We are hurtling headlong into a past that was defined by serfs and lords

john atcheson in common dreams...

Dark Ages Redux: American Politics and the End of the Enlightenment

We are witnessing an epochal shift in our socio-political world.  We are de-evolving, hurtling headlong into a past that was defined by serfs and lords; by necromancy and superstition; by policies based on fiat, not facts.

[...]

Now, we seek to operate by revealed truths, not reality.  Decrees from on high – often issued by an unholy alliance of religious fundamentalists, self-interested corporations, and greedy fat cats – are offered up as reality by rightwing politicians.

For example, North Carolina law-makers recently passed legislation against sea level rise.  A day later, the Virginia legislature required that references to global warming, climate change and sea level rise be excised from a proposed study on sea level rise.  Last year, the Texas Department of Environmental Quality, which had commissioned a study on Galveston Bay, cut all references to sea level rise – the main point of the study.

We are, indeed, at an epochal threshold.

As Stephen Colbert so aptly put it: if your science gives you results you don't like, pass a law saying that the result is illegal. Problem solved.

Except it isn’t.  Wishing reality away, doesn’t make it go away.  Pretending that the unreal is real doesn’t make it real.

UN-fuckingly believable...

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Now 50 years after Wilhelm Reich's death

from Pravda: "Scientists examine psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich work on sexual energy":

His equipment was destroyed and his books were burned [by] the U.S. government, but now the studies of physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich who is known for his claims of a cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm are reviving.

[...]

'Personally, I think it's going to be a long time before all of his work is understood and recognized', said Reich's granddaughter, Renata Reich Moise, a nurse-midwife and artist in the coastal town of Hancock in the northeast state of Maine.

Reich died on Nov. 3, 1957, in a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was sent for ignoring an injunction obtained by the Food and Drug Administration that outlawed a device he called an orgone energy accumulator.

[...]

The 50th anniversary of his death is being marked by a major exhibition on Reich and his work that opens Nov. 15 at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, the city where he attended medical school, began his psychiatric practice and studied under Sigmund Freud.

Also this month, archives of Reich's unpublished papers, which have been stored at Harvard Medical School, will become available to researchers for the first time. Reich had stipulated that his papers only be opened 50 years after his death.

[...]

Reich is described by the American Psychoanalytic Association as 'one of the most brilliant, creative and controversial of the pioneering analysts.' He was the first to focus on character analysis rather than neurotic symptoms. He linked a healthy sex life, which he called 'orgastic potency,' to emotional wellness, believing that failure to discharge sexual energy resulted in neurotic disorders."

on Wilhelm Reich's later work, (from autodidactproject):

[T]he later work of Wilhelm Reich exemplifies a unique brand of paranoia, irrationality, and crackpot science at work. In attempting to overcome alienated existence, Reich purports to construct a natural-scientific rendition of traditional mystical beliefs, claiming to oppose both mechanism and mysticism, and to overcome the shortcomings of earlier vitalisms.

This is not to dismiss Reich's earlier ideas. I would agree that Reich's ideas up until he claims to discover bions are valuable. The qualification would be that while sexual repression undoubtedly feeds into authoritarianism, racism, and fascism, ... fascism is a result of a complex of psycho-social factors that distort the personality in less puritanical societies, [arguably], as well. Reich's concentration on the physiological dimension of character, while significant, seems to form the metaphysical root of his turning this dimension of human character into an abstraction. Combined with crackpot science, the degeneration into vitalist mystification becomes explicable.

However, I do not merely dismiss the later Reich. I pay a great deal of attention to his philosophy, which I find quite fascinating though ultimately malformed. One could begin with his Ether, God and Devil, the title alone of which is wacky, but Reich's philosophical structures are herein revealed. There are social implications to the ideological position Reich took after the experience of fascism drove him to the brink."

Now 50 years after Wilhelm Reich's death, his papers should prove to be quite fascinating.

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Saturday philosophizin'

an interesting article in today's alternet, written by chris hedges at truthdig...

Chris Hedges is the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."

The relentless drive against abortion by the Christian right ... has nothing to do with the protection of life. It is, rather, a cover for a wider and more pernicious assault against the ability of women to control their own bodies, the use of contraception and sexual pleasure.

[...]

The leaders of this movement understand that the only emotion that cannot be subsumed into communal life, which they seek to dominate and control, is love. They fear the power of love, especially when magnified and expressed through tender, sexual relationships, which remove couples from their control. Sex, when not a utilitarian form of procreation, is dangerous.

