Conscious Politics or Just Social Democracy

[LfcCharlie4]

Hey, posted a link to the conscious politics series in a 'debate communism' thread on Reddit (bad idea lol) and some people actually were up for a discussion, although as @Leo Gura has pointed out MANY times people are VERYYYYY ideological regarding their political view, I received a response that I didn't really know how to respond to. If anyone here could help, it's more learning how to actually critique Marxism but not from a typical CAPITALISM RULES standpoint, but more why it isn't the ultimate system/ end goal, and how systems can develop beyond it. 

Obviously these people have very little SD understanding and no mystical experiences/ awakenings by the looks of things. If you could answer @Leo Gura or anyone else here  

Here's the comment- 

It seems like Social-democracy made by a Love Guru and can, to a Marxist, be immediately ignored as it offers the point that the individual sparks change in themselves and the collective - that is, humanity - follows the leader which, to a dialectical materialist, must be immediately ignored.

Humans didn't decide they hated Tribalism, the human population, technology, and the tribes themselves expanded to a point where such local autonomy was not only inefficient it was dangerous as a more centralized, foreign model would find ease in picking off minor localities before a greater force might stop them; and that is simply an example for one reason tribalism evolved into feudalism in the present-day United States, for example, they did not switch to capitalism because the population decided it was meant to be, rather, the colonizers decided it was for them to deem.

Humans didn't decide they hated Feudalism, as borders widened it became obvious that if one wished to gain full advantage over colonial provinces and trade - Mercantilism - than you'd find it in your best interest to remove Vassals who, likely due to placement in their sovereign's lands alone, are taking a large portion of income that 'should' be yours and only giving you a small slice of that portion - if, however, you were to make a more...bureaucratic complex to handle the governance of your territories, a thing done with greater ease as transportation of resources and information becomes more advanced, then the only segment of your earnings you'd have to give away would be to your wage-workers - thus, Mercantile-capitalism was born.

This goes on and on but the pattern remains clear, the world changed and policies that were once the most methodical had simply become ineffective and so they were changed to couple with the advancement of mankind; nowhere was there, or will be, a great 'awakening' of man in which we collectively decide that we've had enough of our government and move on to a society built on 'Love'.

Humans don't change their societies do; organizing an ideology on the basis of getting people to open up their chakras or some shit is empirically illogical, theoretically unsound, and lacking a scientific basis.

P.S. I got my information from this video's top comment, not the one you linked, is this the right one, or does it completely misrepresent your thoughts or the guy's thoughts on the matter.

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, LfcCharlie4 said:

nowhere was there, or will be, a great 'awakening' of man in which we collectively decide that we've had enough of our government and move on to a society built on 'Love'.

Humans don't change their societies do; organizing an ideology on the basis of getting people to open up their chakras or some shit is empirically illogical, theoretically unsound, and lacking a scientific basis.

A) There is no real discussion with such people because they are just parroting Marxist dogma. They are not contemplating anything about reality for themselves. They thing Marxism is best, period.

B) They have no clue what Love is or means.

C) Society is always moving towards greater Love, regardless of what Marxists say or do. Some "Great Awakening" is not needed. And of course these Marxist have no clue how significant even one individual awakening is.

D) Humans do change. Spiral Dynamics shows that humans can be at very different levels of development. And even way beyond Spiral Dynamics. A human cannot be considered independently of its culture and society. So changing society changes humans and vice versa.

E) Don't forget that Marxists adopt scientific materialism as a dogma, so their understanding of politics and reality cannot go very high. They have no clue how central consciousness is to the development of society and humans. To dismiss this by making fun of chakras is just ignorant. Total strawman.

F) All their "logic" is self-biased. Logic has nothing to do with truth.

G) Individual growth is crucial for developing an advanced society. This is not mutually exclusive with also developing social infrastructure. Both are crucial.

H) These Marxists are so reactionary to captialism that their whole worldview gets distorted and biased by their judgments and hatreds, unable to see some of the important necessities of capitalism, and that there is more than just capitalism vs socialism to consider, there are meta issues at stake, and that capitalism and socialism are not really polar opposites or enemies.

