinction, given that the sacred texts define “divine” yeas as 360 human, solar, or Earth years. The idea is that the gods lived a year of their blessed lives, that is worth 360 of our mortal years.

To be honest, the bummer with the “divine” calculation is that it would meant Kali Yuga extends over a period of 4,230,000 “human” years. It’s a bit of a drag, to say the least. I really don’t have the time to wait...

Another approach is that the Yugas are only 1,200 divine years and therefore 432,000 human years long... Phew! I’m pooped. It all depends on where that nasty decimal point ends up. In either case, with those kinds of time spans, it’d be irrelevant to our short-lived incarnation, which leads me to speculate that perhaps things today happen a little faster than they did in the past (if our world is smaller, and dumber than it was, maybe it’s also blessedly a little shorter... one can always hope!).

Be that as it may, the popularly accepted date for the beginning of the Kali Yuga is 3102 BC, and if each Yuga is as long as popularly or traditionally claimed, we have a long slog ahead of us in this Dark Age. But let’s not get bogged down in the confusion of divine years for human years, since I also tend to confuse them for human ears... (is anyone listening?) How long Kali Yuga lasts is almost irrelevant, since most of us won’t be around to see it end, and that’s not what’s important about this Age of Darkness, Untruthfulness, and Human Weakness.

Perspective is the Thing...

Let us consider the Hindu perspective (again, I’m not an expert, just a dilettante), without concentrating on the “time span” issue, although that can’t be fully removed from the equation. Hinduism does take into account that each great Yuga cycle grows shorter in its duration, as I have said above. Hinduism itself, its philosophy and tradition is part of the Indian civilization originating in the Subcontinent, and is the oldest of which we are aware (in any case the oldest civilization since the Flood, or the Atlantean catastrophe). Perhaps the Hindu tradition can shine some light on our quandary.

There are four great Yugas (periods of time) often referred to as the “Golden Age,” or Satya Yuga, a time of Truth and Perfection, wherein we humans were gods of gigantic proportion that lived an inordinate amount of time (approx. 100,000 years) doing good deeds. The “Silver Age,” or Tetra Yuga, is the second great age, wherein we humans were less godlike, our lives span 10,000 years, or less, and wherein the material arts began that eventually resulted in Agriculture, etc. The third great Yuga is the “Bronze Age” (although not correlative with our own “historical” or “archeological” Bronze Age), known as Dvapara Yuga, wherein lies emerge, disease and illness becomes more common and we humans live only a few brief centuries. The present is the fourth epoch, or Kali Yuga, the “Dark Age,” wherein all the values of the “Golden Age,” have been effectively reversed and we are no longer gods, and our lifespans are risibly brief (so as to make less mischief, I assume).

These Four Ages of Humanity – a vast expanse of time that is virtually impossible to assimilate – have a declining and an ascending aspect. In other words, we’re in the declining phase (the slope downward), but when we hit bottom, we’ll get a “bump up.” So, nothing to worry about... don’t want people leaping out of windows in tall buildings. The exact timing of these Yugas and events, as I’ve mentioned, is still a bit unwieldy, and though many await the return of Krishna, or his likeness, we in the West can be thankful that the trough has already been reached with the advent of the Christ (another incarnation of Krishna, or the godhead).

Yet, Kali Yuga is the theme today, and I don’t want to stray too far afield... What are the hallmarks of this “Dark Age”? Hey folks, our current epoch doesn’t even rate a metal, it’s that bad! Actually, Kali Yuga is the "Iron Age," or so I am told.

And so it happened, that when I was reading about the war between the Devas and the Asuras (the sun-demons), the Mahabharata War (think of “Lord of the Rings” and the war for Middle-earth) and how Krishna reincarnates as Truth (Hari) that I then came across one of the predictions of the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa regarding Kali Yuga. Paraphrasing the first “prediction” (I rather call it “description”):

“Religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the age of Kali.”

Wow! Welcome to Reality 101... It hits on all cylinders. Today, Religion is non-existent, Truthfulness likewise is a no-show, and the other descriptions, including cleanliness are rather curiously accurate. We need not get into the natural environment, since that seems to be the preferred latrine for our Corporate masters, and the rest of the lying herd of hypocrites. Yet, the most remarkable “prediction,” from what I see, is that of physical weakness, loss of memory, and the reduced life-span, which by the end of Kali Yuga, will barely reach a decade or two, making for old age and death at 20. Something to look forward to, wouldn’t you say? (Meanwhile, back at the Plantation, everyone dreams of living to be 120... those pesky decimal points again!)

I suppose that it has to do with the inherent “dwarfishness” of modernity... no insult to Dwarfs or Gnomes is intended (although their “greediness” does make them part of the story, of course). I suspect that the “alienation” and the “dehumanization” of our modern age has to do with how flimsy and unreal “modernity” and its materialistic focus is... It’s a reflection of how ugly, fake, and shallow it all is (the Maya of it, anyway). Our age has become purely intellectual and abstract, and yet, paradoxically, completely devoid of all thought, or anything “alive” that will inform it.

But since our decay as a Civilization, as a society, as physical human beings speeds ahead, it’s germane to ask what we can do about it. Well, we can always fight fire with fire... We might consider acting “morally” for a change... What does that mean? Well, that’s up to each individual to discover, but let’s say we have to step back from the cliff edge our Egoism has brought us to, and begin the long road of sacrifice (Dharma) that begins by acting on behalf of others, rather than for our own immediate gratification... In other words, if it “feels good,” don’t do it!

Kali Yuga Ended Moral Action, And Moral Action Produces Longevity

Isn’t it funny how our vacuous culture and society still clings to the “ideal” of longevity as some kind of affirmation of a dim “virtue.” Despite the horrible world we are leaving behind for our children and grandchildren, the herd-animals of today want to live “forever,” perhaps harking back to the “Golden Age” of Satya Yuga... But today, in an age where Morality is non-existent, as opposed to the Satya Yuga, wherein everything was Moral Will, and 100% virtue existed, we have descended in a long, drawn out arc of tribulations. After the Satya Yuga ended and the “Silver Age” of the Tetra Yuga began, the decline in Morality was evident, at 3 parts virtue and one part sin. By the time of the Dvapara Yuga, the “Bronze Age,” it was half-and-half between virtue and sin, until we reach today’s 100% certified sin – our current state of affairs (any wonder why so many can’t wait for the Apocalypse?).

That the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa mentions that the length of human life will be short, that physical strength will diminish, and that memory will also, are extremely significant. I’ve already commented on these obvious trends in last year’s blogs. Our modern epoch is already notorious for its short life-expectancy (war, famine, illnesses, malnutrition, poverty, sedate lifestyles, etc.), especially in comparison to the much longer lifespans that human being experienced during the earlier phases of Kali Yuga (let’s say 4,000 years ago). I’ve pointed out that the Black People lived a healthy, youthful life into their 60s and 70s in an “adolescent” physical body. Today, we age from our late teens, and by the time we’re 60 or 70 we look exactly like we deserve to look... to paraphrase Orwell...

