What Is Buddhism, and What Is Non-Dualism?

And What Are They Not?

Open letter to Russell Brand, regarding a video (linked below) titled,

Dualism vs Monism EXPLAINED!

Russell, who the hell are you interviewing?! The guy is clearly talking out of his ass. (Sorry for my directness and occasional bluntness. I was heavily influenced by Chomsky, Trungpa and Thoreau, and can’t seem to help it.) He says, “I’m a firm dualist….That’s a very Buddhist view.” No, sorry, flatly 180 degrees wrong.

In Buddhist philosophy or spirituality, the aspect of our own true nature, which is also the true nature of being, which is Wisdom Mind, or Universal Mind, or infinite wisdom, is depicted in visual form as Manjushri. Manjushri is shown seated on a lotus flower, holding a flaming sword in his right hand – which never harms any living being, but is used only to cut through illusions – and holds in his left hand a sacred text. That text is the Prajnaparamita Sutra, also known as the Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom. That tells us everything we need to know about the heart of Buddhist teachings. And the teaching is expressly, non-dualist.

Buddhism is expressly and explicitly non-dualist, as is expressed in the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom, and as is expressed in the Hriydaya Sutra, the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, commonly known as the Heart Sutra – which is recited daily in Zen monasteries across the world – which states, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form.”

Then, after radically misrepresenting Buddhist philosophy, your guest goes on to misrepresent Plato as a dualist as well. Plotinus certainly understood Plato better than most modern commentators, because he was the last of the ancient philosophers (leaving out Augustine, since he was not a serious philosopher); and because he was a student of Plato’s philosophy, who said that he had nothing to add to Plato, but was simply clarifying Plato’s message – the core of which is: the many are One; the One manifests as the many. Again, your guest is flatly and radically wrong, and is misrepresenting yet another philosophical school of thought.

Then he completely contradicts himself. First he said that Buddhism is a dualistic philosophy. Then he says, “The Eastern religions, they go one step further by arguing that there is no matter at all, that mind is the only thing that exists.” Wrong again. First he says Buddhism is dualistic, then he says it is monist. Do you realize that these two philosophical views are utter opposites of each other?

So, which is it, buddy? Is Buddhism a dualistic philosophy, as you say first, or is it a monist philosophy, as you say later? Clearly he doesn’t have any idea what he is talking about. A first year philosophy professor would have to give him a D-, at best, for both grossly misunderstanding two major schools of philosophy, and worse, for flatly contradicting himself. (YouTube sets extraordinarily low standards.)

Then he goes on to enlighten us on the philosophy of science, with similar results. He says, again with the certitude of Moses coming down from the mountain, with the word of God written on stone, “You can go with science, which is materialistic, which says that everything is physical.” And again, he is 100% wrong. There was this recent event in science, dude, maybe you heard about it, a new discovery, a radically new approach and understanding of science, called, “quantum physics”. It’s a brand new scientific paradigm, just discovered about a century past, which radically undermined and in fact shattered the old paradigm (see Thomas Kuhn’s, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) of Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic, atomistic, materialist-reductionism. But then again, you can’t be expected to keep up with everything. After all, quantum physics only arrived on the scene 100-some years ago.

Then he goes back to misinterpreting and misrepresenting Buddhism – which he says, states that, “everything is mind. There’s no such thing as a physical reality.” Wrong again. Again, he is contradicting himself: first saying Buddhism is dualist, then saying it is monist. And secondly, he is flatly wrong in saying Buddhism is a mind-only (idealist) philosophy (eg: Berkeley). In actual fact, the Buddhist teachings explicitly say that the Mind-Only School is a close approximation to the truth, but is subtly mistaken. The Dalai Lama, or any other qualified Lama or Zen master, can correct him on that. Nagarjuna, the preeminent philosopher of Buddhist philosophy, makes it explicitly clear that dualistic views are mistaken, and so too are nihilistic and philosophical idealist views also mistaken – the true nature of being and reality being non-duality. If he wants to argue with the Dalai Lama or Nagarjuna, I say, good luck. He is clearly out of his depth, and is in way over his head.

As the Mahayana texts state clearly, “Nirvana and samsara are one.” How much more explicitly non-dualist can it be? Buddhism therefore, is not about exiting, leaving, or escaping the world – it is about waking up, and being fully aware of the true and profoundly rich nature of being.

The way the guest here presents dualism, as interactionism or interdependence between mind and body, or consciousness and matter, is actually one of the few accurate things he has to say. Interactionism is a more intelligent view than materialist monism, or materialist reductionism, as it is more commonly called, but it is still not the Perennial Philosophy of non-dualism, which has been expressed by all the great mystics, East and West, throughout the ages, nor is it the view of Eastern philosophy, and nor is it, to be specific, the view of Buddhism, Taoism, or the Advaita Vedanta teachings of the yogis. Again, other than accurately depicting what interactionism is, he is pretty much 100% wrong on everything he has talked about here.

