From time immemorial, authorities (rulers and clerics) have done everything to increase wealth to enjoy the power extracted from that. Summarized as a class of people not bothered by any form of conscience.
According to the saying "As people's wealth trickles up (to the authorities) while their (psycho/sociopathic) behavior trickles down", corruption becomes the uncrowned emperor.
This mechanism is in full swing today - think arms industry, medical racketeering (over half of Western population has at least one chronic disease) and the "designed to addict" junk food industry.
Hence religions became tools for enrichment as well, whether buying "forgiveness" via confession, next lives for a more meritorious life etc. and to the extent that for laymen the original intent of practices (wellbeing instead of (useless) wealth) became lost.
The originals had in common that "the world" of every organism is experienced in a subject-object relationship and is exclusive for that organism (because 2 organisms can't fill the same space). The discovery of ancient "accidental" yogis, mystics and equivalents was that the subject can exist without such a relationship IOW singular. Philosophically a can of worms, which was circumvented by sayings like "the Tao that can be discussed isn't the Tao".
The individual discovery that "subject" exists without subject-object relationship is accompanied by a sense of wellbeing that can't be attained in any other way so makes realizers far less vulnerable to authorities.
How many 20th centuries do we need to convince us that humanity has a death wish? Apparently more than one.
Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents gives us insight into how fascist dictatorship, once it starts, transforms into a death cult in a predictable sequence. The sociologist Ernest Becker adds a codicil in his posthumous meditation Escape from Evil, in which he notes that humans happily clutch at the lie that we can compel others to experience our deaths and our sufferings for us. That unconscious mechanism, Becker notes, gives rise to human evil in all its cruel and self-defeating manifestations.
Unless interrupted by conscious courage, humanity's unconscious periodically escapes the prison of normalcy. When it does, lots of us die, physically or otherwise.
As the western Roman Empire declined in the 5th century CE the religious community (what became the medieval church) provided an organized response. Part of that response was monasticism.
You say, ‘Heal yourself . . We need a pause. Turn off the TV.’ This is something that the monastics did. Yet they remained involved with the world and eventually became rich and powerful, thus corrupting their ideals.
Somehow, we need to withdraw from the world, yet remain deeply involved in the transition to whatever is coming. Already, on a small scale, we are seeing a revival of the monastic movement. My guess is that this revival will continue.
Exactly. A point that I wanted to make -- but I didn't because the post would have been too long. The Christian monastic movement eventually succeeded in reining in the absolute power of emperors -- it happened with the "Digna Vox" edict enacted by Galla Placidia (officially by her son) in 429 AD.
• 400 CE. Augustine of Hippo and other Church Fathers work out a theology for their time. It boils down to the two cities. The City of Man (in their case the Roman Empire) always decays. The City of God is permanent. Therefore, we need to figure out the theology of the City of God because only it is important.
• 520 CE Benedict of Nursia develops a sensible ‘Rule’ for monastic life. That Rule remains with us today.
• 580 CE Gregory the Great (pope from 579 to 585) adds financial and political muscle to the new organizations.
It seems to me that we are still trying to work out a theology for our Age of Limits. Actually, we need an Augustine for our times. So far, I have not seen such a person. He or she will provide an intellectual framework for what a City of God may look like in our times. There is no shortage of people who point out the failings of our City of Man. But very few people try to formulate what a good society may look like say a hundred years from now.
Does it not amount to bury our head in the sand and hoping that fanatics will never come to our door? Hoping that by forgetting the world, the world will forget us?
On the contrary, in such a world, I believe the "to live happily, let's live hidden" principle might quickly reach its own limits...
I dunno. I think the parallel here is that Jews have historically been the bogeyman - they were blamed for the black plague amongst other things. Whats really happening is the Limits to Growth crescendo. Almost nobody will recognise this, and many will do what we've always done - blame The Jews.
Witch hunting and persecution of the jews are both special cases because they were aimed at basically helpless victims and at the same time very profitable businesses.
The conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran follow another pattern: They are between violent contrahents who are able of attack and defense and the destructions are probably bigger than the (local) profits (the profits of Raytheon and General Dynamics are another story). Its the same pattern as the wars between France and Germany, Russia and Poland, etc. etc.
Question is why these wars: According to Bouthoul ("L'infanticide différé") and Gunnar Heinsohn ("War index") and confirmed by Huntington ("Clash of civilisations") men are programmed to become belligerent if there is overpopulation. The aggressive mechanisms sit in the reptile brain and we share them with fish and rats.
That population density can influence a collective is also illustrated by the example of locusts who even change their phenotype under conditions of overpopulation.