Ideological retorts will not do here. One must deeply contemplate the nature of all things for oneself. Marxism's fundamental flaw is its materialist metaphysics and epistemology. That puts a glass ceiling on how high it can go. And it has a structual problem of being an ideology. It is not conscious of itself and incapable of deep self-reflection.

A monkey with a Marxist ideology is still a monkey. And dangerously ignorant.

[Leo Gura]

The point is not just that capitalism was necessary at one point in the distant past, but that it is still important today. At least parts of it are.

Abolishing private property is not going to work in practice. Things can sound nice in theory but that doesn't mean it will work.

When most humans in society are stage Blue and Orange, private property is necessary. Even if everyone was stage Green private property would still be necessary.

One of the problems with Marxism from day 1 was that its ideals were way too advanced for the people's development level. Maybe if 80% of the population was Turquiose then you could get by without private property, but that will take another 1000 years to reach. And even that is questionable.

As long as the political quiz is not some scam to harvest user data. Be careful with those. Lots of scammy quizzes on the net. Don't be a sucker for them.

[Leo Gura]

@Husseinisdoingfine If you want to see the next natural stage of evolution of society, Northern Europe is the place to look. They have done it already.

America is not going to magically leap-frog Northern Europe with some utopian system. First we must reach Northern European levels, then we could innovate further. Northern Europe still has private property. And even Northern Europe is facing nationalist backlash. So they are struggling just to maintain stage Green without falling back down to Orange or Blue.

What we need is to focus on is raising the bulk of the populace from Blue & Orange into Green. That is very practical and we know we can do that. We know what that looks like. It is not communism or even full socialism. It is social democracy a la Northern Europe.

[Apparition of Jack]

@Husseinisdoingfine That's not so much a problem of Social Democracy but rather just financial imperialism, which exists regardless of whether a Social Democratic party is in power in any wealthy country. You could argue all day that Social Democracy upholds this imperialism, but I'd argue that such a take is too unnuanced and doesn't take into account the very real cultural shifts that Social Democracy facilitates that then gives wealthy governments the willpower to cut down on unequal financial agreements between wealthy and poor countries.

I understand that the very existence of financial imperialism causes a lot of heartbreak for code Green people, and I truly understand why, but blanket, Tier-1 solutions of something like "we need a communist revolution to end global inequality" just aren't the solution, unfortunately.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Apparition of Jack

[LfcCharlie4]

15 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

A) There is no real discussion with such people because they are just parroting Marxist dogma. They are not contemplating anything about reality for themselves. They thing Marxism is best, period.

B) They have no clue what Love is or means.

C) Society is always moving towards greater Love, regardless of what Marxists say or do. Some "Great Awakening" is not needed. And of course these Marxist have no clue how significant even one individual awakening is.

D) Humans do change. Spiral Dynamics shows that humans can be at very different levels of development. And even way beyond Spiral Dynamics. A human cannot be considered independently of its culture and society. So changing society changes humans and vice versa.

E) Don't forget that Marxists adopt scientific materialism as a dogma, so their understanding of politics and reality cannot go very high. They have no clue how central consciousness is to the development of society and humans. To dismiss this by making fun of chakras is just ignorant. Total strawman.

F) All their "logic" is self-biased. Logic has nothing to do with truth.

G) Individual growth is crucial for developing an advanced society. This is not mutually exclusive with also developing social infrastructure. Both are crucial.

H) These Marxists are so reactionary to captialism that their whole worldview gets distorted and biased by their judgments and hatreds, unable to see some of the important necessities of capitalism, and that there is more than just capitalism vs socialism to consider, there are meta issues at stake, and that capitalism and socialism are not really polar opposites or enemies.

Ideological retorts will not do here. One must deeply contemplate the nature of all things for oneself. Marxism's fundamental flaw is its materialist metaphysics and epistemology. That puts a glass ceiling on how high it can go. And it has a structual problem of being an ideology. It is not conscious of itself and incapable of deep self-reflection.

A monkey with a Marxist ideology is still a monkey. And dangerously ignorant.