Ken Wilber – someone who is an actual scholar, and who does not talk out of his ass, put it well, when he said that Western philosophy for 5,000 years has been a battle between what he called “the ascenders and the descenders”. (Ken Wilber is out of his depth and deeply mistaken in terms of political philosophy, but otherwise is a simply stellar polymath and truly brilliant philosopher and scholar – one of the dozen or so greatest scholars of the past 100 years, along with Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Joanna Macy, Rianne Eisler, Murry Bookchin, Erich Fromm, Mathew Fox, Thomas Merton, Einstein and Noam Chomsky.)

The ascenders view the world, nature, the body, and life on Earth, as unreal, illusory, or less real and less important, than the transcendent realm of pure spirit of consciousness. (The Earth is a waiting room, and everything in this world is inferior and also depraved at its core, and heaven is what we are waiting for., while we suffer through this dismal, sordid, pathetic material plane. World-hating dualists, is what they are.) They are dualists, in essence, who devalue, or occasionally deny the existence, of one pole: devaluing the imminent, the Earthly and the material, while valuing the spiritual and the transcendent. The descenders are the materialists, who want to devalue, or more commonly deny, the existence of the spiritual, the transcendent, or of consciousness or spirit. (They are materialist-reductionists, and epiphenomenalists, clinging to a worldview that is a century out of date, and thus are anti-empirical and unscientific, at least since the discovery of quantum physics.)

The real truth, the true nature of phenomena, being and reality, as Ken Wilber rightly points out, is what the great mystics have all said, and which quantum physics is now corroborating: which is non-duality. But this guest of Russell’s is no scholar – either of religion, of philosophy, or of science.

I mean, he seems an intelligent lad, but he is a novice, clearly, speaking as if he has the pontificate, and is delivering the Sermon on the Mount, the Answer of all answers, when he says definitively and with an air of utter authority, what Buddhism, Plato, Eastern religions, and science are all about. And he got it wrong on all four counts.

Russell Brand, by contrast, your approach is refreshingly humble, yet filled with a very legitimate and indeed important spirit of dignity and confidence – and with humility and confidence in balance, as they should be, and need to be, if we have any good sense, as you clearly do. Your guest, by contrast, is filled with presumption, and what the ancient Greeks would call, hubris. Or flatulence and hot air, to be more direct.

People should bear in mind that it was only recently, in the long view of history, that we humans knew, with full and absolute, unquestionable certainty, that the world is flat, and the Earth is the centre of the universe. Everyone knew these things to be true, and unquestionably true. And everyone was wrong. In fact, when people dared to question the holy dogma of the Earth being the centre of the universe, they were met with the Inquisition, and the serious threat of being burned at the stake for heresy.

How similar to the world we live in today.

Another thing to bear in mind is that, in truth, you are more likely to be struck by lightning seven times in a single life, than to find truly reliable information on youtube, the internet in general, or the media, or for that matter, from academia – to say nothing of pop culture icons, such as your very presumptuous guest.

In fact, unless what you are hearing, reading or watching comes directly – and I mean directly – from a Buddhist, Taoist or yogic master, the odds are that the information being presented is partially or wholly mistaken; and more than likely, not a little mistaken, but more commonly, radically mistaken, if not flatly either propaganda or delusion. People need to learn to have far more discernment, and to separate the wheat from the chaff – and the drivel, pap, dross and dung, from the gems.

I listen to what Russell Brand has to say, quite often, because he is generally very lucid, as well as good-hearted and highly intelligent, and highly articulate, not to mention often witty, and always has something interesting to say. His guests, however, are very hit and miss, at best; and sometimes, I’m sorry to say, simply full of shit.

Russell, when you said, “I feel that we are experiencing the limitations of our current models”, you were bang on. Yes, we have been in the midst of a scientific revolution, a shift in paradigms, or world-view, which began over a century ago. (These things take time – and a century, in human history, is but a blink.) Moreover, we have been in the midst of a cultural awakening of humanity since the late 1950s (the Beat poets, for example, along with the Civil Rights movement), which blossomed in the 1960s, and which did not die out, but has quietly grown and accelerated over the past 50-60 years, and continues to accelerate and to grow world-wide.

I would offer what Leibniz called The Perennial Philosophy – which Aldous Huxley wrote about very well – as a major clue as to where we should look for a better understanding of what reality really actually is. And the Perennial Philosophy echoes the recent findings in quantum physics, which show that the supposed material building blocks of all matter, do not exist – at least, not in the way we had imagined. (“Where is the matter? No matter. Where is the mind? Nevermind.”)

Quantum physics shows us that subatomic particles are not particles – which was a misnomer we put on them, a label we put on them, while we were still steeped in the deluded world-view of Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic materialist-reductionism. Nor are they local. And non-local means non-dual. Subatomic particles are condensations or areas of concentration within energy fields – and as Einstein said, “We should stop talking about particles and fields. The field is everything.” Or as Einstein also said, getting right to the heart of the matter: “The perception of a division between subject and object is a kind of optical delusion.” Or as Shrodinger put it – and he was of course the god-father of quantum mathematics: “The number of minds in the universe is one.” (See Einstein’s star pupil and protégé, David Bohm, for further elaboration.)