One mechanism operative in man is the law of "social identity theory": The virtues of the own group are exaggerated as are the defects of the outgroup until you see the devil on the other side. This happened between Germany and France or between the Western world and the communist block in the last century. Its now happening between Israel and Iran, or between Russia and Europe. Interestingly enough this behaviour is Oxytocin controlled and the following aggression is Testosterone supported.
What happend between Russia and the West or Israel and Iran is that the hormone-controlled reptile brains got unhinged and then we call that geopolitics.
"men are programmed to become belligerent if there is overpopulation."
Yes, some population stats for everyone:
Population of Gaza:
1700AD: 10,000 (probably maximum sustainable carrying capacity)
1995: 650,000
2023: 2.3 million
Population of Israel:
1995: 4.5 million
2023: 9 million
Both sides appear to have religious based policies encouraging maximum family sizes.
If those population trends had continued without limits both would be around 18 million by 2050. The Gaza-Israel conflict was inevitable just due to population pressures, left longer it would have been Gaza invading Israel. Utterly unsustainable population growth on both sides, it is not going to end well.
Half the Israeli population lives in Tel Aviv. One 1MT ground burst nuke could wipe out half the population of Israel, no wonder they're scared shitless of Iran, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi, etc of having nukes. Not that that justifies the madness of Netanyahu and his clan.
The only good news in this is that climate change will be the great leveller, by 2050 if not sooner much of the Levant (as well as parts of Iran) will be unliveable in on scale. The Israeli settler programme might take on a new meaning, although how they will twist their religious dogma to justify moving Israel to Siberia or Finland will be interesting.
Thanks. For 2050 Statista prognosticates population Gaza 3 Mio, Israel 13 Mio. But I agree with your assessment of climate.
However Ukraine and Russia have low birth rates and no overpopulation problem. But then Putin did not intend a real war, only a neocolonial police operation which he still calls "special military operation". Both sides are hampered by limited manpower (or flesh to grind), but Ukraine more so.
Fertility is declining for both populations, fortunately. We may imagine a future when both populations will decline. Perhaps rapidly decline, especially as a result of global warming.
From time immemorial, authorities (rulers and clerics) have done everything to increase wealth to enjoy the power extracted from that. Summarized as a class of people not bothered by any form of conscience.
According to the saying "As people's wealth trickles up (to the authorities) while their (psycho/sociopathic) behavior trickles down", corruption becomes the uncrowned emperor.
This mechanism is in full swing today - think arms industry, medical racketeering (over half of Western population has at least one chronic disease) and the "designed to addict" junk food industry.
Hence religions became tools for enrichment as well, whether buying "forgiveness" via confession, next lives for a more meritorious life etc. and to the extent that for laymen the original intent of practices (wellbeing instead of (useless) wealth) became lost.
The originals had in common that "the world" of every organism is experienced in a subject-object relationship and is exclusive for that organism (because 2 organisms can't fill the same space). The discovery of ancient "accidental" yogis, mystics and equivalents was that the subject can exist without such a relationship IOW singular. Philosophically a can of worms, which was circumvented by sayings like "the Tao that can be discussed isn't the Tao".
The individual discovery that "subject" exists without subject-object relationship is accompanied by a sense of wellbeing that can't be attained in any other way so makes realizers far less vulnerable to authorities.
How many 20th centuries do we need to convince us that humanity has a death wish? Apparently more than one.
Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents gives us insight into how fascist dictatorship, once it starts, transforms into a death cult in a predictable sequence. The sociologist Ernest Becker adds a codicil in his posthumous meditation Escape from Evil, in which he notes that humans happily clutch at the lie that we can compel others to experience our deaths and our sufferings for us. That unconscious mechanism, Becker notes, gives rise to human evil in all its cruel and self-defeating manifestations.
Unless interrupted by conscious courage, humanity's unconscious periodically escapes the prison of normalcy. When it does, lots of us die, physically or otherwise.
As the western Roman Empire declined in the 5th century CE the religious community (what became the medieval church) provided an organized response. Part of that response was monasticism.
You say, ‘Heal yourself . . We need a pause. Turn off the TV.’ This is something that the monastics did. Yet they remained involved with the world and eventually became rich and powerful, thus corrupting their ideals.
Somehow, we need to withdraw from the world, yet remain deeply involved in the transition to whatever is coming. Already, on a small scale, we are seeing a revival of the monastic movement. My guess is that this revival will continue.