As we know, the Ancient Egyptians did not begin to age noticeably until they reached the “venerable” age of 72 (although this may be a symbolic number also, tied to the Precession of the Equinoxes, or the Great “Platonic” Year). They started “looking old” around 120 years of age! In other words, a modern, active man or woman, in excellent health, would at 60 years of age, look very much like an Ancient Egyptian did at 120 years of age. Or putting it another way, at the age of 60 a member of the Black People looked like they were under 20.

And, while I hate to put this in such stark, materialistic terms, as if “external” beauty was something overridingly important (as external appearance is regarded today in our society), it was, nonetheless, in ancient times, an affirmation.

What was physical strength and beauty an affirmation of? Of moral virtue – of Truth, Beauty, and the Good as expressed in actions, in human deeds. Beauty being the manifestation in the physical body of virtuous living (I know, this concept, or “value,” is no longer extant in our times). But don’t jump to conclusions. For the Black People it wasn’t necessarily moral virtue as lived in their lifetime, but rather in a past life, which gave them health and youthfulness. Naturally, the Ancient Egyptian, was smart enough to know that if she wanted to keep a healthy, long-lasting physical body, she’d have to “pass it forward,” by maintain that moral behavior throughout her current life – otherwise, she would become an ill or diseased man, with a short lifespan, in the next life...

What does it mean that the Ancient Egyptians didn’t age or lose their memory at the same rate that we do today? It means that they were closer to “perfection,” which of course, is antithetical and anathema to the current crowd of “exceptionalist” herd-animals cavorting about today. You know the ones I mean, those who lack any semblance of critical thinking, the folks whose entire life-horizon has been shrunk down to zero, to the 4” size of the screen on their Smartphones. These folks want their thumbs to live forever... and, they believe they “merit” that longevity!

Is this the purpose for which Evolution wrought opposing thumbs??

The Real Reason We Have Opposing Thumbs...

Folks who habitually use these devices will have a nasty surprise awaiting them when they reach 40... Think three-packs-a-day cigarette smoking as a means to gain ever-lasting life... (cigarettes are far less pernicious to your health than a Smartphone is, as we’ll discover when young user grow-up to die young).

Those who meander about oblivious to all that surrounds them in the “greater” world, and whose religious dogma is that a Smartphone is a technological “innovation,” because the ad copy says so, are in the greatest peril. The ad-copy or TV spot that has induced them to become joined at the thumbs with the device, will not warn them of the price being paid. And indeed, it’s a high price to pay for lack of self-esteem... But folks want to keep thumbing their way into forgetfulness, sleep, and an early death at all costs, don’t they?

The self-importance the devices impart to the inconsequential rubes of our present time is phenomenal (and it’s not just endorphins that are released by handling the little critters). Everyone is a celebrity while they have a Smartphone. There's something far more insidious afoot, however, very much a Kali Yuga effect... something that kills the soul. Kali being “The Black Night of Time”... if you have an imagination, no translation is required.

Please don’t misunderstand me, it’s not the fault of the user of the device (although a bit of self-control and responsibility might be applied), which has billions of addicts in the state they are in (in a deep, ill sleep, ala “Sleeping Beauty”), it is mostly, OUR fault. It's the elder’s fault, our negligence and weakness (the inability to say "No!" to the demons of Kali Yuga who want us permanently enslaved).

I remember clearly being an adolescent and wanting that same device on my palm because Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock had it, and it was way cool... It was because WE designed those devices, presumably as “tools” to “make life easier,” that we now have our children irredeemably hooked on them, and our children’s children have them too... and that’s all we are bequeathing them... no other “values,” but to shut yourself off from Reality, and go sit in a corner and stroke yourself (warning: it might cause blindness).

Be careful what you wish for when you’re a teenager, because it’s what you’ll get at the end of your life. Something our mothers and fathers forgot to tell us...

So we are both surrounded by and in the hands of “anesthetized fools” who feel themselves self-important as their life shortens and their memory wanes... It is precisely these delusional herd-animals, the least human of the lot, who consider themselves the very apex of human development. They’re not only in the White House, they’re in 10 Downing St., and in every den of vipers imaginable, running the world into the ground with their thumbs. Literally, “Destroyers of Worlds,” Tweeting air strikes on children, and making war more and more antiseptic... (and then, the hypocrites "cry" about "terrorists" setting off bombs). The hutzpah! There goes our our vaunted “cleanliness” folks! There’s an irony in there somewhere too... trying to get out.

It matters little to me that I may sound like a troglodyte, or some kind of “technology” gainsayer, someone “living in the past”. The funny thing is, that’s where all the “technology buffs” live – in the past – in their childhood years. One day, you have to give up the toys and grow up (I know, that’s asking for too much!). In any case, you can’t take the toys with you... and, you can’t keep living like an adolescent even if you only make it to 20...

Kali Yuga is the epoch when egoism reaches its peak. Are we there yet? How is it expressed in the dying culture, in the obsolete society? It’s in the mania, the zeal, for these devices, as if it were a blossoming sexual drive (in fact, the only “good” thing you can say about Smartphones is that it lowers the sex drive and people fornicate much less than they would otherwise. Think of it as "unplanned parenthood." Tough for people to have time for sex when that "thing" can go off at any moment... (Well, how much time do they need? Does it last more than 30 seconds?).

Is it the color of the chassis of the Smartphone? The electromagnetic field it generates? What is it that brings out this deceptive “self-love” and “exceptionalism”?

It can’t be the praise heaped upon us for using it by our fellow pedestrians and drivers... No one gives you a Nobel Prize for having one. And yet, this anomalous feeling of “self-worth,” seems to extend to unrealistic levels. It used to be that race, country, culture, language, even hair and eye color, and where you sipped your cappuccino, was what defined your place in society... What now defines you, even as a social being, if every 2-year-old has one?

Folks who believe that human beings have never lived better than they do today, do so based on what they see on that 4” screen. They believe themselves smarter, richer, and healthier than any social group or civilization that preceded them, by simply fondling that device (masturbation is certainly cheaper).

Memory Loss Is Never Having To Say “I Forgot!”

In the meantime, memory loss continues day by day... Does anyone remember what they had for lunch yesterday?

If Kali Yuga started in 3102 BC, as some claim, that was approximately 200 years into our Bronze Age (as reckoned by archeologists), at least in Persia and the Middle East. At that time, people had a memory that was probably 1,000 years long – they could remember everything that took place in the preceeding 1,000 years – which explains why "histories" were not necessary and why they weren't written down. Oral traditions and a robust memory obviated that need, and kept everyone on the same page, so to speak. Things had to be written down when memory declined to the next level of degeneration, let's assume, 100 years... I've spoken about this phenomenon before and you're welcome to search back in the archives for how memory has diminished over time. 

