Magical Thinking in the USA

[Prazak]

Re: Magical Thinking in the USA

Thanks, BadJuju, I feel about the same -- you can't take everything the Druid says as "gospel" (not that he'd want you to), but the Druid is very good at pointing out wishful thinking, historical precedent, and reality's inconvenient details that everybody wants to ignore but will come back to bite you in the @$$ if you do.

Thanks for passing along the link, n99. I'm really enjoying the analysis and the prose -- and, as you noted, the absence of political animus toward one "side" or another in the current U.S. political theater. Indeed I particularly enjoyed his piece called The Degeneration of Politics: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.c...-politics.html. Whatever else one might think of his spiritual leanings and how they might inform his predictions for a coming catabolic collapse into a post-industrical/pre-industrial age, his analysis of the American Empire and its ills is invigorating to read.

[necron99]

Re: Magical Thinking in the USA

Yeah, Prazak, that column about "The Degeneration of Politics" is an eye-opener. My pseudonym on the Druid's site is Thomas Daulton, so you can see my comment there... I grew up thinking that political parties (plus money) were the root of all evil in politics, because party members tend to place the welfare of their party over that of the country. Now that I've read the Druid and some other writers (e.g. Smith-Bowen), I have come to notice that this is not really true. Both national parties, more often the Democrats but really both parties, will happily accept a political defeat just so long as doing so helps secure and maintain the pyramid structure where all power and money flows upwards to Washington. (And Wall Street, more or less. Recall Al Gore's concession speech in 2000, where he said we should all accept the Supreme Court decision against him because the uncertainty was spooking the Stock Market.) I guess each party figures they can accept a temporary defeat and still get their day in the sun later. Meanwhile the rest of the country languishes in perpetual shade...

[metalman]

Re: Magical Thinking in the USA

a more positive spin on:



my wife and I continue to deepen our appreciation of our dog's approach to life - one day at a time . . .

is 'dog' camus' existential man... with a tail?

no, he is ourselves... we can project our souls onto him.

[Prazak]

Re: Magical Thinking in the USA

I love the word magic. I posted this a few years ago. As Don would say "It dovetails nicely."

"Have you ever seen a scientific illustration of the nerve entering a muscle in the human body? That is the exact analogy of what I am speaking about. The nerve transmits a psychic energy which is transformend by the muscle into mechanical energy. We see the result for what they are- patterns of material mechanism. What we do not see is that the law of descent is at work, from the psychic to the material. That is what is called biological life."

The point I am making is that the world to a great extent is created and maintained through the expression of emotional energy. And it is this energy through which magic operates. Results, the results which I am speaking to you about , are always the result of emotional energy.

"Modern man believes he has created his world through intellect and action. But it is not true. He is fallen man and his intellect is the servant of emotion, just as are his voluntary muscles."

What you call primitive man looks at the modern technological world and sees a form of magic. You laugh at him, but he is right. The modern non-traditional world has come into being through emotional energy that is formed into the pattern called egoism, with it's aspects of fear, desire and self-protectiveness."

Reminds me of one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.

[don]

Re: Magical Thinking in the USA

Man got to tell himself he understand

Was it Vonnegut who thanked god everyday he was an atheist?