Again, non-dualism is the heart of the perennial philosophy, the heart of the mystics’ teachings, East and West (see Meister Eckhart, for example), the heart of Buddhist, Taoist and yogic teachings, and the heart of what quantum physics and modern science is now confirming.

“Science” – and it must be placed in quotation marks, since there are few who are truly empirical, and hence, few who are truly scientific – is the slow man in the race; but is beginning to catch up, despite the foot-dragging of the pseudo-empirical, quasi-scientific majority of “scientists”, who, like Dark Age priests, cling to the old Newtonian-Cartesian materialist paradigm like it was the Holy Grail itself.

Western philosophy, as is widely acknowledged, is at an impasse. I would say a cul de sac is a better description. Academic Western philosophy, and most of what passes for “intellectual culture” alternates between the nihilist morass of polysyllabic post-modernist psychobabble, and the equally nihilistic myopia of stridently dogmatic materialist flatlander anti-science. We need to go back to fundamentals, retrace our steps, and re-think and re-examine our first principles and basic assumptions. We got off on the wrong track with Descartes’ dualism, 400 years ago, and with Newton’s mechanistic materialism, and with a largely unconscious assumption of certitude, which Stephen Toulmin unearths in his important work, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, and which, to a frightening and very real, and very large degree, threw us back into the dogmatic quasi-religious, pseudo-science of the Dark Ages. Uncover and examine these three grossly delusional assumptions which underpin the modern world, and we will be getting somewhere. Then only, will the fog begin to clear.

Until then, we have three main options in the West: post-modernist nihilism; materialist nihilism; and pop culture pap – all of which have the merit and the intellectual rigour of a dung ball. It is time to think more critically, and to take a fresh look at things. Then we will experience a new Renaissance – which is, by the way, emerging now, despite and maybe because of the darkness of the times – and not before.

Overcoming the absurd and grotesque hubris and supreme arrogance of the modern Western world, and rediscovering a little true humility and open-mindedness, would do wonders as well, and is absolutely imperative and essential. As Bertrand Russell said, we will have to allow the East into our thoughts, and on an equal footing. And we must allow the global South, as well, into our thoughts, and also on an equal footing. And further, we must overcome this grandiose smugness, which silently or sometimes aloud proclaims, foolishly, that we have nothing to learn from the ancients, from the “primitive” indigenous peoples of the world, from the medieval world, or from the first Renaissance. What assumptions we make – and what darkness we live in, as a result. When we broaden and deepen our perspective in these ways, then sparks will fly, and the new Renaissance will be secure, and will truly and rapidly blossom, to the great and profound benefit of all.

J. Todd Ring,
March 13, 2021

For a scholarly perspective on Buddhism and non-dualism, Eastern philosophy, and the philosophy of science – and not a gross misrepresentation of them, as was presented here – see:

Choosing Reality – Allan Wallace

World As Lover, World As Self – Joanna Macy

The Hero With A Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell

The Perennial Philosophy – Aldous Huxley

The Way of Zen – Alan Watts

Tao: The Watercourse Way – Alan Watts

Psychotherapy East and West – Alan Watts

The Holographic Universe – Michael Talbot

Mysticism and The New Physics – Michael Talbot

Dreamtime and Inner Space – Holgar Kalweit

The Tao Te Ching – Jane English translation only

The Gospel of Thomas – Marvin Meyers translation only

The Heart Sutra – with commentary by Thich Nat Hahn

The Prajnaparamita Sutra – see Lex Hixon’s, The Mother of the Buddhas

The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-neng – Shambhala Classics edition

The Uttaratantra – see Buddha Nature: The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra

And anything and everything by the Dalai Lama, Chogyam Trungpa,

or my own teachers, Lama Zopa, Lama Tharchin and Kirti Tsenchab Rinpoche

And to this short list of seminal, core texts, I would humbly, and frankly, offer my own work, as an overview of philosophy, within a broad historical and global perspective, and within the context of sociology, political-economy, culture and ecology, and as a vision for the way ahead: Enlightened Democracy, and, The People vs The Elite. Both are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble now.

My sincere apologies to your guest, Russell, but a person cannot grossly misrepresent Buddhism and Eastern philosophy without being called and corrected on it. He needs to study far more before speaking with such an air of authority. It is inappropriate, grossly misleading, and frankly juvenile.

Conspiracy Theories, History and Templars, Oh my

Here is an open letter in response to the podcast linked below. It bears relevance to far more than just a single podcast, which you do jot have to listen to in order to gain value from this short piece, so read on.

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Very interesting stuff.

I liked the show very much – a good discussion, all in all. A few points, however:

I. I would avoid using the term “conspiracy theory”, since it is essentially meaningless, and worse, whatever meaning it has, is simply to imply that a certain view or theory is not credible or one that you personally believe to be accurate. Why not simply use the term “theory” – that would be more neutral, and then you can go on to use logic and evidence to support or refute it. That would be empirical and scholarly. Every time the term “conspiracy theory” is used, however, all recourse to logic or evidence is discarded, because the theory in question is presumed in advance to be false. The term “conspiracy theory” is therefore anti-intellectual, unscholarly, anti-science and anti-empirical. Please drop it.