From one thousand years of memory at the beginning of Kali Yuga (even memory of our past lives) to less than 24 hours of memory... that's been the stretch. What causes the loss of memory we now enjoy? Memory is tied to the physical body. An inert body has no memory. Think of a rock... Inactivity is the cause of memory loss (in otherwise healthy individuals). 

We’ve gone through the Yugas, and just as the Hindus of far antiquity lived “forever” (100,000 years during the Satya Yuga), we today live a paltry amount of time – that’s a gnat’s life for you – in comparison. If we’re living in the “apex” of Civilization, then we don’t have much time to enjoy it... Seems like a cruel twist of fate, doesn’t it?

Since we “live” less through our Smartphones, we experience less, and we therefore gain fewer real memories thereby (it’s the body that remembers, not the brain). The wonder of these devices is that they’re the perfect “brain washing” mechanism – no soap or water needed. And, although I hate to use the “cigarette” metaphor, the Smartphone is the perfect “delivery platform” for widespread amnesia, in the same way that cigarettes were the perfect delivery system for lung cancer (personally, I don’t believe that any longer, but there’s nonetheless, quite enough scientific evidence to that effect).

In the previous Kali (let’s say from the Dvapara Yuga period and farther back in time) people held their memories longer because they had lived through them in their bodies – by the actions their bodies carried out as a result of an “act” of will, which requires waking up first! At that time, people retained the memory of their past lives, so you can see how much more functional memory was.

Physical strength and physical action is a memory builder. We used to have Physical Education in schools, and that helped many kids memorize the multiplication tables (yeah, I know, I’m a dinosaur). Today, no kid can memorize them without a beating, and those are no longer permitted in school... therefore, no one can multiply without their – you got it! – without their Smartphones (I knew they called them “smart” for a reason).

Memory, if it can be said to reside anywhere, it is not in the brain, or head, as modern scientists believe (yep, science is just a bunch of risible beliefs and opinions), but rather over the entire extent of the ka, what the Black People called their “shadow,” or life-force double, which accompanies the physical body until death. It is in our double that we memorize and remember, and that double is not active if the physical body is not (a sedentary life is a forgottetable life).

Therefore, memory, although a spiritual phenomenon mostly, is intimately related to the physical body. The sounder, the stronger your physical body, the better your memory is (and, this includes suffers of Alzheimer’s, and why it’s recommended that sufferers continue to exercise and be active physically).

I Want Your Money, Honey!

That money rules the world, or that it is the “root of all evil,” seem almost quaint axioms today. In our financialized economy, money not only rules, but if you think about it, and think it through, people no longer do anything that’s not for money. While random acts of kindness occur every day, and there are everywhere people who do good, we have to learn not to fall prey to optimism as a result. To generalize, to formulate rules by the exceptions to the case, is often just the result of shoddy thinking.

The authors of the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa wrote about Kali Yuga at time in History when money was not used, nor was it a measure of wealth. There was no coinage in general circulation as there is today, and people traded goods rather than bought and sold with tokens, as we do. And money, as an abstract concept, as it is thought of today, was non-existent. This is why I was especially smitten by another of Kali Yuga’s attributes in vogue in our modern day.

“In Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man’s good birth, proper behavior and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one’s power.”

Sounds like the Beltway, doesn’t it?

I realize that the “marketing” hype – the underlying lies of Kali Yuga – are that modern technology and medicine will cure cancer and all other maladies, thus extending life to over 125 years, or more. But there are not only limits to hype, and lies in general, there are also biological limits which our modern science has no clue about.

So don’t expect to have your old carcass remodeled, or “upgraded” with other people’s organs or synthetic materials – even if you’re among the 0.001% of the superrich elite. That’s not going to happen, any more than the other lies we were told, are going to happen (like we’d get Social Security when we’d get old, or that we’d get paid without having to work, or get a job, etc.). 

Immortality is a moving goalpost, and just like the other sick dreams of the parasitic “elites,” their money and private spaceships won’t get them to the Moon or Mars either. And, isn’t that one of our most modern conceits, that with our decadent, meaningless, do-nothing lives, that we should live “forever”? Rather a selfish and shallow expectation...

This longevity “foundational myth” of modern civilization is the most pathetic of the lies current in Western culture (and today, with Globalization, it’d be safe to say de jour everywhere around the planet). In reality, on Earth, human beings have never lived such short lives in all of human existence. If already taken up this matter in past blog entries, and the reader is welcome to go back into that to get clear on the reasoning behind my affirmation. The fact that modern materialists point to life-expectancy figures (to statistics, no less) doesn’t help their case for the truthfulness of their contention that we live longer than anyone before in History. 

So how deep does untruthfulness run in our modern culture? Well, if you ask me, calling how we live today “civilized” is already a lie, and at best a bad definition... I suppose it runs all the way down to the abyss... and if you stare into that abyss, it does stare back at you! Since we’re pretty far down the “entropy” scale and the decadence rat hole as it is, if you simply look at your surroundings, with less subjectivity than normal (i.e., without being under the spell of the current mass media, for example), it pretty soon become undeniable. If we haven’t hit bottom yet, we’re darn close to it.

If there’s anything reassuring about the writings of the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, or Hindu Philosophy in general, is that once Kali Yuga is over, we’re heading back up the ladder of Evolution (spiritual, at least) toward the next Golden Age (or Age of Gold).

The Day Thinking Stopped...

Like all things that you know intuitively, and not necessarily intellectually, it strikes a chord when you hear it chime in from a tangential direction – or, at least, that’s my vain hope. Sometimes, when things are put in a way it was never framed before, suddenly, a ray of light is cast on it that you never glimpsed before. And, we’ll be talking about “frames” and context here, because I’ll be discussing something that is sorely lacking in human activity today, namely, THINKING.  

Most folks believe they think. They believe that because they have opinions, a perspective they’ve adopted, that because they believe certain precepts, or because certain ideas appear to them as clear and “right,” that they must therefore think. They believe they have these ideas that they’ve captured or comprehended due to their own efforts, their own capacity to think (as an act of the will). But this is a gross delusion.

Thinking is much more complex a process, more difficult an effort than most people imagine. If thinking were simply akin to formulating some complex mathematical formula, then by that long process of formulation, we’d only arrive at the cusp of thinking. Abstractions, such as mathematical formulas, are still a fairly low-wattage, low-level form of thought.

I always believed that mathematics (esp. advanced mathematics) was what required the most thinking – it certainly required the most effort on my part, when I was in school. But now I understand that that effort, which was an obstacle to my understanding of mathematics, and getting passing grades in the subject matter, was not one related to my ability to think, but rather to my ability to concentrate, to memorize, to visualize abstract formulations. And, that is why I say, that mathematical gyrations are really only the beginning of thinking – not the ultimate in thinking, as is supposed.