Thank you Leo! This is an awesome response, the kind of thing I was hoping for. Marxist's are ridiculously idealistic but don't believe they are, which is the funny thing. 

Like you said they are all materialists, and this limits their growth hugely! 

I was most shocked they diminished individual growth which seems ridiculous to me, basically saying is responsible for individuals growth is a quite frankly stupid way to look at the world, without individuals growth society would never develop lol.

Yep, it's a shame modern politics is SO divisive but you kind of have to be in today's society, it's like in soap operas you need ridiculously petty ridiculous drama as that's what appeals to the masses instead of an amazing story. Imagine if we all worked together...sounding a bit like John Lennon now 

It's kind of like they see the issues in Capitalism but fail to see that communism isn't a complete answer, actually one guy on the thread kind of said that, and he was instantly downvoted, I'm not sure how hard it is to realize that abolishing private property isn't the answer to all of the world's issues. And, like you said Marxism is basically capped at Tier 1 thinking due to it's fundamental materialist stance. 

However, like any point of view, there are certain grains of truth to be found within it, and clearly capitalism has gotten out of hand since Marx's days, shame everyone still views his solutions as the be-all and end-all. Guess you could argue he's like a doctor that can't properly prescribe meditation, he noticed the issue the patient was having and how it would only get worse, but could never find a real long term solution, so any medicine he gave them just didn't work!

[LfcCharlie4]

@Apparition of Jack Yep, Green is like a bleeding heart, they protest without actually coming up for solutions. But, we need protest at this time as the majority are so oblivious to what's going on, someone has to point it out. 

But it takes development to tier 2 t actually start to think about progressive and long term systematic solutions to the issues we face, therefore, personal growth is essential to our development as a society. Imagine if more Green/Yellow people were in our mainstream political debates, and on our TV's and Movies instead of what we see now- it's slowly changing...

[Leo Gura]

18 minutes ago, LfcCharlie4 said:

there are certain grains of truth to be found within it, and clearly capitalism has gotten out of hand

Absolutely

Marxism is important to study, but the trick is not to become ideological about it. Which means holding it loosely, not getting attached to it, not creating an identity out of it.

The problem with people in those Reddits is that they make identities out of the ideologies they defend. That always becomes limiting and problematic.

Marxism can be as toxic as capitalism when adopted as an ideology. Because the common structural problem is lack of self-consciousness. See my video: Content vs Structure. Marxists think they are superior on content grounds, while structurally it is still an ideology like capitalism.

[Brenzo2]

26 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

@Leo Gura Minor question, but do and should conscious people engage in politics?

If someone realizes that they are god, and everything is good, even the bad, than why does society need improving if it is already perfect? 

And by engage in politics, I mean acts as little as reading news articles and (most importantly) voting.

If enlightened people and God are so above our petty human problems (As Leo describes human problems in 'total awakening live in real time'), than why should enlightened people care about the pettiness of politics? Also, it's all just survival.

Watch the video by Leo on the topic, one of his recent ones, Conscious Politics. 

Im pretty sure relatively speaking politics is of great interest to conscious individuals. If we can even say such a thing as individuals. 

Edited February 7, 2020 by Brenzo2

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

@Leo Gura Minor question, but do and should conscious people engage in politics?

There are no shoulds. Do as you like.

But I recommend you engage in politics to the extent that you vote regularly and you have a sense of which politicians to vote for -- which are most conscious. Otherwise devils will rule over you.

Quote

If someone realizes that they are god, and everything is good, even the bad, than why does society need improving if it is already perfect? 

Of course it doesn't need improving from the absolute perspective. But there is also the relative perspective of survival. And there is also the perspective of God wanting to help all beings awaken. For God to awaken more beings it needs to create a more conscious society.

Quote

If enlightened people and God are so above our petty human problems (As Leo describes human problems in 'total awakening live in real time'), than why should enlightened people care about the pettiness of politics? Also, it's all just survival.

Survival has a deeper component to it than merely survival. The ultimate point of survival is so that an organism can live long enough to awaken.

