Enlightenment and the Dixie Chicks

Just heard some statistics that people who wait until after 23 to lose their virginity are more likely to have sexual problems later…likewise those who lose it before, I think, 16. The ideal age seems to be 19.5

I like that, since it’s almost exactly when I lost mine.
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Was looking up the story about that Englishwoman in the Sudan arrested for letting her students name a toy “Mohammad.” Crowds were screaming for her blood. Sad. Unfortunately, the news article was followed by a discussion board…and 9 out of the 10 discussions were of the “Africans are monkeys” and “Mohammad was a demon” variety. In my opinion, they would happily join a lynch mob if they could find one. Subtract their comparitive wealth, national power/security and massively culturally reinforced superiority complex, and they’d be the ones calling blood.

Of course, many say that the flood of Internet racial comments is made a tiny but very vocal minority. I suspect that to be wishful thinking. I think that the posting morons have attitudes shared by about 20% of the population. That about 20% of the human race, in general, has such negative feelings about “the other.” And that another 60% has negative feelings, but just weak enough that their sense of logic, fair play or admiration for individuals keeps it under check. The internet offers the anonymity necessary for these guys (and the majority of them are men) to feel safe saying what others feel. These morons being just some tiny, insignificant fraction simply doesn’t explain the history of the human race. Pity. I was all set to simply condemn the Sudanese crowds, and THIS crap pops up.
I know it is tempting to think that the Sudan thing is indicative of some special problem in Islam or among Muslems or Africans. I’m not saying I’m correct to deny this—merely illustrating why I can’t and don’t accept it. The persistence of this kind of thinking, even in a society as evolved in the sense of Maslow’s Heirarchy, convinces me that there is a universal problem here. The research on the Amygdala and the kind of research published in Discovery reinforces it. One of the reasons I believe America is worth fighting for is the belief that, were our society to fall, tribalism in all of its glory would erupt almost immediately. Religion, race, whatever. I read one review of “The Mist” that didn’t believe that people would fall apart so quickly—even if faced by monstrosities and the apparent end of the world. I think such people didn’t notice that post 9/11, with only an insignificant fraction of our population killed, and that most citizens knew NO ONE who died in those towers, America went from being the “Home of the Free and Land of the Brave,” the standard of morality that the entire world looked toward, to nit-picking over how much pain, humiliation, fear, and tissue damage precisely qualified as “torture” and whether those pesky Geneva accords were out of date. Yep, the killer ape, that tribal creature is right under the surface, folks. Don’t kid yourself.

Considering our wealth and comfort as a people, how can you explain the amount of racism and cruelty in our culture unless this crap is pretty much programmed in?

And if it’s programmed, unless you believe that God, or the Universal Force, or the blind workings of evolution are evil, isn’t it just energy, capable of aligning with greater complexity and synergy? That’s all I’ve seen in my lifetime: slow, steady growth, with occasional negative eddies. No real sign of moving backwards, when measured over multi-generational spans. God, it can be frustrating…but also inspiring.
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But if love is seen as the evolutionary force (and that’s the way I see it) and fear and love compete for the same place in our hearts (and that’s the way I see it) then when I see violence committed by gangs of…well, whatever. Blacks, whites, Muslims, whatever. I ask myself if they perceive their way of life under attack. Whether they are in the shadow of forces beyond their control that might force a reasonable person to feel helpless and afraid. The Rodney King Riots. The Civil War Draft Riots. The more afraid, the greater the perception of assault, the smaller the trigger that starts the lynch energy. The straw that breaks the camel’s back. And those who pull the trigger never (or seldom) see it. Most can’t. The negative feeling toward the “other” is probably subterranean in that 60% of people, only breaking to the surface in about 20%. The rest hide their fear and venom behind piety and patriotism. And don’t notice that they are willing to treat “them” in ways they would die before allowing someone to treat one of their own children.

I’ve known Southerners who protested that slavery was benign…until I asked them how happily they would give up their own children to the collar. At which point their eyes flashed fire. This is what we are.
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“Who am I?” Children start asking that question in the cradle. There is both male and female energy burning in those children. Without both male and female parents to answer that question with hugs, kisses, and discipline, without roughhousing and embraces, the child expands to seek those answers from the world outside the home. For those in loving, stable communities, no harm no foul. But if not, they seek answers in shallow sexual relationships and casual violence. I am power—fear me. Or: I am the Mother Godess, embrace me. I bring life. I bring death. Those primal energies, alive in every child, seeking limit and context.