What is thinking anyway? Although it may be difficult to grasp, when it requires physical effort, then it’s not thinking! Endurance, perseverance, they’re not thinking... Thinking is not “intelligence” per se either. In a way, it’s the other way around, you are intelligent if you think, but you can be “intelligent,” and even extremely clever, without resort to true thinking. You can do clever things by rote... like a computer, or a robot, and yet these machines do not think. Likewise, a chimpanzee’s actions we can interpret as clever, when they are, as far as the chimp is concerned, not only not clever, but rather instinctive. As a species, as far as true thinking is concerned, we’re closer to the chimps...

I can certainly vouch that mathematics was very difficult for me, and I believed that the more I thought the better I’d become at it (didn’t work out that way). Like any art, mathematics requires certain skills that are independent of thought itself. One needs to know how to count, for instance, to compare, etc. These skills can be acquired, of course, with sufficient patience and endeavor, but these “skills” have nothing to do with thought, or the quality of thinking that one does. And, this is only the beginning of the problem at hand. So, we can see that thinking is not even what we generally use the term “thinking” for. This gives us an idea of how far we are from pure thought, to thoughts unattached to anything concrete and “manifest.” Thinking in mathematical terms is very hard, but it’s also very abstract, and that’s barely the beginning of the process.

How many of us can fill a blackboard with complex mathematical formulas every morning, before breakfast? Very few of us do this, and today, I would venture to guess that none do – not even the professional mathematicians. They have computers for the purpose. And, how difficult is it to fill a blackboard a day with analytical mathematics? It would depend on how original and unique the problem being solved is, or how original the formulas are... Naturally, mathematicians use their noggins a lot, yet not quite at the heights that we need to reach to be truly thinking.

Why folks don’t think depends on two overarching factors. One of the reasons has to do with the human being, as an individual, a microcosm within the macrocosm. The other has to do with the milieu, the environment in which we live, or speaking loosely, with the macrocosm. As individuals we curtail our own thinking by being lazy and taking all our ideas from the immediate environment (i.e., by capturing what we’ve heard, seen, or read). These are not actual, living thoughts, however, only trite, repetitive ideas that have been around for ages and we have simply accepted as “true,” correct, etc. By hewing closely to ideas and thoughts that are dependent strictly on sense-based perceptions or ideas, we’re not yet at the lowest level of thinking.

As a result, the combination of inertia and laziness makes the “hard work” involved in coming up with an original thought nearly impossible. Likewise, the general environment that bombards us with repetitive, worn-out, dead ideas, suppress our ability to think (especially independently, freely, analytically or critically).

The “environmental” aspect is much stronger than most of us would give credit to. The social, cultural, and “external” perceptions and perspectives we have come to accept as members of a group, class, or even a race, immediately delimits the thinking we’re willing to do. If you doubt this, consider if you can think as someone who is your “opposite” – opposite to your social class, race, economic situation, political inclination, even your sex. Unless you’re a novelist, you probably would find that exercise more than difficult, even uncomfortable, or unpleasant, and would soon give up on it. Funny, because only after keeping that up for a period of time would you even be getting close to any kind of thinking...

My own take is that the “external” factors, such as I’ve enumerated above, are already a nearly insurmountable obstacle to thinking. Who’s going to be writing out a blackboard full of equations and then passing themselves off a the “opposite” person than they are, and thinking their way through the day in that guise? Not even the most accomplished actors get away with that level of “immersion”.

In all of the History of humankind, the internal and external factors I’m mention have never been as acute as they are today. Said another way, never has thought been so curtailed and “administered” in small droplets as it is at present. You can go as far back as you want... You can conjure all of the Hollywood tropes, especially those of how primitive and “coercive” ancient civilizations were of their individual members (the extreme individuality and egotism of today didn’t exist 5,000 years ago, but no matter, why let facts get in the way of a prejudice or a priori judgment?).

It’s so easy to claim, such a cliché, to allege how “unfree” people were in the past, how the whip or the manacles forced them to “toe the line” (into slavery even). But you would search in vain for a culture, a society, as corseted, as unfree, as the one we are presently all living in.

We live in a secular world of lies and deceit at every level of intellectual endeavor. No wonder we’re confused about what is up and what is down. This lack of clarity is due to our lack of thinking. Opinions are more highly placed than facts (not that there are any facts, as Freddie pointed out, just interpretations, which, like “perspectives,” are mere opinions). The reversal of values, the “the upside down” rationale for the perpetuation of immoral acts, are the hallmark of the Age of Kali Yuga – the Age of Darkness – which is where we are in the great scheme of things (I’ll get deeper into Kali Yuga and its significance in an upcoming blog).

Suffice it to say, we’re not sitting pretty, despite what our minders are insistent on making us believe through the 24x7 bombardment of blatant lies, fake news, and alternative facts, etc. In fact, they’re so insistent upon these “tools” and so intent on convincing us that we’re at the “apex” of human evolution, that it just gives me the willies – such blanket affirmations sound like hubris to me. Pride, and even bluster, comes before the fall, they say. A definite red flag in my book! Given the state of affairs, the more THEY sing the high praises of the status quo, the more I begin to feel like a cornered rat on the deck of the Titanic. It sounds to me like it’s time to leave the boat, especially when the water laps up against my tail.

Opinions Are Conclusions, Not Thinking

Perspective is everything... or so they say... Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) is credited with stating the obvious (aren’t all emperors, both ancient and modern, credited with more than what they have actually said or done?), namely: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

I could have hardly said it better... In every facet of “modern” life we deal with opinions, for these are all that matter these days. Even in materialistic science, as far as our oh-so-modern herd animals are concerned, opinions trump facts, truth, moral considerations, or conscience.

I understand why... If the human being were taken as something complete, the fulcrum at the center of the universe (or the “measure of all things,” as the Greeks and all the ancients did before us), then our medicine, chemistry, and biology, are laughable attempts at describing the least important aspect of humanity’s full spectrum. If we were real human beings that would not bode well for the Insurance or Pharma industry, now would it?

The wonderful thing about opinions is that it obviates the necessity to think, much less prove anything empirically. Opinions are the forerunners of denial, mostly, the inveterate negation of reality. This “liberates” people of their temporary lethargy, so that they can wallow in it full-time (no half-assed laziness here!). 

Since opinions are only superficial assumptions, ready-made conclusions, they don’t require any “heavy lifting” on the part of those who utter the first thing that pops up into their alleged minds. If the larynxes of chimps were slightly altered in their form, their vocal cords arranged slightly different, they could also spew out what we generally consider “thoughtful opinions.”

