The problem is fundamental. In putting it evolutionary Nature is confronting herself with a critical choice which must one day be solved if humanity is to arrive or even to survive.
Ulrich, do you have any good sources (written preferred; video if not) explain how it is that so many otherwise sane Americans (I'm including those who are vociferously anti Trump) have accepted the delusional views of those like John Mearsheimer, Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges and others who only see the war as a "US proxy war against Russia," instigated by "expanding NATO" and thus "threatening" (!!!!) Russia?
I'm reading a very interesting book by Bradley Onishi, "Preparing for War," which traces the white Christian nationalist movement back to the 1950s. I have known quite a bit about this history for many years but he fills in so many details on how they took over the Republican party and how this all led to Trump.
Heather Cox Richardson brilliantly traces this same movement back to the myth of cowboy individualism which arose after the American Civil War, which wealthy industrialists used to hook poor white southerners to their cause - telling them that any government attempt to help black people was "socialism" (amazingly, the same message that Reagan resurrected, himself presenting the image of the "lone cowboy").
Richardson points out the irony of this as almost the entire life of the cowboy involved support from various government sources, just as a large percentage of MAGA Trump supporters rely on disability compensation and other forms of government aid to survive.
Jan and I are reading "The Human Cycle" out loud, and have been struck by how much the present conflict in the United States resembles the dying out of the mid 20th century "Liberal consensus" - which sees to reflect the "Individual" stage Sri Aurobindo described, and an upsurge of a rather barbarous form of the Conventional stage of humanity.
Various forms of vital (false) subjectivism are emerging in intellectual circles (a lot of the obsession these days with reviving Bergson and Whitehead) and we also have Bernardo Kastrup as an interesting representative of mental subjectivism.
I see hints of genuine "True" subjectivism, a recognition at least faint of the influence of the psychic on the surface nature - in some movements (Dan Siegel's "MindUp" schools have some rather remarkable examples in this regard), and even more distant sense of the vastness, infinity, boundlessness of the Self (a very few of the best neo-Vedantic "non dual" teachers - perhaps best manifest in Swami Medhananda, a monk of the Ramakrishna order who may be the first and only monk of that order writing regularly on the connection between Sri aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna. We've been following his now 40+ videos on the Gita, using "Essays on the Gita" as the main text. Very interesting stuff!
The report appears to miss the enormous skill and reach of (and money invested by) Russian propaganda, as well as (understandably) the psychology that makes Mearsheimer and Co tick.
There appears to be a correlation between the views of people of Mearsheimer's ilk and distance from Ukraine. There is a well-known gradient of opinions from the Baltic states, Poland, and Finland at one end to the most distant European state, Portugal. Well, the US is even more distant, and facts are more readily replaced by fictions the farther you are from the facts.
Maybe it all boils down to how terrified people are by Russia's mythological might and nuclear threats. The Ukrainians are the least terrified. Also, their history is very different from the cold-war history during which the now senile US talking heads grew up.
I think the thing I find most .... not quite sure what word to use - shocking, horrifying, mind bending,
is the extent to which Ashramites have picked up on some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories.
Of all of them, Sraddhalu's endless berating of "the World State" (which he seems to equate with just about any attempt to create global cooperation - an astonishingly Trump-like view) is the most disturbing and confounding.
On a much more positive note, I saw this in your new idealist article:
"The idea of an inner evolution, of a constant self-transcending of Nature and of her mental protagonist, goes far beyond the biological concept and our allegedly scientific understanding of evolution. All Nature is one substance, one consciousness, one delight of being passing through a Houdiniesque cycle of involution or self-concealment and evolution or self-finding. Our mind represents “the conscious part of the movement of Nature in this progressive self-realisation and self-fulfilment of the values and potentialities of her human way of living.” Obviously, we still have a long way to go before the secret Knowledge and Will is brought to the surface, the deeper meaning of unity is fully grasped, and a perfect spiritual and psychological unity is integrally realized. Yet progress is being made. The ideal which ought to be kept in view is moving closer into view, boosting confidence that we are on the right road."
Jan and I will be working with LaGrace Center (an integral yoga center in South Carolina). We will be given a "Mighty Network" (an excellent platform for organizing online material and having conversations around it) with an aim to present integral yoga in relation to modern political and economic events, modern science (particularly psychology), the evolution of consciousness as revealed by neurobiology and other means, etc
We're looking for a "story" to integrate all this. The "Story of evolution" seems the key but we're not sure how to present it.
The worldwide obsession with AI as somehow transcending human intelligence seems like it might be an accessible way to start - presenting side by side the delusion of AI as transcending the mind in contrast to an INNER evolution involving 'self transcending'.
Anyway, suggestions are welcome if you feel inspired:>))
Excellent passages on the evolutionary crisis.
Ulrich, do you have any good sources (written preferred; video if not) explain how it is that so many otherwise sane Americans (I'm including those who are vociferously anti Trump) have accepted the delusional views of those like John Mearsheimer, Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges and others who only see the war as a "US proxy war against Russia," instigated by "expanding NATO" and thus "threatening" (!!!!) Russia?
I'm reading a very interesting book by Bradley Onishi, "Preparing for War," which traces the white Christian nationalist movement back to the 1950s. I have known quite a bit about this history for many years but he fills in so many details on how they took over the Republican party and how this all led to Trump.
