psychedelaholic

@Bjorn K Holmstrom This is where it gets muddy, because to incite political change in a community, we would either need to become involved in politics personally, or have high consciousness people whom are in politics willing to campaign on entirely new integrative solutions to societal issues. The other issue is that largely, getting a substantial amount of people behind a political movement that advocates for highly nuanced solutions is going to be difficult for many people to latch onto and support. It's a far cry from populous rhetoric, and seeing the appeal of integrative approaches requires at minimum a certain level of open mindedness, flexibility, being able to tolerate and or entertain many perspectives. These are traits that are flat out rare in most people. However, I think the way you bridge a lack of understanding is by demonstration, and persuasion. Ideally you go out and grassroots organize within a community, and attempt to convey your ideas in ways that aren't complex to understand, that speak effectively to a greater vision and evolution of the current system of governance. Change starts at an individual level, and to make a movement you have to appeal to enough people to the point where your ideas become a force that can exert political pressure through the people that align with your vision for future change. There is a pathway if you can get into local governance > provincial/state governance > all the way to the higher levels of government, depending on the amount of support you have. I live in Canada for the record, slightly different parliamentary system, similar results to the U.S. in practice though. I'd agree that the current way of electing candidates is far too binary and it perpetuates an unsatisfactory cycle that leaves people feeling as though there is no real solid choice. The concept of ranked-choice voting is interesting, and would contribute to reducing the feeling of being pigeon holed into voting for whichever talking head sucks the least. It's a more dynamic way to structure an electoral process, in that you are allowing multiple rounds of voting, higher levels of nuance in allowing preferential voting over a binary "yes/no", and it would ensure that whoever wins the election, does so with a majority vote. There's certainly more complexity in how the vote is counted, and it requires people to be invested enough to vote multiple times, but if we want nuanced elections, do the work I guess. Even with all this said, my feeling with the current political system is that it's likely so rotted from the inside that once someone with high consciousness ideals gets into a position of power, they'd get dragged by the ankle and told to fall in line, because god only knows the true extent of influence foreign/domestic lobbying, the world economic forum, central banks have over western political outcomes. My hope is that as the years progress, old decrepit people holding government positions die off, and key positions of power are slowly handed off to younger and younger generations. With that it's reasonable to think we will see a willingness to restructure these systems, as it's obvious to any of my generation that is capable of critical thought that these systems are not harbingers of prosperity as much as they are heralds of self-interest. @Hardkill Eloquently put. I believe so yeah, I feel like we are currently reaching the excesses of the current values championed by progressivism as a society. There's conflict and backlash, and I think this sort of nuanced integration of opposing values is a higher level of thinking that has potential to bring about a gradual shift towards a more conscious, balanced approach to solving political and societal issues. As to how long it will take people to get to a level of consciousness where these ideas can be successfully platformed, remains to be seen.