2. Remember that myth does not mean a lie, untruth, illusion or falsehood. Be precise. Myth means a narrative. Myths can be accurate or inaccurate, honest or deceitful, sincere or manipulative propaganda (ie. Nazi mythology and ideology), literal or more often metaphorical, or some combination of the above. But myth itself means precisely a narrative, and not an untruth or an illusion, to repeat. See Joseph Campbell, the leading scholar on world mythology.)

3. You have proved nothing. Don’t be flippant. Have fun, keep the humour in, but don’t be flippant. You said the allegations against the Templars made by the King of France were disproven by the fact that Pope Clement absolved the Templars of all accusations, but you earlier noted that other popes had grievously erred, including Pope Boniface (not “bon-i-face”), who pronounced himself Caesar. Unless you assume all popes to be infallible, the jury remains out as to whether the Templars were corrupted or not.

4. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”, does not mean that the enemy of my enemy is infallible. If the King of France was in the wrong, and another power-monger, that does not mean his perceived enemies, the Templars, must therefore be virtuous and holy. Or in contemporary terms, if Trump said up, you do not have to automatically say down.

5. You overlooked an important point: the Templars had become so vastly rich during the Crusades that they not only became the bankers of Europe, but the King of France was deeply in debt to them. That was another motive for his attack on them. And it also raises questions about their supposed virtue if they were both monks vowed to poverty and the richest bankers in Europe.

Fascinating subject, but let’s be careful about leaping to conclusions when the history is so murky. You acknowledged that the history is unclear, but still fell into ungrounded and unsupported assumptions.

As I say, a well done show, all in all, and with a good-natured and articulate young posse to present it. These thoughts, I hope, can make it even better. I will check out your future shows. And thank you.

And to everyone else, I say, as always, think for yourself – question everything.

JTR,

March 12, 2021

Boethius, Stoicism and The Consolation of Philosophy

While I would recommend Boethius, and the Consolation of Philosophy, to all, I would not recommend Stoicism to anyone, for two reasons:

1. It encourages a banishment of feeling and emotion, and an unfeeling indifference to both pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow – a kind of psychic numbness, which, I would say, is a foolish and weak-minded response to life’s problems. Better by far is to feel, and feel deeply, and instead of banishing or repressing feeling and emotion, learn how, as the Buddhists and Taoists have shown, to master one’s own mind, and to be able to find, and ultimately, to maintain, inner calm and peace under any circumstances.

(You can slay the dragon, which has been the typical response in the West, as the grand master of world mythology, Joseph Campbell has said, or alternately, you can, as in the Eastern tradition, and frequently also in the mystical traditions of East and West alike, learn how to tame it, and to ride it. Guess which response is more skillful.)

Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Jain, Indigenous, or secular approaches which emphasize clarity, calm, courage and compassion, in the face of adversity, and under all circumstances, are all, equally superior, by far, to that quagmire of the soul and rotting bog of the mind which is classical or modern Stoicism.

But, if you enjoy being a numbed and complacent, deaf, dumb and mute, obedient doormat, then the Stoics, or the Confucians, who are their Eastern counterpart, just might be for you.

2. Stoicism encourages indifference, apathy and complacency with regards to the affairs of the world, and in that, it encourages people to quietly know their place, to obey, conform, and shut up. Again, this is a weak-minded response to life’s problems.

Far better, is to take the approach of Liberation Theology, Buddhism, Taoism, or any spiritual or philosophical path which emphasizes wisdom, compassion, and an engagement in the world as an expression of compassionate action – with an inner fortitude that comes from not placing one’s faith in the ever changing and ever-fickle winds of circumstance, chance and fate.

But then again, I would hold that Boethius’ philosophy, while it has some clear correspondents or parallels with Stoicism, does not so neatly fit into the camp of Stoic philosophy.

Regardless, whether I am right or wrong, I still love Boethius, and the Consolation of Philosophy; and I would say, that if it is read in the spirit which I have described here – one, not of bland repression of all feeling, nor of blind and dumb conformity, apathy, complacency or obedience to authority, but a spirit of universal compassion and love which is at the same time imbued by a transcendent/imminent presence of mind and inner calm abiding, then Boethius is not only relevant today, but extremely important, and in fact, highly liberating.

J. Todd Ring,
January 31, 2021

Medieval Society – Then and Now

“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” ― Adam Smith

“You’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.” – John Lennon

Great short video, linked below, but the view of medieval peasant life is too one-sided – as is typical. Oh the smugness of modern society.

Medieval peasants had little freedom, and were bonded to the landowner class. But it cannot be overstated how profoundly impoverished modern society and culture have become, by comparison. The norm of modern society has become a deep alienation from others, from nature, and from ourselves. That, in short, leaves us as TS Eliot described: The Hollow Men. Bells and baubles, trinkets and gadgets, virtual death by glut of entertainment, and a mountain of consumer goods, can never remotely compensate for this profound, soul-vacating loss, and the resulting, crippling alienation from all that is truly real, and most valuable.