Like parrots, we parrot, nothing more. Parrots are known to have the size of a brain worthy of Homer J. Simpson, and they do what most human herd-animals do, which is to simply echo what is heard as opinions as if they were a slab of stone up a cliffside... well, that’s not thinking either.

The Tube, the Internet, they all provide ready-made opinions for anything, and the media is the greatest reinforcer of opinions (everyone is very opinionated these days). As a result, there’s no need to “dig” to get down to the “background” matters that lie behind these fallow sentiments and a priori judgments. Regurgitating trite opinions requires less “work,” naturally. And today, work, any kind of mental exertion, is to be avoided at all cost. Today’s weakened, anemic herd-animals, tire themselves simply lounging on the couch. We don’t want them getting a brain cramp pondering their fate... The natural inertia of the brain, even the physical threshold of thought, is difficult to surmount, and this works wonders for our minders, who benefit from our laziness to no end, believe me.

Here’s my “opinion” then: Human beings today are incapable of thinking.

Mark Your Calendars... Since the Beginning of the 20^th Century, Humans Have, For All Intents and Purposes, Stopped Thinking.

Pray tell, when did this thinking among humans actually stop? Because, to be honest, I missed it! I hate to disappoint, but I don’t have an exact date... It could have been anywhere after 1899, the cusp of the 20^th Century, or it could have spilled into the first years of that century... Precision in such matters is a feckless, false frame, since the universe isn’t on Daylight Savings Time either. The interesting thing is that it does appear, from the historical evidence to have occurred rather suddenly, but probably not within a given 24-hour period.

Moreover, to my way of looking at things, it’d be far more interesting to learn HOW it happened, but I’ll get to that eventually...

The stoppage, the damming up of thought and thinking itself is a purely modern phenomenon, that we know. We also know it has gone completely unnoticed by, well, nearly everyone... Mind you, I include myself in the group of humans unable to think, so I’m not ranting and raving here, or being “holier than thou”.

Personally, as far as my innate powers go, I can’t think my way out of a paper bag. I dare anyone to try though... Even those who purport to have triple digit IQs (talk about intellectual inflation – sort of like grade inflation in Academia!) are incapable of it. If any one of them can think their way out of a paper bag, it would be an astonishing feat.

Let’s face it; thinking is just not our thing. Name a herd-animal that thinks. Nah, chimps are not herd animals, and they can’t think either. See what I mean? And, the utter lack of any thinking going on in modern society is so blatantly obvious when we simply take our blinders off – or curb our acute capacity for immediate, knee-jerk denial of anything and everything that we don’t like.

Regarding it objectively, by simply observing how modern institutions are now arranged, managed, and maintained (as if on life-support only), gives us a clue as to how deep in the doo-doo we really are. It bears repeating – we fail miserably when it comes to conjuring up thoughts. This is a new development, you can say. But not wholly unexpected given the trends since WW II (when the highest number of victims were the thinking ones, how can you expect “improvements”?).

What is the real purpose of war? To cull the thinking herd-animals...

After WW II, more thinking people have been killed than during the conflict itself. By then the gene pool was already threadbare, and now, well now, we know why there’s no more thinking going on! These millions of dead culled from the herd were (and still are) invariably the “smart” ones – the only ones capable of real thought. Usually, this is due to the fact that the intelligent ones are the ones that figure out what’s actually going on, and when they do, they resent it, and then try to do something foolish, like righting the injustice! This makes them the easiest of targets...

One more devastating blow for natural selection... not that it was a good theory as we have modernly interpreted it, so no great loss...

The dimming of thought in human beings took some doing, it took some time. Thinking diminished over the eons of the various Yugas, so no worries. Outside of thinking harder, trust me, there was damn little you could have done about it.

It’s not always apparent because History, among other baroque cultural tinsels and gilded decorations, gives us a false view of how this phenomenon “developed.” Thinking is a powerful thing, Historically, from about the Renaissance onward, there was a great flowering of it, especially of the materialistic, intellectual kind. All over the world, at the same time, in all kinds of cultures and societies, intellectuality and critical thinking took off. Yes, some cultures, like the European, being more materialistic than the rest, expressed it in the advances in technology and the expansion of “urbanism” as against the “countryside,” that modern herd-animals are so proud of. Yet, the fact remains that it was a nearly universal, ubiquitous development. And no, it was NOT Gutenberg’s little toy that did it – it was the other way around! The printing press was a by-product of this intellectual explosion.

See? Non-thinkers always want to put the cart before the horse.

From this “big bang” of intellectualism during the 15^th Century, we slowly, but surely, began the process of entropy in thinking. Several centuries of apparent “progress,” such as the Enlightenment, etc., followed this profusion of intellectuality, until it invaded every nook and cranny of our Civilization. The last great gasps of it were the scientific breakthroughs at the end of the 19^th and the earliest years of the 20^th Century. Einstein, Planck, Bohr, were this last spasmodic episode before rigor mortis set in.

Since these thinkers have passed on, there has been no “new” or original idea out there, mainly because there has not been a replenishing “new generation” of thinkers to replace them. (There were great thinkers during this late 19^th Century period in other fields of human endeavor than Science, of course, but I’m keen on being brief).

Again, non-thinkers jump to conclusions – this is their hallmark. Additionally, they confuse “cause and effect.” When shallow-thinking and opinions are involved, they vehemently claim all the wonderful “innovations” that came out starting in the mid-20^th Century as proof of our modern capacity to “think better” than our ancestors. Unfortunately, none of these “modern products” were the result of modern, or contemporaneous non-thinking.

On the contrary, all those oh-so-modern wonders of silicon and plastic were due to very ancient thinking – our most ancient thinking of all! Even the transistor came from Aristotle, who at least gave things some thought. The rest was mere “application,” at best (application is what the bear does with the stick to get at the honey – it’s not the honey). The “application” went through the hoops of those who were thinking in the 17^th Century, like Pascal (to name only one). No contemporaneous, original thinking was required to make a personal computer, for example – every thought or idea in it came long before the motherboard was heated and the piece of junk was pressed into a mold and sold to you for $2,500 retail, back in 1981.

Thinking Just Gets In The Way...

To enjoy our wonderfully vacuous consumer existence, we don’t need to think – or even make the right choices. Today, we’re so “free” that we are free to make the worse choices. Isn’t “freedom” just grand? We’re even induced to make bad choices in every facet of our lives, especially with respect to what we consume (if it were otherwise, thinking might resurface, and we don’t want any of that going on).

This jettisoning of thinking as a human trait didn’t happen overnight. Although it seemed like it, since we all slept through the process. To achieve this level of decadence across cultures separated by oceans and languages, required the gutting and undermining of long-standing institutions that were the bulwark of Civilization itself. This all took place while we slept, while some dreamed idly of a “better world,” and other nonsense of that ilk. Self-satisfaction – like having too much money – kills all thinking instantly. Affluence, therefore, is a definite sign that thinking has ceased, that decadence has set in.

