After a lifetime of throwing myself against the barbed wire of this mad militarized society & its weaponry from hell, I've come to diagnose the root sickness as: corruption. Everything that first seems hopeful & transforming becomes, over a period of subversion, corrupted. One can blame it on money, greed-based economic obsession, or one can blame it on generations of spiritually damaged psychopaths & their cults of domination. The last millennium is a repetition of invasions of militarized cults claiming to save the world while destroying it, scorching, cutting down, over-running, murdering while spouting every kind of extreme claims of godhood & supremacy.
You are right, we are approaching some end-game, every day praying it's not the nuclear winter hell we've been dreading for 50 years now. The corruption cults are in a frenzy, you can see it in how Putin is trying to convert the world by bombing, murder & terror. Every day we in America can't escape this king of corruption & his mind-numbing abuse, this mobster monster holding our society & its future under a cloud of deception & delusion. How to break the corruption? Hard to know, see where Navalny is right now? It could be a lot of us in 2 years... so we have only one avenue: turn out in huge numbers: https://vote.org
We saw Economist Hazel Henderson speak in 1987. At THAT time, she said that if we didn't change our ways, then we would be past the point of no return in 15 to 20 years. It feels like we are well past that doomsday date. Our only hope is a collective awakening. I've said this often and it's nice to see it in print on your blog.
Bless you for bringing up Hazel Henderson--she is one of my heroines! This was her last speech prior to her passing in May of 2022: https://youtu.be/cLqVDM5RO_0
Such a remarkable woman. She inspired us to do what we can do as human beings to bring awareness to this global plight. I'm sorry to hear of her passing. Thank you for sharing that link! Another amazing woman who is on the forefront of trying to prevent nuclear disaster - Helen Caldicott.
Thanks for pasting that video. Brilliant woman. I’m sad to say this is the first time I’ve seen her. It all feels so overwhelming. How will we ever climb out of this massive hole we have dug for humanity?
I do "mental dot plots" when I am trying to understand something: mental sketches of range, amplitude, bearing, acceleration . When I do this for the United States, I see Yeats' "Second Coming":
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
It's that first line, "The best lack all conviction . . ", that troubles me most. We are not fighting. In fact we do not realize that we are in a fight that we must win or we perish.
So well said, Professor Lee. From what I've seen, however, you are talking about how and what we need to change in your area and quite a few others are talking about these same issues (from their perspective, of course) in their areas. This is happening more and more, while more and more of the people propping up the old, unsustainable, stupid, and dangerous system(s) are falling. I don't think it will be too long before we see some real changes. You are leading the way by informing us as to the deep changes and awakening that we need to undertake. Thank you.
What wonderful comments. I am happy you are addressing the mindset that underlies the gargantuan problems facing this country and the planet. I despair of us reversing the suicidal road we are on, one that Oppenheimer and Einstein warned us about. Look at one of the two major political parties in which the reality of climate change is denied and the madness of not facing the pandemic of gun violence. It is only when enough members of the public begin to protest the madness that we might do something to reverse course. I fear it will not happen.
Stephan, I agree that the situation looks dire. I'm concerned about two groups of people who obstruct and prevent progress on the climate crisis, gun violence, warfare, toxins choking the oceans, etc. One group consists of people in decision-making positions who are short-sighted, self-centered, and likely sociopathic, meaning that they have no conscience and no capacity to care about the negative impact they have on others. People on the sociopathic spectrum make up about 4% of the population according to several researchers, but they are over-represented in politics and big business. The other people who concern me are the authoritarian followers who don't recognize the dangerousness of the sociopaths, keeping them in political office and not challenging businesses like the fossil fuel industry, weapons manufacturers, and other polluting industries.
The big business, right-wing sociopaths began organizing in the 1970's because the peace and love, anti-war, civil rights and women's movements scared them. They formed think tanks funded by reactionary billionaires like the Koch brothers and gradually bought off politicians, and attracted media moguls like Rupert Murdoch. They saturated the air-waves with hate-radio and brainwashed at least 1/3 of the voting public. But our side has nothing comparable yet.