Heather Cox Richardson brilliantly traces this same movement back to the myth of cowboy individualism which arose after the American Civil War, which wealthy industrialists used to hook poor white southerners to their cause - telling them that any government attempt to help black people was "socialism" (amazingly, the same message that Reagan resurrected, himself presenting the image of the "lone cowboy").
Richardson points out the irony of this as almost the entire life of the cowboy involved support from various government sources, just as a large percentage of MAGA Trump supporters rely on disability compensation and other forms of government aid to survive.
Jan and I are reading "The Human Cycle" out loud, and have been struck by how much the present conflict in the United States resembles the dying out of the mid 20th century "Liberal consensus" - which sees to reflect the "Individual" stage Sri Aurobindo described, and an upsurge of a rather barbarous form of the Conventional stage of humanity.
Various forms of vital (false) subjectivism are emerging in intellectual circles (a lot of the obsession these days with reviving Bergson and Whitehead) and we also have Bernardo Kastrup as an interesting representative of mental subjectivism.
I see hints of genuine "True" subjectivism, a recognition at least faint of the influence of the psychic on the surface nature - in some movements (Dan Siegel's "MindUp" schools have some rather remarkable examples in this regard), and even more distant sense of the vastness, infinity, boundlessness of the Self (a very few of the best neo-Vedantic "non dual" teachers - perhaps best manifest in Swami Medhananda, a monk of the Ramakrishna order who may be the first and only monk of that order writing regularly on the connection between Sri aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna. We've been following his now 40+ videos on the Gita, using "Essays on the Gita" as the main text. Very interesting stuff!
This guy always has interesting info: https://www.mind-war.com/p/waiting-for-smoke-jd-visits-the-pope — more later.
Fascinating. It DID dawn on me that it was quite creepy symbolism that the Pope died 12 hours after meeting with JD!
I posed your question (omitting qualifiers like sane and delusional) to Gemini (Research Mode). This is what I got: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w59QfcG4wRbLUSWGkiAUz8YVqH8Cf2jmkRc90b8q4Mo/edit?usp=sharing
The report appears to miss the enormous skill and reach of (and money invested by) Russian propaganda, as well as (understandably) the psychology that makes Mearsheimer and Co tick.
Chris Matthews appears to be puzzled by the same question in this recent exchange with Anne Applebaum: https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/hardball-with-chris-anne-applebaum
BTW I have quoted Onishi quite extensively in my post https://aurocafe.substack.com/p/christian-nationalism-for-dummies-c51
There appears to be a correlation between the views of people of Mearsheimer's ilk and distance from Ukraine. There is a well-known gradient of opinions from the Baltic states, Poland, and Finland at one end to the most distant European state, Portugal. Well, the US is even more distant, and facts are more readily replaced by fictions the farther you are from the facts.
Maybe it all boils down to how terrified people are by Russia's mythological might and nuclear threats. The Ukrainians are the least terrified. Also, their history is very different from the cold-war history during which the now senile US talking heads grew up.
There's an antidote to power-realism called neo-idealism. I've written about it here (with quotes from The Human Cycle): https://aurocafe.substack.com/p/the-new-idealism-one-more-step-on
Thanks for all these references!
I think the thing I find most .... not quite sure what word to use - shocking, horrifying, mind bending,
is the extent to which Ashramites have picked up on some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories.
Of all of them, Sraddhalu's endless berating of "the World State" (which he seems to equate with just about any attempt to create global cooperation - an astonishingly Trump-like view) is the most disturbing and confounding.
On a much more positive note, I saw this in your new idealist article:
"The idea of an inner evolution, of a constant self-transcending of Nature and of her mental protagonist, goes far beyond the biological concept and our allegedly scientific understanding of evolution. All Nature is one substance, one consciousness, one delight of being passing through a Houdiniesque cycle of involution or self-concealment and evolution or self-finding. Our mind represents “the conscious part of the movement of Nature in this progressive self-realisation and self-fulfilment of the values and potentialities of her human way of living.” Obviously, we still have a long way to go before the secret Knowledge and Will is brought to the surface, the deeper meaning of unity is fully grasped, and a perfect spiritual and psychological unity is integrally realized. Yet progress is being made. The ideal which ought to be kept in view is moving closer into view, boosting confidence that we are on the right road."
Jan and I will be working with LaGrace Center (an integral yoga center in South Carolina). We will be given a "Mighty Network" (an excellent platform for organizing online material and having conversations around it) with an aim to present integral yoga in relation to modern political and economic events, modern science (particularly psychology), the evolution of consciousness as revealed by neurobiology and other means, etc
We're looking for a "story" to integrate all this. The "Story of evolution" seems the key but we're not sure how to present it.
The worldwide obsession with AI as somehow transcending human intelligence seems like it might be an accessible way to start - presenting side by side the delusion of AI as transcending the mind in contrast to an INNER evolution involving 'self transcending'.
Anyway, suggestions are welcome if you feel inspired:>))
As to AI (Harari reads it as Alien Intelligence) you may want to take a look at this post: https://aurocafe.substack.com/p/information-networks-dung-beetles
I did two presentations at the LaGrace center, one on quantum mechanics and this one: https://aurocafe.substack.com/api/v1/file/8856c728-084a-4512-ab96-d4330abcdfc4.pdf
Wonderful. It sounds like Sraddhalu is working hard to present the very opposite view you're presenting!!
“For under the semblance of disorder, and sometimes of decay, each of their changes brought them nearer an object which they did not comprehend.”
(Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City, IV-1, 1864, p.225)