As I said above, we know all this intuitively... we don’t know this necessarily intellectually, because that would require thinking about it, which we’re not wont to do. While we were growing up, while we were being lied to, while we slept unmolested upon a mattress feathered and laid by the achievements of our fathers and mothers, and the long line of ancestors that preceded them (each successive generation contributing less and less to actual progress, naturally), we were robbed. Robbed of what? Of Thinking itself... so, never let something you valuable go unused for too long, or keep it locked away and out of your sight... just common-sense advice.

It began with Religion being eviscerated (bad management a likely cause). It seemed like a good idea at the time, since religion itself was as corrupt and decadent as modernity itself. But it soon turned to its stepchild – Education. By the end of the 19^th Century, it was as corrupt and anemic as Religion was. Education had no vital force left, since it had been reduced, like its progenitor, to an absolutely idiotic, mechanical process, as dead as a doornail...

This lack of any vitality in Education only served to put children to sleep at the tenderest age – right in the classroom! Children are now forced into prison, err, schools at 2 or 3 years of age (before they’ve learned to cry). Their handed their little electronic devices so they’ll shut up and go to sleep. Right on their desks!

Modern Education – The Destroyer of Thought

From the 19^th Century it was beatings, torture, and incarceration for children. Fortunately, most got a good seven years of “childhood” before they were inducted into school hell – or factory hell – there was, at least, some choice then. None of the torture could keep a child awake through the infernal process, however, so school hours were lengthened, and children further traumatized (they wanted to keep children in prison as long as possible – to acclimate them to their future environment – it was considered a good career choice then – and still is today). Standardized education (whether public or private) became the preferred way to dehumanize the population early.

Education instead of giving life to the child so they could become thinking, feeling, willing human beings (truly useful members of society), became a narcotic, intended to “dumb-down” any potential Einstein in the making. And all this continues to this day without signs of abatement.

Why don’t we have child prodigies anymore? Why no Mozarts? Why no Schweitzers? You name the hero...

The main reason is that we wouldn’t know a prodigy if we tripped over them. Why? Because we sincerely are of the opinion that because a chimp uses a stick to get at some food, the chimp is “reasoning,” or intellectually thinking, or doing “problem-solving,” or some such malarkey. With that level of thinking, is it any wonder we have no geniuses? A genius would have to be able to think, wouldn’t he or she? But how can that be possible in our day and age, when thinking is no longer extant?

Children are born curious, and this curiosity had to be stifled, it had to be extirpated from the very soul of the child. Children are natural thinkers – they come equipped that way from beyond the womb. This natural thinking takes place in imaginations, for thinking is not what we believe it is – thinking is imagination in action. Imagination had to be killed. Otherwise, how could a dead Civilization appear as its opposite?

What good is a child that’s awake in a dead, mechanistic world? Or today, in a dead, digital world? (As humans, we can’t even make machines anymore – machines do that for us). What good is wakefulness in a world asleep? We know the answer to that one... Once asleep, like Sleeping Beauty, nothing was going to awaken that child’s desire to return to the arduous work – the tremendous act of will involved in real thinking.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions... and, never more so than today. And, it was just about 50 years ago that things could have turned around, but Education was assailed by a series of attacks upon it from the usual quarter – from modern, dead science and their minders in the economic-political-social sphere – and all healthy impulses that were being introduced into the educational process were soon abolished, especially from “the curriculum.” Nothing human, vibrant, and alive was allowed to remain... children, after all, were staying awake in the classroom (they even wanted to go to school – God forbid!).

Some schools didn’t even have classrooms... that’s how advanced some experiments had gone on at the time that’s euphemistically called the “Counterrevolution” of the ‘60s (it was a real Revolution, but none now want to admit to it, they’ve been shamed, due to the failure of the enterprise). It’s part of the TINA process (There Is No Alternative) that our handlers are hell bent on – otherwise, given a choice – no one would do what they’re doing right now. No worries, it’ll all happen again, real soon... stay awake this time!

Stripping Art and physical education from the curriculum was absolutely necessary (two things that lead to the stimulation of independent thinking, of the worst kind). Now they bemoan the obesity and stupidity that is rampant in the population, when it was perpetrated to sicken the population in the first place (illness and disease impede thinking). The bad news is, of course, that failure to think leads directly to illness and death – keep that in mind when you extol “modern virtues” and modern institutions.

To turn children into herd-animals – into automata – so that they may graze in the “fields” of the digital miasma that’s spread around the world is the plan. What did you expect from sleeping through that? To wake up to healthy children? A healthy natural environment?

To be able to adapt to the netherworld of confusion and lies that is preponderant now, necessitated turning education into the anti-human activity which it has become. To become this decadent required many other areas of human life and culture to become inhospitable to human beings (toxic even). To make education fully “utilitarian” and subservient to the Corporate “machinery” required the members of these institutions to focus on the purely materialistic, on the lowest common denominator, on turning humans into herd-animals. They succeeded in doing so to the highest degree. We are left then, with only creatures that ruminate, who graze like sheep, and which are controlled by the wolf packs that only chase the greenback!

Obviously, once you remove the veil from your eyes, take away all the tinsel and shiny accessories that hang around you like obstructions, once one stops romanticizing, what we’re doing here is reproducing uncounted masses of non-thinking human beings, and basically turning them into something less than animals. We’ve been rather good at it, haven’t we? Maybe too damn good...

The Flower of Civilization

It baffles me when apparently “intelligent” people, folks who claim to be educated, and so forth, tell me that we are living in the highest expression of “civilization.” That we’re at the peak of greatness – far surpassing any cultural or civilizational achievements of past epochs. When they tell me such glowing things, especially in the West, my eyes start to glaze over... then I know their egos are at full throttle -- they're proud of something they did not achieve. It's their “badge of honor” to be living at the zenith of materialistic culture, and they have no qualms in taking credit for it. 

The usual spiel goes like this: We in the West are the most advanced people on Earth. We have created the most wealth in History, we live longer than anyone ever before. We have the most gadgets and toys, and we enjoy the greatest creature comforts with the least amount of effort, etc., etc. 
  

The last bit is, of course, both revealing and true at the same time. But when I ask them to provide some evidence, some proof of this overwhelming superiority we possess vis-a-vis our ancestors, no one wants to take into account the downside...

We also have more and longer wars than our ancestors. We also kill and starve children as a necessity (to maintain our superiority, I assume), famines and environmental destruction is now worldwide and not local, refugees and immigrant displacement has never been greater. Neither has racism, violence, cancer and illnesses been so rampant. Never has culture, art, and sicence been so devoid of spirit or originality. Who is painting a 'Mona Lisa' today? And, when the obvious physical and intellectual weakness of the modern herd-animal is laid bare in the light of day, there is little to recommend our exceptional "superiority." To all this they have nothing to say...