Freedom was the one thing we had going for us in the modern world, and now, we are rapidly losing that. We have both progressed from the medieval age, and regressed – and it would be smug and flippant foolishness to proclaim with any assurance that the gains have been greater than the losses.

I would say the losses have been greater. And now that we are entering a neo-feudal era, ruled by the super-rich, and a Brave New World, we are not only poorer, in important ways, than medieval peasants, but we are entering a dark age, and a gulag society. Re-read Huxley, Orwell, and Thoreau. We need to re-think everything now, and carefully.

We pride ourselves in the modern world on being clever, sophisticated, and civilized, but the reality is quite different. The modern world is based in extreme and growing inequality, servitude, domination and elite rule, pillage and plunder, and was founded on genocide, slavery, conquest, war, mass murder, looting and mass theft, and above all, on empire and class warfare. What do we have to pride ourselves on? The preeminent trait of the modern world is hubris; and as the ancient Greeks knew, hubris always leads to downfall – and that is precisely where we are heading, and with all speed.

There is, of course, much to pride ourselves on, and many positive traits in the modern world; but it is also a fact, and a far more important one to realize, that we urgently need both a renewed confidence, and a renewed humility and open-mindedness, and willingness to question our most sacred and dogmatic beliefs. Without this, we have no chance of altering our present course, which is a dark age of Orwellian dystopia, which we have already now entered, followed by extinction and collapse. Fortunately, an awakening, a new renaissance, has already begun. And it is certainly none too soon.

J. Todd Ring,
January 14, 2021

Medieval Towns – Timelines.tv
https://youtu.be/rXx6DzdJWxk via @YouTube

The Herd of Independent Minds | Noam Chomsky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYlI6vHFD0o

Surviving the 21st Century by Professor Noam Chomsky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJtfWZGxnGI

Noam Chomsky – Propaganda and Control of the Public Mind
https://open.spotify.com/embed/artist/5NEnjDZdPKESN9J7NoPmdz

Michael Parenti – The Haves Want To Have It All
https://open.spotify.com/track/7FDQz2llfo648aNbKzkdG2?si=-wuP2AVSQFaiKnVeMZPeMw

Michael Parenti – Distorted Personalities
https://open.spotify.com/track/72TwUxVWjtkTXVxcOCMQxP?si=pfGUBrrLTVaXywq7KNevGw

We created Al Qaeda / ISIS …| Hillary Clinton Confession
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJI_AlmwEJw

Whitney Webb, Twitter: Forbes article on Bill Gates’ Take-Over of US Farmland
https://t.co/wejBNefIBF?amp=1

Techno-Tyranny: How the US National Security State Is Using Coronavirus To Fulfill An Orwellian Vision, by Whitney Webb
https://citizentruth.org/techno-tyranny-how-the-us-national-security-state-is-using-coronavirus-to-fulfill-an-orwellian-vision/

Further Reading:

Noam Chomsky – Year 501: The Conquest Continues, Necessary Illusions, and, Class Warfare

Ronald Wright – Stolen Continents, and, A Short History of Progress

Rianne Eisler – The Chalice and The Blade

Murray Bookchin – The Ecology of Freedom

Erich Fromm – Escape From Freedom, and, The Pathology of Normalcy

Aldous Huxley – Brave New World, and, Brave New World Revisited

John Perkins – Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Naomi Klein – The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Wolf – The End of America

Henry David Thoreau – Walden, and, On Civil Disobedience

and my own first two published books:

Enlightened Democracy, and, The People vs The Elite

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Run to the Hills

Iron Maiden

White man came across the sea
He brought us pain and misery
He killed our tribes, he killed our creed
He took our game for his own need

We fought him hard, we fought him well
Out on the plains we gave him hell
But many came, too much for Cree
Oh, will we ever be set free?

Riding through dust clouds and barren wastes
Galloping hard on the plains
Chasing the redskins back to their holes
Fighting them at their own game
Murder for freedom the stab in the back
Women and children are cowards, attack

Run to the hills
Run for your lives
Run to the hills
Run for your lives

Soldier blue in the barren wastes
Hunting and killing’s a game
Raping the women and wasting the men
The only good Indians are tame
Selling them whiskey and taking their gold
Enslaving the young and destroying the old

Run to the hills
Run for your lives
Run to the hills
Run for your lives

Yeah
Ah, ah, ah, ah

Run to the hills
Run for your lives
Run to the hills
Run for your lives
Run to the hills
Run for your lives
Run to the hills
Run for your lives

Source: LyricFind Songwriters: Stephen Percy Harris

Iron Maiden – Run To The Hills – YouTube

Savage

Judas Priest

Who gives you the right to come here and tell me
I have to leave this place my home
To you it’s a jungle, to me it’s a kingdom
Where my people are free there to roam
Born with the stars we are happy and peaceful
‘Til now we were left undisturbed
But you rupture the forests our gardens
And fill them with filth from your cities unheard