Exactly. A point that I wanted to make -- but I didn't because the post would have been too long. The Christian monastic movement eventually succeeded in reining in the absolute power of emperors -- it happened with the "Digna Vox" edict enacted by Galla Placidia (officially by her son) in 429 AD.
Please provide reference material.
My rough working timeline is:
• 400 CE. Augustine of Hippo and other Church Fathers work out a theology for their time. It boils down to the two cities. The City of Man (in their case the Roman Empire) always decays. The City of God is permanent. Therefore, we need to figure out the theology of the City of God because only it is important.
• 520 CE Benedict of Nursia develops a sensible ‘Rule’ for monastic life. That Rule remains with us today.
• 580 CE Gregory the Great (pope from 579 to 585) adds financial and political muscle to the new organizations.
It seems to me that we are still trying to work out a theology for our Age of Limits. Actually, we need an Augustine for our times. So far, I have not seen such a person. He or she will provide an intellectual framework for what a City of God may look like in our times. There is no shortage of people who point out the failings of our City of Man. But very few people try to formulate what a good society may look like say a hundred years from now.
https://www.dignavox.it/
I'm highly doubtful…
Does it not amount to bury our head in the sand and hoping that fanatics will never come to our door? Hoping that by forgetting the world, the world will forget us?
On the contrary, in such a world, I believe the "to live happily, let's live hidden" principle might quickly reach its own limits...
I dunno. I think the parallel here is that Jews have historically been the bogeyman - they were blamed for the black plague amongst other things. Whats really happening is the Limits to Growth crescendo. Almost nobody will recognise this, and many will do what we've always done - blame The Jews.
Unfortunately, that might happen
Witch hunting and persecution of the jews are both special cases because they were aimed at basically helpless victims and at the same time very profitable businesses.
The conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran follow another pattern: They are between violent contrahents who are able of attack and defense and the destructions are probably bigger than the (local) profits (the profits of Raytheon and General Dynamics are another story). Its the same pattern as the wars between France and Germany, Russia and Poland, etc. etc.
Question is why these wars: According to Bouthoul ("L'infanticide différé") and Gunnar Heinsohn ("War index") and confirmed by Huntington ("Clash of civilisations") men are programmed to become belligerent if there is overpopulation. The aggressive mechanisms sit in the reptile brain and we share them with fish and rats.
That population density can influence a collective is also illustrated by the example of locusts who even change their phenotype under conditions of overpopulation.
One mechanism operative in man is the law of "social identity theory": The virtues of the own group are exaggerated as are the defects of the outgroup until you see the devil on the other side. This happened between Germany and France or between the Western world and the communist block in the last century. Its now happening between Israel and Iran, or between Russia and Europe. Interestingly enough this behaviour is Oxytocin controlled and the following aggression is Testosterone supported.
What happend between Russia and the West or Israel and Iran is that the hormone-controlled reptile brains got unhinged and then we call that geopolitics.
"men are programmed to become belligerent if there is overpopulation."
Yes, some population stats for everyone:
Population of Gaza:
1700AD: 10,000 (probably maximum sustainable carrying capacity)
1995: 650,000
2023: 2.3 million
Population of Israel:
1995: 4.5 million
2023: 9 million
Both sides appear to have religious based policies encouraging maximum family sizes.
If those population trends had continued without limits both would be around 18 million by 2050. The Gaza-Israel conflict was inevitable just due to population pressures, left longer it would have been Gaza invading Israel. Utterly unsustainable population growth on both sides, it is not going to end well.
Half the Israeli population lives in Tel Aviv. One 1MT ground burst nuke could wipe out half the population of Israel, no wonder they're scared shitless of Iran, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi, etc of having nukes. Not that that justifies the madness of Netanyahu and his clan.
The only good news in this is that climate change will be the great leveller, by 2050 if not sooner much of the Levant (as well as parts of Iran) will be unliveable in on scale. The Israeli settler programme might take on a new meaning, although how they will twist their religious dogma to justify moving Israel to Siberia or Finland will be interesting.
Thanks. For 2050 Statista prognosticates population Gaza 3 Mio, Israel 13 Mio. But I agree with your assessment of climate.
However Ukraine and Russia have low birth rates and no overpopulation problem. But then Putin did not intend a real war, only a neocolonial police operation which he still calls "special military operation". Both sides are hampered by limited manpower (or flesh to grind), but Ukraine more so.
Fertility is declining for both populations, fortunately. We may imagine a future when both populations will decline. Perhaps rapidly decline, especially as a result of global warming.
Not in africa nor pakistan egypt etc
It is declining everywhere, but some countries are ahead of the others in the decline
so no 9.8 billion people in 2050 like earth4all model showed ?