They seek to fashion a world where good and evil are clearly defined and upheld by the nation's judicial system. The battle against abortion is a battle to build a society where pleasure and freedom, where the capacity of the individual and especially women to make choices, and indeed even love itself, are banished. And this is why pro-life groups oppose contraception -- even for those who are married. The fight against abortion is the facade for a wider fight against the right of an individual in a democracy.

you probably figured i picked this because i have a few thoughts of my own... why, whatever gave you THAT idea...?

first of all, i do not agree with this statement...

"The leaders of this movement understand that the only emotion that cannot be subsumed into communal life, which they seek to dominate and control, is love."

while i agree that love, "expressed through tender, sexual relationships" is a good thing, to be promoted, cherished and celebrated, not excoriated, love, in all its forms, directly or indirectly, is also most definitely part of communal life... in fact, rather than being something that "cannot be subsumed" in communal life, love subsumes EVERYTHING as the one principle that lies above all else, and, even though the sexual component of love is commonly conducted in private (at least in our current society), love can and should add immeasurably to the richness and quality of that communal life...

now, of course, i understand that when hedges refers to "communal life," he is referring to it as defined by the leaders of the extremist versions of fundamentalist christianity, a definition no different from that subscribed to by leaders of other extreme versions of religious fundamentalism... these leaders seek absolute authority and control over the lives of others, whether or not they subscribe to the tenets of their creed... in fact, one of the main tenets of organized religion in general requires that followers abdicate their personal authority to that of an external authority, usually an appointed or anointed individual, who either serves as the interpreter of absolute truth via the bible or other source, or, in more extreme cases, as the source him- or herself... (david koresh comes to mind...)

hedges again...

[T]heir own experiences ... have led them to build a movement that creates an external rigidity to cope with the chaos of human existence, a chaos that overwhelmed them. They do not trust their own urges, their capacity for self-restraint or judgment.

authentic communal life based on love, imho, recognizes that individuals must look within for truth, encourages that exploration, has expectations that it will occur, and provides the guidance and support necessary for it to proceed naturally in the course of an individual's process of growing and maturing... the "vision quest" of the native americans is a perfect example of how honoring an individual's truth can be built in to the fabric of a community... it's even evident in the bible with the story of john the baptist's sojourn in the desert and christ's journeys into the depths of his own soul...

especially interesting to me is that the expressed purpose of those journeys is to seek truth, and that truth, as so clearly stated by christ himself in the gospels, leads to nothing more or less than love... by contrast, what organized religions have so diligently pursued is to convince their followers that inner truth is not to be trusted, that only an external, "sanctioned" authority can be relied on as the source of truth... most organized religions are, in fact, primarily instruments of control, with the power of that control resting in the hands of a few who guard it jealously and insure that only those who share the same beliefs are admitted to the inner circle...

the inner journey, on the other hand, if conducted with the seriousness and the sense of the sacred that it deserves, will lead to the truth, and the truth will lead, inevitably, to love... with the insights gained by that inner journey as a basis, the individual can then partake in communal life as a full contributor, bringing the wisdom and love uniquely expressed out of having encountered his or her own truth... the purpose of REAL religious leaders is to help guide us on that journey and to recognize that such a journey is an essential part of an individual's life, which, if subjected to external control, loses its value entirely...

on a final note, i think it's abundantly clear that social control based on the requirement that individuals abdicate their personal truth in favor of an external, sanctioned authority is hardly unique to religions... repressive, authoritarian governments of every stripe follow precisely the same path, and even the high priests of our scientific community, who worship at the altar of scientific method, observation, measurement, and objectivity, often demand total obeisance from their followers...

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The missing crust

fascinating...

Welsh scientists are investigating a startling discovery in the Atlantic Ocean: Part of the Earth's mantle cover is missing.

Cardiff University scientists discovered an area extending thousands of square miles in the middle of the Atlantic in which the Earth's mantle -- the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many miles thick -- is exposed on the sea floor, nearly 10,000 feet below the surface.

Marine geologist Chris MacLeod of the university's School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences said: "This discovery is like an open wound on the surface of the Earth. Was the crust never there? Was it once there but then torn away on huge geological faults? If so, then how and why?"

you can also follow the progress of the scientific investigation here...

In March-April 2007, a team of scientists from Durham University, Cardiff University and NOCS will board the RRS James Cook to visit this special area of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is called the Fifteen-Twenty Fracture Zone (FTFZ for short - the map on the [below] shows where this is located).

Image of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. You can see how the ridge is broken up into segments by fractures running roughly perpendicular to the ridge axis. The red dot shows the area where the team on board the ship will be working. Bathymetric image courtesy GEBCO.

cool...

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