Hey gang:
Ken Wilber makes the connection between mainstream conservative values and
their more extreme and lethal counterparts in his "Integral Psychology". On
page 150 he says,
"Its unbelievably crude forms, such as Social Darwinism, are not just
lacking in compassion; much more sinister, this type of crass
"evolutionism", pressed into the hands of moral tyrants, would produce
exactly the type of ruinous and barbaric notions of the superman, the master
race, the coming human demi-gods, who would chillingly goose-step their way
into history, who would in fact inscribe their beliefs on the tortured flesh
of millions, would press their ideology into the gas chambers and let it all
be setttled there."
And on page 152, he echoes Pirsig's description of fascism as an
all-consuming glorification of the social level.
"Auschwitz is not the result of rationality. Auschwitz is the result of the
many products of rationality being used in irrational ways. Auschwits is
rationality hijacked by tribalism, by an ethnocentric mythology of blood and
soil and race... These are not rational desires by any definition of
rational; these are ethnocentric tribalisms commandeering the tools of
advanced consciousness and using them precisely for the lowest of the lowest
motives. Auschwitz is the endgame, not of reason, but of tribalism."
Conservatives tend to mistrust the United Nations precisely because it
supresses tribalism, nationalism and other social level impulses. This
mistrust goes hand in hand with an exaggerated patriotism. The UN is even
the hated object of conspiracy theories among the militia movement and
neo-Nazi types. The UN is a post-Victorian invention. Woodrow Wilson, WWI,
you know, when the earthquake began, when the hurricane hit. Its one of
those "freak fish". In terms of the conflict between social and intellectual
values, the folks at the UN are wearing the white hats. GWB's reluctance to
involve us with the UN, or any other international agreement, only shows the
degree to which he is a tribalists, to which he is ruled by social level
values. It doesn't mean he's stupid or evil, although that's true too, it
just means that in the course of our evolutionary development he's not
helping. He's behind the curve, even in these retro times. More than any
other feeling, he evokes embarrassment.
from an undisclosed location,
DMB
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