Listen to a reading of "Hard To Swallow Pills": ❖ You were born in the middle of the most sophisticated and expansive mass-scale perception management operation that has ever taken place. The news media is propaganda and schooling is designed to condition us to accept that propaganda.
"Noam Chomsky is not a radical and is in fact far too aligned with establishment power on far too many issues."
This one stands out, because it doesn't matter. He might be right on a few things, and wrong on many others. But it's not the purpose of Chomsky's life to live up to our standards of Radicalism, or share our Establishment enemies.
It's always going to be our responsibility to think for ourselves, and to monitor our own thinking & reactions, to see where we might be manipulating our own perceptions.
All that being said, Chomsky was more brilliant and rational when it came to his Language theories ; and his philosophical opinions e.g. about Free Will. In our quest to get a glimpse of the meaning of existence, he's one of the voices worth hearing.
He's not the enemy. We're our own enemy, if we treat him like a God.
Certainly our perceptions are shaped and sculpted for us before we even begin to realize something is very wrong. If god and the universe really hated us, and that's what you might conclude if you really listen to the Establishment, why would we live on a planet so beautiful we can't even imagine something more beautiful? Why do we have a thousand flavours and a whole rainbow of colours instead of a steady diet of blancmange and greyness? Music of every variety and for every taste? Dancing? Singing? Stars and sun and moon?
But as a child I was under the impression that everything was combat, a winner or loser proposition, and failing the most important test - not jumping through the hoop- had consequences no rational human being could, if they believed it, fully appreciate without going mad: Hell, unending.
It gave me the impression that something was very wrong: our basic ideas contradicted each other.
But I later understood that our fate has been traditionally and from the beginning of civilization, determined by a very small number of hypocritical and cruel people, and generally speaking, that is how they imposed their will and power over us. Not god's will or the universe's.
It's not predetermined or inevitable. Life was meant to be a beautiful and rewarding experience, even though relatively short. Most of the ugliness we experience does not originate in nature but in the twisted minds of the minority. We can change things, and the first step is to say no to the bullshit: it wasn't meant to be swallowed whole, or even piecemeal. No to poverty amidst endless spending on the war industry: no to endless war because it and the industry reinforce each other: no to worrying about meeting your family's basic need for shelter, food, healthcare and education, and being forced to choose which basic need you must forgo to meet another: no to police violence and gun violence, because order is given precedence over just law, and defending yourself even from imaginary danger is perceived as "order," and owning a gun in that objective is considered a basic right: no to turning a cheek or blind eye to corrupt politicians and war mongers, often incarnated in the same individual. It isn't cute or amusingly idiosyncratic.
We must demand change. We must demand actual democracy.
Maybe there's a world somewhere in the eleven dimensions where the best and wisest lead us. I'd love to go visit. The one we're currently in is an accelerated shitshow.
My last episode is The Lust Frontier: Disposable Dating & The Great Isolation. I'd say it starts the same way as yours, with just how fucked everything is, and ends in the same place too, how it's all going to work out beautifully. Really it is.
Admirable words but in reality we are led by narcissistic psychopaths who don’t even comprehend words like love, sharing, compassion, decent or doing the next right thing.
i saw it -- organic maturation of capitalism into global neoliberalism, giving birth to identity politics -- happening all around me 35 years ago. my whole adult life in fact. i read, thought, debated, argued, wrote, fought, and met some great souls and minds along the way. many were nobodies, some were "successful" people. will the dominant machine be defeated? when? how? the answers will be determined by what we do now and in every way we choose to live the day. i shall do whatever i can till the last breath i take.
That went from black pill to white pill in a hauntingly beautiful way.
What most people, who live on social media, forget is that the world isn't social media. People genuinely are kind. Thank you for this post.
"Noam Chomsky is not a radical and is in fact far too aligned with establishment power on far too many issues."
This one stands out, because it doesn't matter. He might be right on a few things, and wrong on many others. But it's not the purpose of Chomsky's life to live up to our standards of Radicalism, or share our Establishment enemies.
It's always going to be our responsibility to think for ourselves, and to monitor our own thinking & reactions, to see where we might be manipulating our own perceptions.
All that being said, Chomsky was more brilliant and rational when it came to his Language theories ; and his philosophical opinions e.g. about Free Will. In our quest to get a glimpse of the meaning of existence, he's one of the voices worth hearing.
He's not the enemy. We're our own enemy, if we treat him like a God.
Be patient. Everything comes to you at the right moment. Don't Interfere.
Certainly our perceptions are shaped and sculpted for us before we even begin to realize something is very wrong. If god and the universe really hated us, and that's what you might conclude if you really listen to the Establishment, why would we live on a planet so beautiful we can't even imagine something more beautiful? Why do we have a thousand flavours and a whole rainbow of colours instead of a steady diet of blancmange and greyness? Music of every variety and for every taste? Dancing? Singing? Stars and sun and moon?
But as a child I was under the impression that everything was combat, a winner or loser proposition, and failing the most important test - not jumping through the hoop- had consequences no rational human being could, if they believed it, fully appreciate without going mad: Hell, unending.
It gave me the impression that something was very wrong: our basic ideas contradicted each other.
But I later understood that our fate has been traditionally and from the beginning of civilization, determined by a very small number of hypocritical and cruel people, and generally speaking, that is how they imposed their will and power over us. Not god's will or the universe's.
It's not predetermined or inevitable. Life was meant to be a beautiful and rewarding experience, even though relatively short. Most of the ugliness we experience does not originate in nature but in the twisted minds of the minority. We can change things, and the first step is to say no to the bullshit: it wasn't meant to be swallowed whole, or even piecemeal. No to poverty amidst endless spending on the war industry: no to endless war because it and the industry reinforce each other: no to worrying about meeting your family's basic need for shelter, food, healthcare and education, and being forced to choose which basic need you must forgo to meet another: no to police violence and gun violence, because order is given precedence over just law, and defending yourself even from imaginary danger is perceived as "order," and owning a gun in that objective is considered a basic right: no to turning a cheek or blind eye to corrupt politicians and war mongers, often incarnated in the same individual. It isn't cute or amusingly idiosyncratic.
We must demand change. We must demand actual democracy.
Maybe there's a world somewhere in the eleven dimensions where the best and wisest lead us. I'd love to go visit. The one we're currently in is an accelerated shitshow.
Thank you Caitlin, I really needed that after not being able to go to a concert to see DakhaBrakha because of the BS around the pandemic.
Was that a slimy mushroom pill? Very insightful. :-)
Beautiful, Caitlin. So needed.
My last episode is The Lust Frontier: Disposable Dating & The Great Isolation. I'd say it starts the same way as yours, with just how fucked everything is, and ends in the same place too, how it's all going to work out beautifully. Really it is.
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-lust-frontier
beautiful
Admirable words but in reality we are led by narcissistic psychopaths who don’t even comprehend words like love, sharing, compassion, decent or doing the next right thing.
i saw it -- organic maturation of capitalism into global neoliberalism, giving birth to identity politics -- happening all around me 35 years ago. my whole adult life in fact. i read, thought, debated, argued, wrote, fought, and met some great souls and minds along the way. many were nobodies, some were "successful" people. will the dominant machine be defeated? when? how? the answers will be determined by what we do now and in every way we choose to live the day. i shall do whatever i can till the last breath i take.
Say what you want about Chomsky but at least he put ideas like the concept of manufactured consent into the forefront of things.
He may be imperfect but he’s certainly not the enemy!
Beautifully written.
but dont worry they are telling the truth about the scamdemic and those life saving vaxxines...blahahahaha
Goodness Caitlin that's a bit far out, bit in a really good way 😁👍