I'm not a billionaire and I can't buy up media markets or fund think tanks, but I can support progressive radio and TV, podcasts and print media. I'd like us to find Yeats's "passionate intensity" and focus it like a shaming spotlight on the sociopaths who are obstructing progress, like the Koch brothers and others in polluting industries and also use it in defense of democracies everywhere. I believe that if we support women's groups, young, racially diverse progressives of all genders who are running for office, and indigenous peoples who know how to live sustainably, and not allow the megalomaniacal sociopaths to absorb all of our attention, we'll be better off. :)
Dr Lee, it's a great fallacy to put faith in public & people. It's a great fallacy to put faith in public conscience, that they will somehow become enlightened & the world will then transform.
The world needs to be lead by highly competent, visionary & scientifically minded people. Not the present political cretins voted by the public or by the people. People have just become pawns in political games & they collectively have intellect of 5 year old. Public is manipulated by politicians like Trump, Cruz, DeSantis, Modi, Orban, BoJo, Bolsanaro, Dueterte etc. People don't have any intellect, they only have emotions. (Democrats or liberal politicians are better but they are mediocre at best).
The world will come to an end if it's left to the fate of present political system. We need political reforms. Reforms that directly put competent scientists, engineers, psychologists, philosophers, historians, economists, technocrats etc into decisions making positions of power. The present political system has run its course - the direct Democracy was good for village rural societies - where leaders had decide on how many goats will tribes keep or how much wheat will be grown. The world has gone infinitely more complex and challenges (in foreign policy, social policy, climate, sustainability, defense etc etc) has evolved with it. Now present society is captured by Pathocratic manipulators who easily dupe public by lies & deception. The world cannot survive in this.
Dr Fromm warned us time and time again of the utter madness we perpetrate against each other. Our insatiable and compulsive need to spend, consume, and covet what others have is driven by the machinations and dictates of capitalism. As long as we continue to subject ourselves to it, it will bring about an existential crisis so severe, that it will turn us all against each other. Fromm said that
"The average man today obtains his sense of identity from his belonging to a nation, rather than from his being a “son of man.” His objectivity, that is, his reason, is warped by this fixation. He judges the “stranger” with different criteria than the members of his own clan. His feelings toward the stranger are equally warped. Those who are not “familiar” by bonds of blood and soil (expressed by common language, customs, food, songs, etc.) are looked upon with suspicion, and paranoid delusions about them can spring up at the slightest provocation. This incestuous fixation not only poisons the relationship of the individual to the stranger, but to the members of his own clan and to himself. The person who has not freed himself from the ties to blood and soil is not yet fully born as a human being; his capacity for love and reason are crippled; he does not experience himself nor his fellow man in their—and his own—human reality" Erich Fromm "The Sane Society"
"For as long as nations are composed of people whose main motivation is having and greed, they cannot help waging war. They necessarily covet what another nation has, and attempt to get what they want by war, economic pressure, or threats. They will use these procedures against weaker nations, first of all, and form alliances that are stronger than the nation that is to be attacked. Even if it has only a reasonable chance to win, a nation will wage war, not because it suffers economically, but because the desire to have more and to conquer is deeply ingrained in the social character"
Erich Fromm "To Have or To Be?"
"Man’s brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men lives still in the Stone Age. The majority of men have not yet acquired the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which gives meaning to life except man himself. Man represses the irrational passions of destructiveness, hate, envy, revenge; he worships power, money, the sovereign state, the nation; while he pays lip service to the teachings of the great spiritual leaders of the human race, those of Buddha, the prophets, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed—he has transformed these teachings into a jungle of superstition and idol-worship. How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical over-maturity and emotional backwardness?"
Amen. ... and I think the opposite of "woke" is terrorist, or brain dead, or "flunked the 3rd grade" ...