Savage, who is savage?
Leave your morals, stake your claim
Savage, you are savage
Modern man can take the blame

You poisoned my tribe with civilized progress
Baptizing our blood with disease
You christened our bodies with sadness and suffering
Saying then that your god is well-pleased
What have we done to deserve such injustice
Explain to us please if you can
But you can’t, no you can’t, we can see it in your eyes
Of us both who’s the primitive man

Savage, who is savage?
Leave your morals, stake your claim
Savage, you are savage
Modern man can take the blame

You poisoned my tribe with civilized progress
Baptizing our blood with disease
You christened our bodies with sadness and suffering
Saying then that your god is well-pleased
What have we done to deserve such injustice
Explain to us please if you can
But you can’t, no you can’t, we can see it in your eyes
Of us both who’s the primitive man

Savage, savage
Savage, savage
(Who’s the savage?) Modern man
(Who’s the savage?) Modern man

Source: LyricFind Songwriters: Robert Halford / Glenn Raymond Tipton

Judas Priest Savage – YouTube

Babylon System

Bob Marley and the Wailers

We refuse to be
What you wanted us to be
We are what we are
That’s the way it’s going to be, if you don’t know
You can’t educate I
For no equal opportunity (talkin’ ’bout my freedom)
Talkin’ ’bout my freedom
People freedom and liberty!

Yeah, we’ve been trodded on the winepress much too long
Rebel, rebel!
Yes, we’ve been trodded on the winepress much too long
Rebel, rebel!

Babylon system is the vampire, yea! (vampire)
Suckin’ the children day by day, yeah!
Me say de Babylon system is the vampire, falling empire,
Suckin’ the blood of the sufferers, yeah!

Building church and university, wooh, yeah!
Deceiving the people continually, yeah!
Me say them graduatin’ thieves and murderers
Look out now they suckin’ the blood of the sufferers (sufferers)
Yea! (sufferers)

Tell the children the truth
Tell the children the truth
Tell the children the truth right now!
Come on and tell the children the truth
Tell the children the truth
Tell the children the truth
Tell the children the truth
Come on and tell the children the truth

‘Cause we’ve been trodded on ya winepress much too long
Rebel, rebel!
And we’ve been takin’ for granted much too long
Rebel, rebel!Got to rebel, y’all (rebel)
We’ve been trodded on the winepress much too long, yeah! (rebel)
Yeah! (rebel) Yeah! Yeah!

From the very day we left the shores (trodded on the winepress)
Of our Father’s land (rebel)
We’ve been trampled on (rebel)
Oh now! (takin’ for granted) Lord, Lord

Source: LyricFind Songwriters: Bob Marley

Babylon System (1979) – Bob Marley & The Wailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMcilBWgo3w

Call It Democracy

Bruce Cockburn

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament —
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called “developed” nations’
Idolatry of ideology

North south east west
Kill the best and buy the rest
It’s just spend a buck to make a buck
You don’t really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

Source: Musixmatch Songwriters: Bruce Cockburn

Covid-1984: The Worst Of Both Worlds

With covid-1984, which is a virus that is statistically as dangerous as the common flu, we have taken extreme, draconian, authoritarian measures. In short, we have dangerously and vastly over-reacted, and in doing so, we have combined the worst of both worlds: medieval and modern.

If we’re going to go medieval, let’s do it intelligently, at least. We can have freedom, democracy, constitutional rights, plus culture & charm. Instead, we have a gulag and police state, corporate monoculture, and the Inquisition. Brilliant.

So, we’re taking the worst of the medieval period, and combining it with the worst of the modern period. Isn’t that kind of backward from what any sane person should want? I’d say so.

Time for a change.

JTR,

May15, 2020

Reflections on Chartres Cathedral, the death of civilization and the deification of the banal

 

Thinking of Chartres Cathedral, I ask myself, what, if anything, have we built in the past eight centuries, that compares to this? The iPad, computers, cell phones, the internet? Are you kidding me? You must be joking. We have more ways to amuse ourselves, yes, but when has our capacity for entertainment, amusement and distraction ever been a sensible or even a sane measure of a society? And what good is an ocean of information if we have no context for it, no perspective on it, and no wisdom with which to make sense of it? It is lost on us. It may as well be the most indecipherable of hieroglyphs to us. Such an ocean of information is of no value to the deaf and the blind. It is all white noise, or dark noise, more commonly. And, to paraphrase Thoreau – and his remarks are as relevant and as piercing to our illusions today as they were one hundred and fifty years ago – what good is it that we can talk with someone on the other side of the planet if we have nothing of significance to say to one another? We are highly connected, so to speak, in digital, electronic ways, but highly alienated and divided in almost every way that matters, so even our presumed connectedness is more of a fiction than a reality.