This is why it is so damaging, so dangerous, to bring a child into the world without a stable, balanced home. A man or woman must be extraordinary to offer both male and female energies without a partner. And most of us, by definition, are ordinary. If the surrounding community is damaged, or fearful, heaven help that child. The male seeks tribal community within which to feel safe by guided expression of violence. The female seeks tribal community in which to feel safe by guided expression of sexuality. Humans, of course, are a blend of male and female…but the exaggerated mating game warps that balance. Both boys and girls seek response from the opposite sex, and the respect of their own gender. And without parents to show them the way to this, without grandparents TOTALLY on the far side of the hormone flush that creates life, we get a parody of actual sexual dimorphism. Look at Rap videos for a glaring example.
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If the stages of human development are: Newborn, child, adolescent (and much of humanity freezes here. Especially in developed countries with elongated training periods for complex social tasks.) The jump of Adulthood, for many takes place only when the parents die. And most stay there without Awakening (the next level) although they glimpse the Awakened state from time to time, and are certainly attracted by those who seem to live in that place. Here is where language begins to fail. The level above this might be called Clarity—education and experience combined with the unfiltered perception of a child. Anchor this in a non-dualistic awareness and the Ego begins to unravel.

After all—the newborn child had no Ego. She looked out at the world and assembled it a piece at a time in relation to parents, teachers, babysitters, etc., seeing warmth, comfort, and food and pleasure. And we continue to perform the acts and roles that keep giving us these things, throughout our lives, until we confuse our “Selves” with the roles we play. Disciplines like yoga, martial arts, meditation, etc., AT THEIR BEST, help to disassociate us from our physical sensations, ego identity, and artificial reality maps. That points us in the DIRECTION of awareness, awakeness, and Enlightenment…But few can get all the way there prior to death. No religion or discipline can do that. Not yet, anyway.
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If the Ego shell is balanced, and nurtured by love, brilliance or a generations-old system of tolerant, healthy living, then when it finally cracks, the residual habit patterns preserve a perspective on life that allows the Enlightened being to function in this world in a way that does not disturb the Dreamers. In a few cases, they even help mark out pathways so that those Dreamers desirous…and capable…of Awakening can do so.

But most Enlightened, I think, don’t bother with that. And most Dreamers would rather have the Blue pill, living in a world of Us versus Them. Oh, if you’re in this world, you often have to play the role, to choose sides. The awakened warriors on both sides understand the folly of this, and can share libations and speak of peaceful things and other days…before they join their armies once again and slaughter one another as they must. But they don’t get caught in the game.

I really don’t know why I decided to write all of this this morning. Bullshit. Sure I do. This blog is my version of McKenna’s “Spiritual Autolysis” the written investigation of the structure of Ego-reality. As writing down a goal makes it real, placing in print the structure of the mind, and then allowing it to turn in on itself, begins a process which, once carried beyond a certain point, can’t be undone. Once you see the light, you can’t un-see it.

And that light I see in all nations, all people, all religions, all major political philosophies. I glimpse it even in David Duke’s corrupt worldview—twisted by fear. Truth be told, I think he is Awake, and “evil,” exploiting the fears of his followers for worldly power. In another sense, he’s just playing out his role.
Each level of the ego-shell is congealed energy. Burn it, and the energy is freed. Consider this a metaphysical version of the way the NLP guy discovered that if you mentioned Nicki to me, my energy jumped: my attention left the artificial concerns of my life and returned to center.

From my point of view, there is little difference between American crowds burning Dixie Chicks CD’s for dissing Bush, and Sudanese crowds demanding blood for the Englishwoman supposedly dissing Mohammad. The American attack was on the third chakra—power, specifically earning power. The Sudanese demand for blood was an attack on the 1st Chakra-survival. Certainly, at least an order of magnitude more serious. But not on a different continuum
1) in any culture, attacking a person’s livelihood IS an attack on their survival. Obey the tribe, or die.
2) An “attack” on the central religious figure is more powerful than an “attack” on a political figure. One involves survival in this world, perhaps. The other deals with the immortal soul. Compare: someone insulting Tony Blair to someone insulting Jesus Christ.
3) The people involved are not operating at the same level of Maslow’s hierarchy. My guess is that many of those in that crowd have personal friends and family who have died in war, been threatened with starvation. Death is a very real thing in their lives, in ways Americans have been protected from for generations.

There’s more. You have to multiply the act by the level of cultural advancement/position on Maslow’s Hierarchy to see whether their reaction is really that different. If our society were as damaged as theirs? The Dixie Chicks might have been dragged through the street.

It’s one of the reasons America is worth fighting for. But it is no reason to point fingers.
There, but for the grace of God, our founding fathers, and two protective oceans, go we.