When I ask them to define what they mean by “civilization,” I invariably get something like this (although not always this succinctly): “the behavior and beliefs that characterize a society.” 

But of course, when I tell them that sounds suspiciously like the definition of “culture,” and not “civilization,” then I do get slightly better revisions to the definition, although not particularly good ones... Because then, people react to the word Civilization (with a capital ‘C’) and they throw everything into the definition, such as... “A society reaching an advanced state in the arts, science, industry, and government has been reached.”

Advanced in compared to what? Isn't that a barely a glossed over value judgment? So much for a priori judgments... The key word seems to be “advanced state” or something of that ilk. The value judgment that “advanced” is better somehow than what has gone before, and therefore the general illusion of “progress” seems to be the hallmark of Civilization.

Is this satisfactory? It’s probably too close to the textbook definition, and it barely rates as a small snack... We’re not looking for a dictionary entry to answer the question. The problem with confusing “culture” with Civilization is neither new nor unusual, but it’s revealing.

Naturally, I don’t get as much of this as I used to... but, I still do, especially from old friends, who should know better, since they lived through parts of the last millennium, which was a time when one could close one’s eyes to the obvious – we were mildly distracted then by the West’s technological superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the world (that certainly isn’t the case today). I supposed the lack of enthusiasm has its root – things just aren’t as peachy-keen as the purveyors of propaganda would have us believe. Things simply aren’t as “glowing” as they were but a few years back... even for folks who lived in relative wealth and comfort (all the Karma does end up coming around, doesn’t it?).

Still, even philosophically, existentially, abstractly, they claim that we’re the “Top of the Pops,” although with less enthusiasm than formerly. Well, I beg to differ... The fact that now every two-year-old owns a Smartphone to stare at in their play pens, doesn’t rightly smack me of “cultural superiority,” “class exceptionalism,” or “human advancement” as far as culture or Civilization are concerned. Rather the opposite comes to mind... in other words, decadence or decay, and inevitable decline.

From Roots to Flowers

Hate to bring in “reality” into the picture – most people are offended when I do that.

But let us look at an example from the real world – the world of plants – to get an idea of where we stand in civilizational terms. I’m going to go against my better instincts and agree wholeheartedly with my friends’ opinion about our place in the “evolution” of Civilization.

Let’s assume the we – the West – since we can’t have the least consideration for other “inferior” Civilizations like the Hindu, Persian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Incan, Mexican, Polynesian, et al... anything that predates us is toast! (Or so does our current herd-animal believe).

The West is then the “flower” of Civilization, and arguably the flower is the sum of all the plant has achieved in its “evolution,” or better said, its existence. The flower radiates out its color into the world to delight and cajole (kind of like Hollywood does for the current “world-order”).

But what went into this flower in order that it my dazzle us with its fragrance, color, and one would dare say, luminosity? What attracts the bees and the butterflies that it can then “go on giving” pleasure and delight in the future (through pollination, although that’s not what happens in the flower in actual reality, but let’s just assume that it does for the purposes of our example, or metaphor, if you will).  

If we have ever observed a flower in its field of splendor in spring, we know that a couple of weeks later, it doesn’t look so hot (unless the flower is in a garden and tended by someone who has a green thumb). In the field (in Nature), the flower is the first to go... it withers with the onset of the days, it decays, discolors, and then its petals drop off (like the leaves the petals once were).

When the flower droops or is gone, usually, the leaves and stems continue, for a time, but the last to go – what we don’t see underground – is the root. The root is still alive, long after the rest of the plant has withered away. In fact, a capable gardener can revive a plant from the root alone, not just from a sprig, or graft.

Too bad this can’t be done with a Civilization...

So, I tell my friends that if you’re not a good gardener, you can forget your vaunted Western Civilization... it’s had its flowering, it’s now ready for the compost heap. The people who were supposed to be watering, trimming, and singing, failed to do so... they got lazy. They left it all to the Government and the Bankers to do for them... It turned out that the crooks weren’t gardeners at all – they just plucked the flowers out and left everyone else with a dried-out stem, no leaves, and a rotten root!

The stewards we left behind in the garden so we could go stroke our egos, sprawled on the sofa, looking at ourselves in the little screens, admiring our “beauty” and “intelligence,” weren’t very good gardeners, were they? Why does this sound like a parable to me?

Yep, we fell asleep and we got ripped off... it ought to be a lesson... but... we can’t pry ourselves from the little hand-held mirrors long enough to hit the toilet... Best not think at all – if one can get away with it... sleep right through the mess...

Civilization Lost...

What is Civilization? At this point, to ask such may be tantamount to closing the barn door after the cow’s gone... Our prejudice of the past tells us that if you look at it historically, it wasn’t much of a “paradise”. I’m not so sure... It certainly had less wars, less starvation, less of the things that brought our little flower to wither and decay... But we can’t remedy the past, we can only get to work on what’s left of the garden... Sadly, there’s not much of that either.

What is Civilization? One can ask this today, almost in the same way that one may ask what a dinosaur is... I mean, was. Are we even living in a Civilization? Or is that just a nice, polysyllabic word to banter about to sound more “erudite,” more “cultured”? Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions... just because the Greeks started something, it doesn’t mean that it’s not “all over now baby-blue”...

Is Civilization the finale of a Culture, as Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) postulated? Spengler was the author of “The Decline of the West,” possibly one of the most revolutionary works of the early 20^th Century (written before WW I, and published immediately afterward). Not surprisingly, at the beginning of the last millennium (the last time human beings could actually think), there were quite a few ground-breaking works, including Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, etc.

Modern herd-animals seem to hate Spengler (that includes most of Western “academia,” or what’s left of its desiccated petals). Is it because he’s odious? In other words, some Nazi knuckleheads read him, so now his thoughts are somehow “evil”? Or, is it because he says things that are uncomfortable for the decadent herd-animals of today to hear?

Frankly, I think it's because he looks like "Dr. Evil," and all that's missing is "mini-me"...

To give you an idea of how prescient the “The Decline of the West” was, here are a couple of quotes from it, that ought to make one stand up, go for a long, long walk... and, keep following the little furry lemmings...

“Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect.” -Oswald Spengler-

Welcome to 2017! Welcome to the Ponzi scheme par excellence... the craven, new world of Zuckerberg-media (ought to be properly labeled as “sucker media”), wherein so-called “presidents” and “leaders of the free-for-all” sit with their excessively overwrought asses on the red-button, insulting other nuclear-armed leaders through Twitter.