This is something I've been contemplating fairly heavily over the last month or two. I think it really depends on how conscious the individual labelling themselves as a centrist is, how nuanced is their thinking? Mainly, to what degree are they applying meta thinking to their politics. Most people who I interact with who would claim to be centrists, or centre-left/right, are not concerned with actual integration, and larger meta narratives. They're labelling themselves as a centrist to denounce extremist beliefs without really doing any mental labour to join the two halves, they're basically a duck sitting on a fence waiting for the wind to blow strong in one direction. I'm 26, I would place myself at late stage yellow, I am also deeply construct aware. To give some thought to your question, I do think that if we talk about centrist politics from a meta perspective, it is a higher perspective from which to view ideas of culture, race and society. The main pervasive issue I see in today's political landscape is how insanely polarized the majority of people are, the level of ideological bias, shit flinging, divisiveness that underpins every single narrative people are willing to run with is astounding. Most people identified with the left or right are far too polarized to have any kind of meaningful discussion about opposing perspectives without making their arguments explicitly derogatory, hateful, unproductive. They simply point the finger at each other, performing exhaustive mental gymnastics in order to make sure the finger is always pointing away from their belief system. This kind of division and radicalization is unlikely to stop any time soon because the average person is not conscious enough to see past their biases. Yes, left or liberal beliefs are a higher developmental perspective, inclusion, equality of opportunity, social reform etc.. relative to right or conservative beliefs of structure, cultural norms, preservation, Christianity etc.. Here's the thing though, we cannot sit and say: "Well because these progressive beliefs are originating from a higher state of awareness, they are without consequence to fully embrace" There are consequences to radical empathy, inclusion, diversity, believing that people from any part of the world are capable of producing high quality results if given equal access to resources. We're currently seeing consequences to mass immigration in Europe, UK, Canada. There are immigrants that are allowed in from low trust societies that when given resources, choose to rape, steal and commit violent crime. Undermine or subvert the culture of the country they're graciously allowed into with the expectation that they will respect and assimilate to the culture. The issue when dealing with divisive topics such as these, is again, people that are identified with a set of values that maybe are bringing about harmful consequences, are often incapable of questioning if there are pitfalls that need to be addressed. Everything the right campaigns is lumped together and labelled as fascist, destructive by the left, every value the left campaigns is lumped together and viewed as suicidal, culturally damaging by the right, when in reality, not so. Do I agree with any of the rhetoric on the right about religion, Christianity, God as the one true saviour of the American people? No, it's ridiculous and it's a regressive knee-jerk back to stage blue values because many of these people view progressive change as an attack on their identity, so they defend it. I don't agree with right to life stances on abortion either, in my perspective people are free to do whatever they want as long as they aren't committing violence against others, an unborn child isn't conscious so it's up to the parent(s) to decide what they do with it. I also do not align with the current trend of trans identity politics being broadcast so freely, a lot of people are either far too young, or mentally ill (or both) to be making these types of decisions for themselves. Altering your hormones, gender-reassignment surgeries, these are drastic life choices with permanent biological consequences. Many of these people are traumatized in childhood, and instead of working on healing their trauma, gaining some genuine insight into themselves, they turn and run from that reflective process to grasp for "immediate" external solutions. In this case altering their perceived sense of self and identity through medical intervention, and yet, you cannot run from your own mind. Regardless, if an adult of sound mind wants to make drastic changes in their life to their mind and body, who am I to deny their right to do so. I'm making assertions around current hot button issues in society to illustrate a point that it's possible to acknowledge that multiple perspectives can be held at once, without completely succumbing to identifying with one side or another. If more people were capable of this, we might be able to have a more collective conversation about integration, ways in which we can take an unbiased view drawing on many perspectives relative to what our current issues are, and find balanced solutions that incorporate and meld values in a way that benefits the majority of people. Something like race, cultural identity etc.. where in certain parts of society today you must be incredibly closed lipped about, lest someone labels you as a racist, or a bigot, have much broader connotations and are far more metaphysically nuanced than what we currently understand from the perspective of progressivism. It's also far, far more nuanced than the way that typical conservatism views these topics, because the progressive view is a higher perspective, that does not mean it should not be scrutinized, and those scrutinizing it are not all regressive conservatives. In a sense, I feel to transcend both is the only way forward if we are going to let go of biases in favour of higher consciousness politics. There is boundless corruption in the minds of many in positions of power, and my generation and those that come after will not be able to justly root it out if we are all too busy being divided, bickering like children over who did and said what, who's fault it is. Maturity would be realizing that there are worthwhile values on the left, and worthwhile values on the right, bipartisan consensus could be the standard method in which policies are formed. Unfortunately, western politics subsists off of domestic/foreign lobbying, and perpetuates dualistic struggles for power between uncompromising beliefs. I hope to see this change in the next 25-50 years.

