Oeaohoo

One of my favourite memes of late…

https://mobile.twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394

That’s true. I’d drawn a false distinction between being a political idealist and a pragmatic capitalist… If you are right about his motivations, Musk has the pleasure of having his cake and eating it!

Of course but you pointed out that Twitter is a terrible business model to begin with. His motivations are clearly something more than just capitalising. Like you said just now, he probably thinks he is saving the world… The “twitter files” thing would seem to support this conclusion.

Something doesn’t add up here…

It’s quite possible that he’s naive enough to believe that free speech is actually a possibility today. A lot of people in the tech world really believe in that sort of mushy libertarianism. It’s also possible that he is part of an undeclared right-wing counter-elite (which might involve the likes of Peter Thiel, other potential elites who would benefit from a resurgence of right-wing populism, and maybe even Trump) who intend to overthrow the current establishment. Throughout history, this is generally how revolutions have happened: counter-elites and the people teaming up against the established elite. For example, in the French Revolution the monarchy were the established elite, the Philosophes and various Masonic lodges were the counter-elite, who promulgated the propaganda and ideological justification for revolt, and the people were, as they always are, the people… I also like Leo’s idea that he’s just another brain-rotted clown. He does spend most of his time on Twitter sharing memes and “owning” people…

FYI, this is how I expect people to react to everything that I write: The reality is probably somewhat different…

This is a short letter to say: “Thank you.” I grew up in an Orthodox Christian household. They forced me to believe in God, to live in a moral and upright way, to abstain from depravity and pursue higher things. Then I discovered Actualized.org. The penetrating insights expressed here allowed me to deconstruct the lies that I had been told. This beautiful community was like a spiritual refuge for me. Now I’m finally free. Now I can live my life as I WANT to live it. Now, nobody can keep me down… I’ve started my first business: we provide contractor-based solutions for digital platform space analytics. The work environment is full of dynamism and synergies and we have employed a beautiful diverse staff. I know now that I was stuck in the past, in the shadows of Stage Blue, as so many unfortunately are today. How can we wake them up before it is too late?! Right now, I am between Stage Orange and Green: I have a deep respect for women and minorities but in my heart I still desire personal success above all. I don’t need to believe in God anymore because I AM God! Admittedly, I haven’t realised this for myself yet… I’m working towards this goal every day. I know that this is the goal because I believe in Leo’s teachings and have faith in him. I’m constantly developing myself - sometimes it amazes me how far I’ve come! Do I ever miss my old life? Maybe… But then I remember that in all things Change is the law, Growth is the path and Progress is the way! Anyway, I must go now. To tell the truth, I’m exhausted. I’ve had over one hundred sexual partners in the past week alone. I’m getting some blood tests back tomorrow - hoping that I haven’t contracted any sexually transmitted diseases… Whether or not the tests come back positive, there’s one thing that I am positive about - how grateful I am! Thank you.

There are underlying unities which transcend particular differences. For example, most cultures throughout history have organised themselves into similar hierarchies: Dumézil wrote about this in an academic setting and called it the “trifunctional hypothesis”. Until recently, initiation was a universal cultural practice. Most cultures have a ruling class and a monarchy, which often survives even through decadent democratic phases, and organise life in terms of rites and ritualised customs. To my knowledge, René Guénon did the best job of restating this underlying unity for modern times: the key insight here is that exoteric diversity is grounded in esoteric unity. On the other hand, have you noticed how so many aspects of globalised society are an inversion of this underlying unity in the name of an externalised uniformity? Rather than a liturgical calendar we have “Black History Month” and “International Women’s Day”, rather than Mass or Communion we have the sports match, rather than ritualised anti-structure we have “It’s Friday! Party time!” and clubbing… These are surely a grand testament to the great strides made by “mankind” (itself a uniform and homogenising term) in recent times! There is no longer an underlying unity of organic cultures, only a sterile uniformity enforced by global bureaucracy. Having said all of that, the tremendous variety of human cultures is bound to be slightly overwhelming… Maybe it is supposed to be! There is a talk somewhere by OSHO in which he talks about taking the “Path of Confusion”: reading thousands of books, he drowned himself in knowledge until reaching a point of total confusion and a radical state of not-knowing, which served as a kind of kenosis or “self-emptying” for the reception of metaphysical truth. For a while now I have been fascinated by the Egyptian God Seth, who was the God of Confusion. I think that practitioners of his cult would have practised a similar self-emptying confusion…