We are hyper-connected and increasingly alienated. We are plugged in a tuned out. We are awash in an information overload – and are in fact drowning in it – yet we have lost all our wisdom, and even our common sense. We can speak to one another across the globe, in an instant, yet have nothing worth while to say, and neither any ears with which to hear. We have copious quantities of toys, and reams and volumes of data, but we have lost sight of what is most valuable, and what is most precious, and cannot see the forest for the trees. We are richer than any generation or civilization which has ever come before, yet we live as beggars, and blind beggars at that, obsessed and consumed with our mountains of dust.

We have the perspective of a gnat, and yet, we foolishly believe ourselves to be the culmination and pinnacle of human history and all evolution: as if nature delighted to reach a point where the trivial would be deified, and turned into yet another golden calf – a golden calf made of dust — as we worship at the feet of banality, and serve the idiocy of our time as smiling choir boys and giddy, unthinking, loyal servants.

No, we are not the culmination of natural evolution or of history. There is more day yet to dawn, to say the least. And if this wake up call be disturbing to some, we should remember that is is less disturbing to be awakened before the house burns down, than after. Be glad for the alarm bell. It is far better than the alternative.

We have electric light and indoor plumbing, yes, but all that says is that we can read more easily – if anyone still cared to do such an out-dated and archaic thing, which, it seems, fewer and fewer people are willing or wanting to do – and we can wipe our asses more easily and with a greater convenience. Hardly what we would call a measure of progress, by any sane or reasonable standard, I would suggest.

And that aside, are our lives really the richer and more noble because our powder rooms are more advanced in their puffery and comforts, or because we have a thousand and one electronic gadgets, with which to forget about the classics, the great works of literature, the greatest thoughts of the greatest minds and souls of all time – which require no such baubles or technological trinkets and toys, of course; that we can forget about the study of philosophy, the humanities or spirituality, the life of the larger community and the polis, the arts, or the deeper questions and realms of life and human existence? Were we not distracted enough, two thousand years ago? Few had ears to hear then. Fewer still now, or so it seems. Distraction is not progress – it is just distraction.

Yes, our personal hygiene is advanced in levels of convenience that would make our ancestors green with envy, should they ever place such a high stake on such minor concerns, or elevate them to such absurd heights; and moreover, our ability to distract ourselves from what is most important has soared, and absolutely skyrocketed. Some progress, that is, I would say. I stand in awe at the stunning sophistication and grandeur of the modern world. Let us bow down before the sublime majesty of it all.

When we measure a society or our path through history with a sense of perspective and depth, all that ultimately matters is whether we have learned to live with a greater wisdom or a greater love, or ideally, an increase in both; and from what I have seen, there is no reason to believe that we have made any great strides in either, since the Medieval era, and well before. We are lost in trivia and distractions, superfluities and superficialities, and the grand and glorious, all-pervasive worship of the mundane and the banal. Our society is obsessed with the mere surface of things: an appreciation of our depths has all but completely vanished from sight; and wisdom is a word we no longer even recognize, while the love of our fellow human beings is increasingly lost in a sea of alienation, narcissism, paranoia and fear.

This is progress? If so, you can keep it. It does not appeal to me. It is a bog, and we are lost, sunk to our knees, if not our necks, in quicksand, and sinking fast. And what or who do we reach out to in our desperate anxiety and bewilderment? Facebook and “social media?” Cell phone video games? Dial-up psychics or dial-up porn? Or Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer and “reality tv,” media presstitutes and talking heads on network TV, who are almost without exception either completely corrupt or completely inane.

(I like Oprah, by the way – don’t get me wrong. She seems to have a good soul and a good heart. But I don’t think she is necessarily qualified to tell us how and where our civilization went off the rails, or what we must do to get it back on track. And the rest of the mire, which the people routinely turn to for guidance, is not remotely as sensible as Oprah.)

We know not even where to turn to get ourselves out of this quicksand into which we have blindly stumbled. We are in a bad place, to say it mildly, and the ship of our “civilization” is sinking. All is not lost, but all is most certainly in danger. And it would be both foolish and irresponsible, as well as cowardly and unconscionable, to speak about the realities we are now facing, in less than fully frank and honest terms.

Ancient societies brought us Socrates, Plato, Jesus, the Buddha, Shankara and Lao Tzu, agriculture, the calendar, mathematics and written language, tools and aqueducts, sanitation, beautiful architecture, art and literature, the idea of democracy and freedom, great cities and hanging gardens, as well as wisdom. The medieval world brought us Da Vinci, Michelangelo, the Renaissance, flourishing democratic city-states, and the glory of the Alhambra, Mont St. Michel, Chartres Cathedral and the Magna Charta. Modern society has brought us prozac, porn, iPads and “social networking,” Donald Trump, Exxon, Monsanto, Walmart and Goldman Sachs – along with alienation, voyeurism, vicarious living, the cult of celebrity worship and reality TV. As E.F. Schumacher said, “We are remodeling the Alhambra with a steam shovel, and are impressed by our yardage.” We have arguably regressed more than we have advanced, or have regressed at least as much as we have advanced. Our smugness is misplaced – and more to the point, it is simply dangerous.