We are so “advanced” that it is also the preferred “tool” for developing and implementing of national and international policy... Any “idea” that requires more than 140 characters to express is no longer considered, much less though out; i.e., any actual idea... What idea could possibly be developed and explained in 140 characters? It’s even hard to insult someone properly with a barrage of four-letter words with that limitation. I find it constricting as hell. Only a constipated, anal-retentive culture-society could possible flourish with Tweeter as its “commons.”

In the meantime, what are the rest of the folks doing while this is going on? Sleeping through the whole damn nightmare...

“Formerly no one was allowed to think freely; now it is permitted, but no one is capable of it any more. Now people want to think only what they are supposed to think, and this they consider freedom.” -Oswald Spengler-

Normally, I’m not much for quoting quotes... but since we’re doing “quotes” today, might as well nail it with another eminent philosopher’s point of view on the subject of “thinking” – someone of a whole different stripe than Spengler so that there should be less squealing from the gallery... Usually, as things get closer to universal truths, they lose their identifying stripes (their convenient labels) all together.

“Thought is not a gift to man but a laborious, precarious and volatile acquisition.” -José Ortega y Gasset- (1883-1955) Spanish philosopher.

Since the middle of the 20^th Century, “thinking” (by which I mean “critical thinking,” as it was then called, or “free thinking,” as it was labeled in the 17^th - 19^th Century) is no longer practiced. It has become “passé,” something for nerds to do (although they – the “nerds” – are incapable of it also). Scientists are the least capable of thinking... Again, “critical thinking,” is not counting, adding, multiplying, or fooling around with abstract mathematical formulas... these are not “active” living thoughts going to the brain.

As most of you know, the Ancient Egyptians called thinking, “wisdom-of-the-heart” or “knowledge-of-the-heart,” since what actually does the “work” of thought is not the brain but rather the heart organ. When a thought reaches up to the head; i.e., gets through the entire body, from the ground up – then we can start talking about something related to “thought”.

Naturally, this mystery of thinking, and how thoughts originate from our surroundings, from the Cosmos itself (from the living planet we stand on, etc.), is not something anyone has the least inkling about. Of course, I include myself among the lot of blockheads that can’t think properly, and who is completely ignorant on how the process actually works. The “how” of things is way harder than the “what” of things.

Yet, what is obvious even to a dunderhead like me is that thinking is NOT going on either at an individual or at a species level on this planet... And, I would welcome anyone to prove otherwise... (now, THAT would be a ray of hope, or would that just be more “fool’s gold”?

Thinking Is ‘Verboten’!

The folks that make me laugh the most are those who debate IQ numbers, and then apply them to “races”. As if IQ factoring were some kind of “empirical” proof of something, like intelligence... I realize that human beings are incapable of thought, and can therefore only “count,” so the claim is that if the subject of the IQ test can “compare” and “contrast” then they are more “advanced”. Well, comparing and contrasting are really only more counting. It’s a counting without numbers, but in the end, one adds or subtracts what one “likes” or “dislikes” from the whole (or whatever one is asked to compare and contrast on the test itself). But chimpanzees can do that too... yet, they can’t think either. Talk about nutty. It’s the “Sesame Street” approach to “thinking”.  

Frankly, IQ tests deal only in abstractions, and speaking of which, so is the concept of “race” – a total abstraction. The difference in DNA between humans and chimpanzees (hate to pick on the poor criters) is less than 2%. There are hardly any marginal differences between humans of different origin (geographical locations) on this planet. Yet, that’s what all the hate is about...

“Those who talk too much about race no longer have it in them.”

-Oswald Spengler-

But the fact that there is no such thing as race falls on deaf ears in this age of non-thinking, and sleep walking through History. Even by the abstract bent of modern science, no one has found yet a “race” gene. Yet, skin color does bother some people... and this “dislike,” is what all the hate is about. Wonder what chimpanzees have to say about that... (“Thank God we got off that lousy branch of the evolution tree!” Or words to that effect are often heard calling from the trees)

Now, the application of “feeling” to thinking in humans could elevate the form to that of actual thought (by bringing the heart into the process of lifting this heavy stuff upwards toward the brain). But humans no longer have the stamina for the heavy lifting involved. At one time, in the time of the Black People, they could lift two-ton blocks every two minutes, but today, we’re considerably weaker and more feeble creatures (the result of centuries of decadence, both physical and intellectual).

It is still possible to think? In our couch-potato culture it seems unlikely... Is thinking akin to a muscle in our bodies? If it is, then through sheer lack of use, it has become atrophied. As Ortega y Gasset said, a gift has been given us, but it was too “labor intensive,” and we just got tuckered out. We have chosen the sofa instead... Though the ability to think may be innate in our species, it’s not exactly a given, it must be worked at (will-to-power has something to do with it, I'm sure).

Here is another Oswald Spengler “pearl” of wisdom, demonstrating what our level of “thinking” amounts to, and thus revealing the decline and “end” of a Culture (culture form or group) and therefore, a Civilization:

When the ordinary thought of a highly-cultivated people begins to regard 'having children' as a question of pro's and con's, the great turning point has come.

If one assumes history morphologically, as Spengler did, Civilizations must have a “life-cycle,” and, we know when and where a life-cycle is over...

Every Culture had its Civilization, according the late German historian. Civilization seems to be the obvious destiny of a Culture. “Civilizations are the most external and artificial states of which a species of developed humanity is capable,” Spengler wrote in his famous “The Decline of the West”. It even makes sense.

This is not to say that one agrees with everything he says (although from a materialist’s point of view he covers all the angles). We do have our own little “likes” and “dislikes,” don’t we? But, we live in that ersatz "Tweetie" world where virtual reality is the only reality... We do cling to our a priori judgments and prejudices, what we’d rather believe than look at what is really there...

At the very least, Oswald Spengler was far more stimulating in his thinking than most other historians, even the venerable Arnold J. Toynbee, who practically stole Spengler’s idea of the morphology of civilizations. But alas, modern historians are just propagandists, with very few exceptions (e.g., the late Howard Zinn), since most prefer to simply lacquer over the “convenient fable” and regurgitate it as History. That’s the way it’s studied and disseminated in our society today (through universities and the media), like a feel-good ad on TV.

Perhaps I’ll take up this matter in coming posts, since it’s full of portent (like a good novel) and given our current malaise, it seems only fitting to determine if we are at the “finale” of our Civilization, or as my friends wish to believe, at the very “apex” of it. In the meantime, one last jab... a left-cross to the chin.

“To-day we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery (the media) that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed.” -Oswald Spengler-

Inward detachment is certainly necessary – the first step toward clear thinking. But who has the stamina for that today? Who is going to do Yoga in order to start to think? Why bother? When it’s so much comfier and cozy to cuddle up with that “Smartphone” or other hand-held device on that big couch... and let it suck all the brains out of ya’... Ahh! I can hear the collective sigh of relief (“Now, I can stop thinking and get comfortably numb!”)