This guy gets it. He offers a rich, nuanced and exquisitely balanced Tier 2 perspective. There’s no doubt that he’s up there with the greats: Albert Einstein, Charles Eisenstein, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Leo Gura… Definitely one to watch!

I thought that someone might say that! It still often comes across as being more or less the survival of the physical organism, which I suppose makes sense given that most people are strongly identified with this.

I woke up today and I immediately thought of all the other people in the world waking up with me: some of them would wake up alone, some with a hangover, some in bed with their husbands or wives, some with a new partner - some of them wouldn’t have slept at all! I imagined the natural light or the variety of alarm sounds which might have woken them up. I asked myself: “What is the first thought that will run through their minds? What truly motivates and inspires them? What are they going to do today?” In my minds eye I saw millions of individual days playing out before me like a fractal pattern of morning-to-nights. I was able to do all of this because… I am a Stage Yellow Systems Thinker. So how did I get here? As a precocious youngster I studied many subjects, but I was never satisfied. Even then, I was to able to intuitively sense that most of the big ideas that could be grasped within an academic setting had already been arrived at. The great geniuses of the past - the likes of Einstein, Wittgenstein and Rothberg - already had their photos on the wall, and I knew that I couldn’t compete with them. Most of the intellectuals I came across had lived austere and isolated lives, and I certainly didn’t want to do that! Even worse, I knew that most of the ideas they had expressed would not be popular today… Given that I did not want an academic career, mainstream popularity was very important to me. If I wanted to be successful, I would have to limit myself to presenting ideas that are compatible with our advanced and inclusive times. That’s when I hit upon my idea of genius: I would go through the works of all of the great thinkers and philosophers, borrowing the ideas that were compatible with what is popular today and discarding the rest! After a while, I had even forgotten why I was doing this, and I was able to really believe that I was distilling the gems of truth from otherwise hopelessly outdated material! This is the story of how I became a Stage Yellow Systems Thinker. What is most beautiful about this is that I am able to look down on the first tier of humanity from my Tier 2 perspective whilst maintaining our shared belief in equality and democracy! But I’m still human. There are still wounds within me that need to be healed and shadows to bring to the light. In dealing with my own traumas, I am able to have compassion with myself whilst remaining detached. This is my innovation and my superpower. I’ve built myself a beautiful body, a beautiful mind, and - most importantly - a beautiful spirit. I built these through my own ingenuity and through the assistance of many other beautiful people. I am a walking testament to the power of individualism and collectivism spiralling in love together, forever. Mark my words. One day, all of the world is going to be like me. They don’t know it yet, but they will. The wisdom of the higher stages which I embody so perfectly will be simply irresistible. Only then, when everyone is like me, will the world finally know the peace and joy of Divine Unity.

I watched the rest of Leo’s Conservatism video. I actually thought that the bulk of it was pretty good, though it went a bit downhill towards the end. My main objection is that it seems like in Leo’s analysis of worldly matters, what would previously have been referred to as the “cosmic order” of things (Rta, Logos) is replaced with “survival”. This strikes me as a more subtle form of the general tendency nowadays to reduce all higher things to base impulses: similar to the way that Freud reduced everything to libido, Nietzsche to power, psychology in general to “ego development”, Bergson to the “life force” and so on… It’s a degrading inversion whereby, rather than viewing everything as emanating from a divine Source, everything is viewed as nothing more than more or less sophisticated expressions of biological impulses. It’s peculiar that Leo of all people, who otherwise teaches a form of extreme metaphysical idealism, would view things in this way.

