There was another issue he was called a racist. Similar to what is happening in The UK Labour party at the moment (May 2016). He criticised the Zionists for their activities against the Palestinians, and because of Germany’s history with Jews 70 years ago the collective guilt of the intellectuals called him a racist. Whilst the argument is straight-forward to counter the Zionist publicity machine at the moment has the upper hand. It has managed to persuade the world that all Jews are the same and they support the Zionist government. This is far from true, but when you stand up and support the position of Jewish socialists the Zionists attack you as anti-semitic. This is just a Zionist tactic – but sadly it is working. It is not helped by public statements from intellectuals such as Ken Livingstone whose ill-discipline has enabled the Zionists to bring Corbyn into disrepute – long-standing ally (discussed in detail in a blog here – scroll down to zionism). For all my time in local politics Ken was a figure, repeatedly caused discipline problems and bounced back.

Ken has always lacked discipline, and this is primarily caused by his ego. I am not talking about his being overly-arrogant – I don’t know him well enough to comment, but what The Buddhists call ego. This Buddhist ego is too attached to self, personal identity, the importance of “Ken” or whoever, and by attaching to this self there is a lack of unity – a separation within Gaia. This is part of the Buddhist principle of anatta – no self. Now Ken is an avowed Trotskyist, he holds to the ideas of Trotsky, and by holding to those ideas causes disagreement between peoples whose interests are fundamentally aligned. If idealists did not see the importance of their ideas and chose to seek an alliance of interests the left wing of British politics - and elsewhere – would not be so divided and easily discredited. And sadly the mass movement (99%) is the only movement in theory able to do anything about the 1%. And the 99% are easily divided because of the ego of their figureheads.

For the greater unity of the 99% it is necessary for the intellectuals to shut up. For my German friend arguing about refugees and Jews, whilst he was correct he needed to be less divisive. The refuge situation is caused by blowback. Europe has invaded the Middle East on a number of occasions in the last 25 years, fleeing those invasions Arabs are seeking help. How can such a situation not occur? If the US and Europe are taking the natural resources of these countries, why wouldn’t the people follow them? My advice to my friend – focus on the blowback. And as for the Jews the question is straight forward, seek the support of like-minded Jews, find appropriate material and references, and dispel the Zionist propaganda that all Jews are the same – dispel their tactic of calling anti-racists racist.

Phaedrus clearly had an issue with holding to ideas. He was attacking the Church of Reason for the way it held to reason yet he held to reason in a different way. As Pirsig says Phaedrus’ fanaticism to his version was the source of his insanity. Such principles of non-attachment and non-clinging are so important in all areas of life, sadly we lack so much unity.

But there are times when attachment is appropriate but this is not attachment to ideas but attachment to sila. The damage to Gaia, life, ecology and humanity, is carried out in the world of work. Transnational conglomerates are destroying our planet. What happens in these profit giants? Do people go to work and say how are we going to destroy the world today? No. What happens is that the bottom line is profit – the company must work towards the increased accumulation of wealth to the few. For most companies this means increase the profits for the shareowners. This is enough to screw up the world. When a company’s effluent is destroying the environment this is not one person’s decision, it is an accumulation of decisions all the way down using the restriction of maximising profit. No-one person makes the big decision but many people make smaller decisions. How do these people act? With deference to sila or profit? If someone stands up for morality too often, they lose their job because they lose the company profits. Here there is no room to compromise on sila but people do.

In my own case I could not accept such compromising and I sought solace in a caring profession – teaching. But it is no better there. As teachers we are supposed to educate young people, in practise all we do is prepare them for wage-slavery – a career (for a fuller analysis see here). In the caring professions life is far worse in a sense. There is intentionally never enough money. If there is a likelihood that genuine education might occur there is a cut in funding. There is funding available for career but not education. In private schools there are the facilities because the 1% needs to provide jobs for their family. If the students disrupt education they are out – no question, yet in state schools students sit next to crooks.

I reflect on my life as a teacher, and feel a deep sense of frustration. I made a decision to work for students, and in the end the work I did was just part of wage-enslavement. If young me asked me now, I would say “don’t waste your time, find a commune where you can work with like-minded people and help each other”. Don’t compromise with the system, there is no sila there only exploitation – no matter how high the caring index is supposed to be.