The entire movement of the material world is basically there so God can share its love with finite beings. And politics is part of that Grand Design.

[Dylan Page]

@Leo Gura Why do you value voting? I see it as a waste of time. My vote is droplet in the sea of others. My impact is effectively 0.

[Leo Gura]

47 minutes ago, Dylan Page said:

@Leo Gura Why do you value voting? I see it as a waste of time. My vote is droplet in the sea of others. My impact is effectively 0.

I have explained this in the past.

Without voting, you will have tyranny. Do you value being enslaved? Are you so lazy and cynical that you would rather be enslaved than spend 1 hour every 2 years voting?

[Derek White]

41 minutes ago, Dylan Page said:

@Leo Gura Why do you value voting? I see it as a waste of time. My vote is droplet in the sea of others. My impact is effectively 0.

This question is already answered by him on a different thread if I'm not wrong.

Try using the search function for once, or contemplate or google.

I mean... I feel your question is below the forum standards.

[Dylan Page]

@Derek White @Leo Gura I’ve thought about this a lot. This has nothing to do with cynicism or laziness, nor do I believe it is a bad question. I’m calling into question the effectiveness of democracy and the individuals true impact on his/her government. I apologize if I am being repetitive as I have indeed made a thread on this in the past, but after a 2 hour argument with a friend on the matter, I really struggle to understand the reasoning behind even getting up to go vote. I truly do understand that it’s “not a big deal”, you know, it’s only 1 hour every 2 years. My problem is, that my vote literally is meaningless. No election is ever won by a single vote and given this information, I see no reason to try to, excuse the metaphor, create a tsunami by splashing the ocean waves with my hands. It makes no sense. Sure I can try to get other people to vote as well, but they can have the same logic that I am talking about above. I am starting the believe that voting should be made mandatory to eliminate this individual worth problem, as it is the healthiest way to continue our democracy. Again, no mal-intent here. I really am just trying to understand.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Dylan Page

[Derek White]

3 minutes ago, Dylan Page said:

No election is ever won by a single vote

Are you sure about that?  

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/59873/10-elections-decided-one-vote-or-less

8 minutes ago, Dylan Page said:

I’m calling into question the effectiveness of democracy and the individuals true impact on his/her government

Jesus was an a individual, he had tremendous impact on the world. So did so many other individuals. 

Every little action you take has enormous consequences. Contemplate that. 

Common man, you could have answered that on your own.

[LfcCharlie4]

@Husseinisdoingfine  Full Awakening= Embrace of Duality as the Buddha Planet. You will not be above human and grow wings and go chill with Moses and the other angels. You will still have a human experience, and like Leo said if you want to survive, engage in survival, politics is a part of that. 

I get what you mean though, so much of politics is just mudslinging and very divisive, I would say focus on your awakening if you aren't awake, of course if you're in the US there's no harm educating yourself, but the most important part of this work is awakening and PD, if you currently are a hardcore seeker and have lots of PD to do, I'd focus on that predominantly. 

[Dylan Page]

You are not fully understanding what I am talking about and are being condescending. I am done talking to you. Don’t give me the common man bullshit. You either talk to me with respect or not at all. @Derek White

[Leo Gura]

30 minutes ago, Dylan Page said:

@Derek White @Leo Gura I really struggle to understand the reasoning behind even getting up to go vote.

Lol

You should go spend a few months in North Korea.

Nothing helps the mind understand a thing like some old fashioned tyranny.

You don't know what you got until you've lost it.

[Dylan Page]

@Leo Gura man I’m not saying I want tyranny lol. It’s hard to explain this via my phone but just know I’m not a fuckin masochist who likes being whipped around. I don’t want tyranny, I still value democracy, I still care about government. I’m just saying it’s not effective at the moment in its current state. 

[Leo Gura]

@Dylan Page And I'm saying you're taking it for granted.

It's like you have a favorite dog and you're asking us to tell you why you should feed it rather than letting it starve to death.

In this era of Trump and nationalist movements all over the world you still haven't learned how fragile democracy is???

You are definitely asking for a whipping.