I don’t mean to be rude but I think that this kind of deliberately debauched and degrading behaviour is precisely the reason why people have been homophobic in the past. It’s just ugly and gross. I don’t like to psychologise people but it reminds me of what psychoanalysis calls “Schadenfreude”, the perverse joy in dirtying and spoiling things. Anyway, sorry that you are offended by things that I had written. Like I said earlier, as a Stage Yellow Systems Thinker I know that we are all just where we need to be…

+1!

Disgusting… @AtheisticNonduality I am reminded of those images your friend generated with AI of “a Satanic circle of bunny rabbits.”

Gee whiz! That exponential tech is a hell of a thing!

Hahaha! Will Schmachtenberger ever be able to recover his reputation?! Joking and posturing as a Systems Thinker aside, it really wasn’t me. Though I’d probably agree with some of what it said.

No! I don’t know what you are referring to. I’ve never uploaded anything to YouTube. Was it any good? What were the criticisms? Indeed. As Stage Yellow Systems Thinkers, we know the joys of this non-dual mysticism. But we also know that the ladder doesn’t stop here!

I’ve just watched the first half an hour or so of this. I don’t think I can stand to watch anymore... One thing I do agree with him about is that the MAGA movement is not really Conservative. I think we could extend this to say that Thatcherite/Reaganite Neoliberalism was not really Conservative either. The whole purpose of MAGA is to poke fun at the false pretensions of the progressive Left who, after having killed and gutted the institutions of the West, now go around wearing the carcass of these institutions as a skin-suit whilst demanding respect. The respect that they demand is totally parasitic on the dignity of a system which they played little to no part in creating. As such, they don’t deserve any respect; for the most part, they are just useless and entitled managerial bureaucrats. Trump was popular primarily as the King of Trolls. MAGA is supposed to be loose and stupid: this stupidity is a parody of the uptight and self-satisfied smugness of the Progressive left. MAGA seeks to restore what the institutions once were, not to maintain them in their current senility and decrepitude... If Leo really wants to understand the motivations of this strange type of “conservative”, that is what they are! The quote from Michael Oakeshott was a nice choice. Another small thing is that people who criticise modern Conservatism for being full of grifters are completely right… Just look at something like The Daily Wire. The most fundamental thing that I can’t relate to in this type of political analysis is the sense that mere “good faith dialogue” and “steel-men” are going to be anywhere near sufficient to resolve the present political situation. That would be like stopping a tsunami with a surf-board. Sometimes I even wonder if the constant buffet of straw-manning and ritualised enemy-hatred isn’t the only thing keeping this sick society together! Like the Two Minutes Hate in 1984… Nothing unites people better than a common enemy. René Girard spoke about this in his book The Scapegoat.

I’m not really interested in “conspiracies” because it is a term that is constantly exploited for manipulative ends. Certain crackpot conspiracies are sold to gullible Boomers so that the eternal reality of elite-driven change can be obscured in the name of “democracy”… When it isn’t being used for this purpose, the term is generally used to gaslight people for noticing things that they weren’t supposed to notice. The Italian Elite Theorists showed - as if all of history wasn’t enough of a testament to this fact - that “people power” and the “grass roots revolution” are delusions. In reality, power has always been and will always be a matter of tight minority organisation. The people are not and will never be sovereign! Once this reality is internalised, it becomes obvious that our whole conception of “conspiracy” is wrong. Change is always a matter of tight minority organisation! The only question is whether this reality is understood and openly acknowledged or has to be hypocritically denied in the name of “human dignity” and “the will of the people”. In our case, it is an indisputable fact that since the Second World War, tightly-organised minority groups have been immensely influential in shaping political discourse and manufacturing consent. Edward Bernays and others like him laid out the framework for mass manipulation within a “democratic” context in his books Propaganda and The Engineering of Consent. If you are an American, James Burnham repurposed Elite Theory for the modern American context. You might like his books The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom and The Managerial Revolution.

