Compassion - bye bye bell
It is with sadness that I write this blog because it is an admission of how far things have gone wrong. But anicca, we have to change with the times. Earlier I made the decision to stop defending socialism. Politically if I am anything it is socialist, but I spent all my time defending socialism and not promoting the path of compassion. Of the political and economic systems that are available, socialism has to be the one that is most suitable but let’s be clear socialism is not Gaia-conscious and socialists are not always compassionate. At the same time the 1%-funding has created the death knell for socialism, there is now no way that the 99% can accept socialism so it is too divisive.
Sadly this is where bell hooks comes in. Every activist should listen to and study bell hooks, and when they do that they need to be able to answer her, not by being critical of her but by accepting what she says and making sure that the activist’s actions are in line with her. This is powerfully difficult to do.
Now bell hooks’ narrative is white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. This to me is self-evidently true but the problem is that 1%-funding has turned every one of these words into division; there is now no possible unity behind any of these words. I think the narrative of 1% is fairly acceptable (1%-satrapy probably not) but going much beyond this is divisive.
The words of bell’s narrative were always inflammatory but it seemed to me that their inflammatory nature was positive; now sadly I think they are not. And the saddest word to lose here is patriarchy. In this world the 1%-satrapy are predominantly white men (their ethos is “white men”) who use sexism and racism to divide and exploit. Patriarchy is an exact description of what is happening. But of course it is not all men – not all white men. 1%-funding has ensured that men can never accept this analysis. Good men and bad are standing up against this description, and instead of uniting behind a patriarchal understanding, women and men are fighting each other; the gender war (and the race war) are stronger than the class war that needs to be fought against the 1%. Whilst we continue to use the narrative of patriarchy this unity can never happen.
We have also reached the confused state that activists do not perceive that the 1% are the problem. Even though 1%-satrapy might be a more easily acceptable then bell's term, it is not a term we can unite over. We are left only with compassion.
What brought this home to me was Elliott Hulse talking about alpha-males. This is not a man to be dismissed for the occasional awful views because he has some good views as can be seen in the clip. Because of these good views we have to take note when he talks of supporting “Donald Trump because he is strong”. The real question is why is a thinking person not dismissing Donald Trump, being strong and “masculine” should not even be considered by any thinking person because of Trump’s complete immorality and lack of compassion.
Now Elliott follows Osho and to me this is a big mistake. Apparently Elliott has some kind of focus on Osho’s book “What now, Adam?”; when you read Elliott’s synopsis of the book there’s nothing wrong. Elliott uses Osho’s techniques of bioenergetics as part of his groundcamp, as far as I know there is nothing wrong with this either. As the Bhagwan, Osho went wrong; he was powerful, successful, and there was crime surrounding him – discussed here. Somehow compassion and sila were not directing the Bhagwan and his community.
When Elliott was talking with Teal, he kept focussing on the body. Where was the spirit? Where is compassion? Where is sila-consciousness? You can integrate mind emotion and body through spirit, compassion and sila-consciousness, but the body does not direct this. You could ask the same questions of Osho, as Bhagwan he had a spiritual responsibility to compassion and sila-consciousness and he blew it. Osho is far too intelligent for me, it is clear he knows and can do stuff to have been so charismatic and had such followers. But spiritually as the Bhagwan, he lacked control and things went wrong around him, and that is why I have avoided his writing as Osho. Elliott hasn’t, and Elliott is not governed by compassion and sila. Supporting Trump because he is strong is not compassionate. Using the term alpha-male when so many alpha-males have committed rape lacks compassion.
But Elliott has a finger on the pulse of the world of men where there is funding to promote gender identity and gender division. Women have stepped forward promoting their agenda because of the violence they suffer (typically #metoo), but their criticisms of men and patriarchy in general have been used to create division by the right-wing funding. I personally think that men should suck up the criticisms but instead male insecurities have been used to cement division. For me ending patriarchy is now not a rallying call as far too many men react against the label.
This leaves compassion. There is a phrase used by Teal – Divine Feminine, and I believe that the phrase Divine Masculine is used of Elliott – I have seen it used of Jordan Peterson. Let’s be clear the machismo of male ego is not divine. The alpha-male raping is not divine. Violence against women is not divine. Neither Elliott nor Jordan support rape and violence, but there are alpha-males supporting both Elliott and Jordan (or either) who do. There is no aspect of divine masculinity that can possibly condone rape and violence against women, yet such men feel connected to Elliott and Jordan. It is their responsibility to sever connections with such men. In the thread where Elliott was discussed, these manospheric men were posting supportive messages which lacked compassion and suggested violence. If at any time Elliott uses the term alpha-male without clarifying that such violent abusive men are completely deluded if they think they are alpha, then Elliott is not taking his responsibility to compassion seriously enough. It is this lack of spiritual responsibility I associate with Osho.
The word patriarchy brings with it a clear denunciation of who is at fault – rich white men. Now that men such as Elliott and Jordan are rallying men around the masculine, they must also accept responsibility for what the masculine encourages. By promoting masculinity they are enabling men who have hidden in white-supremacy cubby-holes quite rightly ashamed to demonstrate their violence. This violence is now on the street emboldened by right-wing populism and the Divine Masculine . Can Elliott and Jordan cope with this? This is the Pandora’s box they are opening.
Bye bye bell, anicca has taken your truth and weaponised it for division. We are left only with compassion.
The integrated path of compassion, insight and creativity - the struggle for GAIA and against the 1%-satrapy of war and wage-slavery.