After a lifetime of throwing myself against the barbed wire of this mad militarized society & its weaponry from hell, I've come to diagnose the root sickness as: corruption. Everything that first seems hopeful & transforming becomes, over a period of subversion, corrupted. One can blame it on money, greed-based economic obsession, or one can blame it on generations of spiritually damaged psychopaths & their cults of domination. The last millennium is a repetition of invasions of militarized cults claiming to save the world while destroying it, scorching, cutting down, over-running, murdering while spouting every kind of extreme claims of godhood & supremacy.
You are right, we are approaching some end-game, every day praying it's not the nuclear winter hell we've been dreading for 50 years now. The corruption cults are in a frenzy, you can see it in how Putin is trying to convert the world by bombing, murder & terror. Every day we in America can't escape this king of corruption & his mind-numbing abuse, this mobster monster holding our society & its future under a cloud of deception & delusion. How to break the corruption? Hard to know, see where Navalny is right now? It could be a lot of us in 2 years... so we have only one avenue: turn out in huge numbers: https://vote.org
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul Bellow
To my mind, the next step is to practice listening to the upset and despair and identify and address our common interests.
There are only 2 worthy questions,
What is real?
What is next?
We saw Economist Hazel Henderson speak in 1987. At THAT time, she said that if we didn't change our ways, then we would be past the point of no return in 15 to 20 years. It feels like we are well past that doomsday date. Our only hope is a collective awakening. I've said this often and it's nice to see it in print on your blog.
Bless you for bringing up Hazel Henderson--she is one of my heroines! This was her last speech prior to her passing in May of 2022: https://youtu.be/cLqVDM5RO_0
Such a remarkable woman. She inspired us to do what we can do as human beings to bring awareness to this global plight. I'm sorry to hear of her passing. Thank you for sharing that link! Another amazing woman who is on the forefront of trying to prevent nuclear disaster - Helen Caldicott.
Thanks for pasting that video. Brilliant woman. I’m sad to say this is the first time I’ve seen her. It all feels so overwhelming. How will we ever climb out of this massive hole we have dug for humanity?
I do "mental dot plots" when I am trying to understand something: mental sketches of range, amplitude, bearing, acceleration . When I do this for the United States, I see Yeats' "Second Coming":
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
It's that first line, "The best lack all conviction . . ", that troubles me most. We are not fighting. In fact we do not realize that we are in a fight that we must win or we perish.
So well said, Professor Lee. From what I've seen, however, you are talking about how and what we need to change in your area and quite a few others are talking about these same issues (from their perspective, of course) in their areas. This is happening more and more, while more and more of the people propping up the old, unsustainable, stupid, and dangerous system(s) are falling. I don't think it will be too long before we see some real changes. You are leading the way by informing us as to the deep changes and awakening that we need to undertake. Thank you.
What wonderful comments. I am happy you are addressing the mindset that underlies the gargantuan problems facing this country and the planet. I despair of us reversing the suicidal road we are on, one that Oppenheimer and Einstein warned us about. Look at one of the two major political parties in which the reality of climate change is denied and the madness of not facing the pandemic of gun violence. It is only when enough members of the public begin to protest the madness that we might do something to reverse course. I fear it will not happen.
Stephan, I agree that the situation looks dire. I'm concerned about two groups of people who obstruct and prevent progress on the climate crisis, gun violence, warfare, toxins choking the oceans, etc. One group consists of people in decision-making positions who are short-sighted, self-centered, and likely sociopathic, meaning that they have no conscience and no capacity to care about the negative impact they have on others. People on the sociopathic spectrum make up about 4% of the population according to several researchers, but they are over-represented in politics and big business. The other people who concern me are the authoritarian followers who don't recognize the dangerousness of the sociopaths, keeping them in political office and not challenging businesses like the fossil fuel industry, weapons manufacturers, and other polluting industries.