I think there’s a difference between mindless bigotry and discernment. In the thread that you are so obsessed with that you insisted upon digging up from the grave, I was talking about the co-opting of sexuality for the purposes of a political ideology - this is very different to just promoting mindless hatred. The claim I was making - which I repeat, has nothing to do with my penetrating and hilarious parody of a “Stage Yellow Systems Thinker”! - is that sexual identity has been co-opted by power. Identifying with something as petty as your sexuality is a form of “surrogate activity” which is designed to divert people away from identifying with anything more profound. This phenomenon is seen everywhere today: watching sports is a surrogate activity to replace a sense of tribal belonging; going to the gym and lifting weights is a surrogate activity for living an active life; messaging people online is a surrogate activity for having real friends. In our fake plastic world, everything is reduced to a nihilistic parody of itself. Certain forms of surrogate activity, like identifying with your status as a victim group, are useful for another reason: those who do this can be made to believe that, in their own interests, they need to become the most pedantic and belligerent upholders of the globalist regime, which in reality has as much contempt for them as for everyone else. And hasn’t it worked wonders? You are literally the walking testament to what I was describing. Now every public space is patrolled ceaselessly by a mindless police force of spiteful mutants, making sure that everyone is nothing less than one hundred percent committed to the mission of global revolution. Because, your brain having been turned to rot by progressive propaganda, the only alternative you can imagine is: My alternative would just be a society where sexuality hasn’t become a constant low-level obsession, where people identify with more profound things than who they want to have sex with (ideally with the Supreme Identity!), where people have real identities and belong to real communities rather defending the unfulfilling facsimiles of these that have been promulgated by the Empire of Lies.

I didn’t even want to talk about any of these things here. To be quite honest, they are not very important to me. While I was obviously joking about the “Stage Yellow Systems Thinker” thing, there is an element of truth to it, in that I am enough of a “systems thinker” to recognise that I am never going to convince anyone here of my political views. At the risk of sounding like someone who says “I can’t be racist because of my black friend”, some of the people I feel the deepest admiration for were homosexuals: one of my favourite composers Szymanowski, who wrote a whole novel called “Efebos” about homosexuality; the Japanese author Yukio Mishima, who in his books “Forbidden Colours” and “Confessions of a Mask” wrote about the gay underworld in Japan (his book Sun and Steel is one of the best integrations of Nietzsche!); the French surrealist film-maker Jean Cocteau, who was hated by contemporary surrealists mostly for being homosexual (everyone should watch his magical film Orpheus). Ironically, the few gay men that I am personally acquainted with are the most right-wing and reactionary people that I know. You might be surprised to discover that, until recently, the gay underworld was a repository of quite extreme masculinity - almost a cult of physical excellence - in an otherwise feminised world. Gays today have been fooled into thinking that, for their own sakes, they have to become the foot-soldiers of soft totalitarianism. Gay men particularly are in a unique position to criticise society because, unlike straight men, they feel no need to make themselves attractive to women. In the past, this allowed them to offer a perspective on life which was full of wry and dark insights that were otherwise taboo for straight men. In my opinion, this social role was far more dignifying than being reduced to the strictest enforcers of Globohomo ideology. I‘m not opposed to individual gay men. I’m opposed to living in a society which is hell-bent on normalising what is and will always be abnormal. As for globalism, anyone who has read anything of mine will know that I like to refer to traditions from around the world. My opposition to globalism is based on the Perennial Traditionalist criticism of modernity, whose universalist metaphysics, incidentally, was stolen and reappropriated by Wilber. I am not opposed to global unity but to global uniformity, the destruction of the qualitative differences which are the only true dignity of the various peoples of the earth in the name of a bland and homogenising universalism.

I’m not going to react to this. As a Stage Yellow Systems Thinker, I understand that everyone - even you - is just where they need to be. As my spiritual hero says, “Everyone is right.“