The Dangers Of Trumpism
By Leo Gura - February 14, 2018
I don’t like to get too political or too alarmist, but the reality is that if you believe in holism, you ultimately cannot separate politics from personal development. Being conscious also translates into being a good citizen and taking responsibility for the community in which you live.
These days people take government totally for granted. As if a well-functioning government is a right or a guarantee. It is not! Government is not a service. You are not entitled to any rights or any fair treatment whatsoever. The only reason we have well-functioning government today (if we do) is because high-consciousness people put a lot of blood, sweat, and thought into orchestrating and defending it. The default position is not good government. The default position is corruption, theft, gross inequality, abuse, egotism, and domination. Free democracy is a very precious and fragile thing. You should be very thankful that you live under such a regime, if you do.
It is no coincidence that the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers were also deeply involved with politics — because mankind is a social creature, and community affects consciousness ENORMOUSLY. Perhaps the best example of this was Marcus Aurelius — one of the best Roman Emperors who also happened to be deep Stoic philosopher. In his work, The Meditations, you can clearly see how his level of consciousness affected his governing. Compare the thoughtfulness of someone like Marcus Aurelius and Obama vs Caligula and Trump.
So with that justification out of the way, I want to present a couple of really good videos about the troubling situation happening with the Trump presidency. This isn’t your typical partisan mudslinging contest. This is really wise analysis from hard-nosed and experienced thinkers which you rarely hear on TV or Facebook.
Please note that I am not sharing these videos to convince you to become a liberal. Whatever your political leanings are, that’s okay. What’s being pointed at here is a meta-issue, beyond partisanship. I want you to start to think of how it would look if you started applying principles like consciousness to your relationship with your government. If you are not American, there are still lessons to be learned here. This really isn’t about Trump per se, but about psychology, ideology, consciousness, groupthink, dogma, epistemology, tribalism, critical thinking, self-deception, ego, ecology, materialism, etc.
Bonus videos from Noam Chomsky:
P.S. If you use these videos to become ideological, or to entrench deeper in your political position, you’ve missed the point entirely. Go meta!
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