The big business, right-wing sociopaths began organizing in the 1970's because the peace and love, anti-war, civil rights and women's movements scared them. They formed think tanks funded by reactionary billionaires like the Koch brothers and gradually bought off politicians, and attracted media moguls like Rupert Murdoch. They saturated the air-waves with hate-radio and brainwashed at least 1/3 of the voting public. But our side has nothing comparable yet.
I'm not a billionaire and I can't buy up media markets or fund think tanks, but I can support progressive radio and TV, podcasts and print media. I'd like us to find Yeats's "passionate intensity" and focus it like a shaming spotlight on the sociopaths who are obstructing progress, like the Koch brothers and others in polluting industries and also use it in defense of democracies everywhere. I believe that if we support women's groups, young, racially diverse progressives of all genders who are running for office, and indigenous peoples who know how to live sustainably, and not allow the megalomaniacal sociopaths to absorb all of our attention, we'll be better off. :)
Thank you for your writing on the subject.
Dr Lee, it's a great fallacy to put faith in public & people. It's a great fallacy to put faith in public conscience, that they will somehow become enlightened & the world will then transform.
The world needs to be lead by highly competent, visionary & scientifically minded people. Not the present political cretins voted by the public or by the people. People have just become pawns in political games & they collectively have intellect of 5 year old. Public is manipulated by politicians like Trump, Cruz, DeSantis, Modi, Orban, BoJo, Bolsanaro, Dueterte etc. People don't have any intellect, they only have emotions. (Democrats or liberal politicians are better but they are mediocre at best).
The world will come to an end if it's left to the fate of present political system. We need political reforms. Reforms that directly put competent scientists, engineers, psychologists, philosophers, historians, economists, technocrats etc into decisions making positions of power. The present political system has run its course - the direct Democracy was good for village rural societies - where leaders had decide on how many goats will tribes keep or how much wheat will be grown. The world has gone infinitely more complex and challenges (in foreign policy, social policy, climate, sustainability, defense etc etc) has evolved with it. Now present society is captured by Pathocratic manipulators who easily dupe public by lies & deception. The world cannot survive in this.
Dr Fromm warned us time and time again of the utter madness we perpetrate against each other. Our insatiable and compulsive need to spend, consume, and covet what others have is driven by the machinations and dictates of capitalism. As long as we continue to subject ourselves to it, it will bring about an existential crisis so severe, that it will turn us all against each other. Fromm said that
"The average man today obtains his sense of identity from his belonging to a nation, rather than from his being a “son of man.” His objectivity, that is, his reason, is warped by this fixation. He judges the “stranger” with different criteria than the members of his own clan. His feelings toward the stranger are equally warped. Those who are not “familiar” by bonds of blood and soil (expressed by common language, customs, food, songs, etc.) are looked upon with suspicion, and paranoid delusions about them can spring up at the slightest provocation. This incestuous fixation not only poisons the relationship of the individual to the stranger, but to the members of his own clan and to himself. The person who has not freed himself from the ties to blood and soil is not yet fully born as a human being; his capacity for love and reason are crippled; he does not experience himself nor his fellow man in their—and his own—human reality" Erich Fromm "The Sane Society"
"For as long as nations are composed of people whose main motivation is having and greed, they cannot help waging war. They necessarily covet what another nation has, and attempt to get what they want by war, economic pressure, or threats. They will use these procedures against weaker nations, first of all, and form alliances that are stronger than the nation that is to be attacked. Even if it has only a reasonable chance to win, a nation will wage war, not because it suffers economically, but because the desire to have more and to conquer is deeply ingrained in the social character"
Erich Fromm "To Have or To Be?"
"Man’s brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men lives still in the Stone Age. The majority of men have not yet acquired the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which gives meaning to life except man himself. Man represses the irrational passions of destructiveness, hate, envy, revenge; he worships power, money, the sovereign state, the nation; while he pays lip service to the teachings of the great spiritual leaders of the human race, those of Buddha, the prophets, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed—he has transformed these teachings into a jungle of superstition and idol-worship. How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical over-maturity and emotional backwardness?"
Erich Fromm "Escape from Freedom"