We could speak of the glories and the triumphs of modern industrial civilization, and there are, and have been many, and there is a time and a place for such mutual congratulations – but that is not what we need most right now. What we need is a wake-up call. We have hit the snooze button too many times. Our world is burning, and the people remain asleep to the peril. We need a bucket of icy water over the head, or a stiff slap in the face, to bring us to our senses. Whatever it takes, humanity must be roused from what has become, by now, extremely perilous slumber. There is no time remaining for the mincing of words, or for pleasant euphemisms and niceties. Frankness is now a matter of survival.

*

Our progress has spotty and highly questionable at best, to say the least – not to mention the fact that we have not yet found the wisdom or the common sense, to refrain from systematically destroying ourselves and the planet on which we live. In such a context, reflections on the significance of Chartres, may be of some small help. Maybe it can bring some much needed perspective: it is certain that we are in a dread dearth and poverty of that most precious commodity, even while we are up to the gills in consumer goods and trinkets and other assorted trivia and trash – and so much so, that it covers over our eyes and obstructs our sight, so that we cannot even see what is before our very nose.

Joseph Campbell, one of history’s greatest scholars of mythology, world religions and human culture, speaks of his experience of Chartres:

“I’m back in the Middle Ages. I’m back in the world that I was brought up in as a child, the Roman Catholic spiritual-image world, and it is magnificent … That cathedral talks to me about the spiritual information of the world. It’s a place for meditation, just walking around, just sitting, just looking at those beautiful things.”

Orson Wells speaks of Chartres:

“Now this has been standing here for centuries. The premier work of man perhaps in the whole western world, and it’s without a signature: Chartres. A celebration to God’s glory and to the dignity of man. All that’s left, most artists seem to feel these days, is man. Naked, poor, forked, radish. There aren’t any celebrations. Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is a universe which is disposable. You know, it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust, to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us, to accomplish.”

*

When this present civilization is no more, when it has been buried under the rubble and ashes of its own short-sighted vanity, hubris and illusions, when our cities are abandoned and fall to dust and ruin, certain works of literature, certain pieces of music, art and architecture, certain memories and stories and timeless truths, will be what we hold dear – the rest, will be forgotten, and will disappear like a puff of smoke on the wind, and will vanish like a passing dream.

(And yes, that means your X-Box, your PlayStation, your smart phone, your American Express card and your MTV as well, of course – and all of the corporate dinosaurs and juggernauts and behemoths who provide these trifles and feed upon our addiction to them, as they feed upon us.)

It would seem to make sense for us to re-evaluate our habits, our assumptions and our priorities now, before nature forces us to do so – as she soon will, we can be assured. Making changes freely and in relative peace, is always preferable to making changes in haste and under duress, to put it in the mildest and most understated terms possible. We need to make changes now. It is in our interest not to delay.

Let those who have ears hear.

(Ronald Wright’s, A Brief History of Progress, Jared Diamond’s, Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed, and Mathew Stein’s, When Technology Fails, should be required reading for every thoughtful person over the age of twelve – along with Shelly’s Ozymandias, Yeats’, The Second Coming, and T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men. Let those who have ears hear.)

Civilizations have fallen and collapsed many times before: the Egyptian, the Babylonian, the Roman and the Mayan, to name but a few. We are not immune to such a fate, and we are desperately racing ahead with all haste, and are on track and on schedule, for just such a fall. If our civilization does collapse, it will be because we have allowed ourselves to create an ecological cataclysm of our own making; because we stubbornly refused to question our unquestionable, long-standing assumptions and cherished beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming evidence; because we refused to adapt or to make the changes necessary to survive – and above all, it will be because the people did not embrace their power soon enough to throw the money changers to the street, and to reclaim their future. We cannot let this happen. The people must stand now.

We do not have to go out with either a bang or a whimper. The future is ours to create. Stand now.

There are times for shouting from the rooftops. There are times for sounding the trumpets or sounding the alarm. And there are times for a quiet determination. Choose your mood, choose your tone, choose your approach, but whatever you do, choose to act, and act now. The hour is late, and there is no more time for delay, or for floundering in hesitation. Act now, and stand.

The world, as with our lives, is what we make of it. We can live in paradise, or the nearest thing to it – at the least, we can live in a just, free and peaceful world, a beautiful world reigned by ecological sanity and love of one’s neighbour. Or we can live in a hell of our own making, and race feverishly towards our own self-annihilation and early demise, and into a dark age which has no exit, save for the tomb. The choice is entirely in our hands, and there is no use in our whimpering about our wish that someone would come along and fix things for us, and make everything nice. It is our future to create, or to destroy. The power is in our hands.

It is our choice what we make of our world and our future. Let us choose wisely, and choose now. Act now, and stand. It is within our power to heal this troubled world, and to restore a bright future for all human beings, and all living creatures on this Earth. It is within our power to create the world anew.

The hour of our choosing is here. The fork in the road has arrived. We must have bold action now, or human beings will simply perish from the Earth.

Stand now. We need you now. Not in fifty years, or ten years, or five, but now. Stand, and let us heal this troubled, beautiful world which is our home.

Stand now. It is time.

J. Todd Ring,
March 26, 2014