Looking forward to it! :' ) I can't emphasize enough how much I love the total expansion of the introductory topic in your multi-part series'. Listening to hours of deeply nuanced concepts being broadly extrapolated on from many different perspectives always feels like a brain massage, lol. Specifically spiral dynamics helped me a ton in dealing with Academia. Having a dynamic framework to better understand ego development made me much more clear in how to meet people where they're at, relative to my own mind. The other topic that surprised me was the video you did on assumption, the amount of things in life it's possible to just assume, without ever realizing an assumption was ever made, is frankly insane. A ton of suffering is caused by assuming a specific outcome, without communicating, or not being aware of internal assumptions being made and being let down when expectations are not met. This work is so sticky that I'll integrate it to the point of becoming so aware of something as benign as making an assumption, that I nearly never fail to observe and acknowledge when there's assumptions being made. This applies to any thought mechanism I contemplate thoroughly, if it becomes easy to see, and I can always catch it, it's not at all difficult to maintain the clarity to not get wrapped up, or pulled into things. I'm certainly not infallible, but I can't understate the amount of drama, stress I've been able to avoid simply by being aware of the larger picture, knowing where to place my energy. I feel post-modernism is pertinent towards breaking down preconceived notions that collectively perpetuate many dysfunctional systems within our society. It's enjoyable to contemplate as it can be essentially applied to any idea, any concept, any construction of belief and attempt to question or undermine it without taking away it's validity, being radically open to infinite possibility. Relative to using established beliefs and what one already knows to say what isn't possible, why it's the blame of x or y, and that it cannot change. I recently had a conversation with someone, the premise of it is I was providing hopeful perspectives in relation to people with mental illnesses deeply stigmatized by our society, they're marginalized as people, having a label planted on them that paints them as if they have less value than others. I'll quote what I wrote, I'm speaking loosely to the implication that the current system is inadequate in providing purpose & meaning. The person who decided to argue with me about this I would say had a Modernist perspective, that frankly made me sad. They pedantically debated my description of capitalism, saying it's not give and take it's "voluntary free exchange" as if that isn't simply a different way to describe the same thing; ie there's only one valid way to describe this system, and you're wrong if you take an alternative perspective. Furthermore they refused to view anything through open mindedness, placed blame onto the society and the marginalized group for being "free riders" and said that it's not realistic for everyone in society to have an equal standard of living. Which is a twist of my words, as I never said that. They then went on to paint economics as the limiting factor in why we cannot address the marginalization of a subset of people. The issue is that they are "free riders", demanding that I describe to them a system of economics in which we could deal with the issue of these people not contributing to society. Yet, does this type of response not perfectly illustrate a total unwillingness to take a perspective that challenges or goes outside of what you know? So instead of saying "you know what, these people are marginalized" and taking the perspective that the system that upholds the stigmatization narrative that leads to a group of people being marginalized, may be the actual problem; and not the god damn implications the marginalized group has on the system. The system can be changed, it's a bunch of constructed beliefs, so to sit there on your ass and demand answers to impossible problems within a confine of rules that you believe to be truth, instead of focusing on entertaining perspectives based outside of what you already know, it's unproductive, headass. People would rather say "this is the only way it can be" due to x or y, and when you float them a perspective outside their paradigm, they'd rather say you're talking nonsense, or attempt to invalidate it by forcing it to conform to the set of rules the perspective seeks to question.

@Leo Gura Hadn't been properly introduced to pre, current, post modernism prior to this video! Refreshing to learn a framework to place some of my behaviour and experiences into that makes sense. I have some anecdotes from my life that I think are relative to the subject. When I was younger and still pretty wet behind the ears in understanding/visualizing/conceptualizing any amount of metaphysics, I would have ideas about reality and would frequently have frustrating conversations with people about said ideas. I'm sure partly due to my inability to concisely explain insights that were only just dawning on me, and partly people being unwilling to entertain ideas that challenge their understanding. During college I would frequently limit test by seeing what the people around me were able to entertain; be that making radical or bold statements about reality or society, just to open up discourse wherein I'd get to find out what other people's perspectives were, get a glimpse of their psychology and use the interactions as critical thinking to challenge my own ideas. Seemingly unconsciously I've developed and applied this breakaway style of thinking to life since I was a teenager, it's humorous that you bring up the flat earth example. When I was 16-17 I actually contemplated whether the Earth was flat or not for a solid month or two. Looked at the people trying to claim evidence that it's flat, looked at the other side claiming evidence that it's round. Ultimately I sat myself on a hill at sunrise one morning and resolved the internal dilemma with this realization that came to me in that; regardless of whether I think the Earth is flat or round, it has basically no pronounced effect on my reality in the moment. That I walk away from that lengthy contemplation with my answer being "maybe it is, maybe it isn't, either perspective holds validity" and even if it could be deemed meaningless to actively carry around the notion that the earth is flat, the same can also be said for the notion that it's round. I think most people would say it's ridiculous to spend 1-2 months contemplating if the Earth is round or flat, because when asked they would make a firm definite statement about it relative to their beliefs, ie: "I already know the answer" Though I hadn't done a lot of digging into the specifics of modernism, post modernism etc.. I have however invested a lot of energy delving into spirituality, philosophy, taking psychedelics, self inquiry, contemplation and self reflection on information I come across relative to my own experience. I've also always questioned everything even as a child, since I could form coherent thoughts. So I seemingly bumbled my way into it, and I've learned through interacting with others that I have quite divergent or radical thoughts on the conventions of reality and or societal systems, relative to the general consensus. In one instance I argued with one of my college professors that time was merely an imagined construction of the mind, he scoffed and retorted "no it's not, time is real because I can walk outside, look at the position of the sun in the sky and tell what time it is" lol. Even people I know to be intelligent display great resistance entertaining the idea that their mind is not quietly observing an external objective reality, but constructing reality subjectively. What's funny about what my prof replied with is that he's unconsciously using his mind to reinforce his paradigm, in the same way one could consciously consider alternative perspectives outside of a given way of seeing reality. The statement also makes the assumption that time is real because a human can make that observation in the moment. If you take the perspective of a blank awareness that doesn't know anything, is it still real? Or an animal, does it know what time is 12:00 in the afternoon? If it only exists to the human mind, is it not then a construction of imagination? I've got one friend who's quite smart, yet he's overly rational and takes a stance based in objectivity relative to the foundation of reality. I'll argue with him for giggles sometimes, and eventually there is some kind of statement or hypothetical put forward by him to "prove" or solidify his perspective on reality. I'll reply with something like "two people can experience reality in two entirely different ways and still retain equal validity" he'll ask me a question that affirms his perspective, and I say that he's correct because if that's the way he sees his subjective reality, then it's as valid as any other perspective. Due to my friend believing that there's an objective reality external to his mind, that allows him to assume I must be simply wrong, or thick headed for saying that reality is subjective and relative to perspective. So he feels that I'm not understanding what is viewed as concrete in his mind, because in my mind reality is so fluid that relative to his paradigm I'm perceived as talking nonsense. It's entertaining because I do understand his reality relative to mine, and I don't disagree or oppose his perspective on reality, because it's his subjective reality so whatever it may be it's as valid as my own. The tricky bit is people seldom see reality in this manner, not only is it difficult to conceptualize reality as subjective, but doing so can also undermine entire paradigms if one opens their mind to it, which the ego is not a fan. So it's easier for the mind to defend it's bias' than to truly consider the implications of radical concepts and ideas. I can count on one hand the amount of people I've met in life that have gone through the toil to so heavily deconstruct their reality, luckily I don't often have to talk about metaphysics with strangers, if I did go out of my way they'd probably say I'm living in a different reality, lol. Over time I've come to realize just how arduous it is to have anyone become willing to seriously conceptualize reality in this way, I've been told by someone that they're uncomfortable with it because it seems like there's little to no ground to stand on if the mind is entirely responsible for subjective reality. While I get it, I think reality is a lot more interesting when things are as loosely defined as possible, it's freeing to view the experience as the primary driver for reality, because if consciousness is imagining it all, it's totally absurd, and anything goes, so why not change?