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Do Those In Power Truly Suck?
Zac has some interesting thoughts in a new post on his site. There’s one item in particular that I didn’t think twice about myself, but which spawned an interesting comment from one of his readers. Zac wrote:
“There’s a few problems with that. First of all, it assumes that the rulers of this world are stupid… We need to feel smarter, more spiritual, morally superior, to the guys who make things what they are.”
And a reader named “Tar” responded:
On the contrary, we probably ARE more spiritually advanced, or psychologically evolved than some, or maybe even most, of these Elite, because we’ve experienced more positive dissonance than they get exposed to for the most part. Money and power are good insulators from reality’s School of Hard Knocks.
I don’t know about anybody else, but over the past week or two, I’ve pretty much decided that keeping tabs on somebody else’s level of spiritual is pretty much useless. I mean, I really don’t think I even have an accurate picture of where I’m at. And I actually know all the little intricacies of my life story. While I might not like the message or the actions of other people, I’m going to try from here on out to stop worrying about who’s winning the spiritual advancement race. Is it me or you, her or him, them or us? It doesn’t matter. Partly because it doesn’t change anything, and partly because there’s just no way to know it. And because some people who seem really spiritually advanced do totally fucked up stuff. Lastly, it comes extremely close to what I think is the dangerous idea that some people don’t have souls, or should be treated differently because of their spiritual state.
I think the fact of the matter that people seem to keep forgetting about “Elites” is that they are real people. Every one of us is here living life, and we each face the same types of experiences and decisions as the rest. Certainly for some of us those decisions become concentrated and the experiences become very intense. But is deciding to nuke a country any more emotionally difficult than deciding to divorce your wife of ten years? Both signal the end of the world, though on different scales. Both involve guilt and rationalizations run amok. Everyone experiences emotions and struggles, regardless of whether or not they are involved in a military/occult conspiracy to control the world or not. Life isn’t easier because your parents have a billion dollars. To believe that is simply to buy into the great myth of our society. Culture tells us that money will alleviate all our problems. It’s how they convince you to keep trying to get more and more.
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July 3rd, 2005 at 8:53 pm
I agee completely. now we just need to convince everyone else.
live and let live may be overly optimistic at this stage, sad to say.
July 4th, 2005 at 12:34 am
I really love this quote:
The reason is that about six months ago I had the unpleasant experience of being judged by a few people who felt I was not responding gracefully to a very difficult situation. Thing is, none of these people had ever before encountered such a situation in their own lives. The one person I know who has had a similar experience in her life was extremely supportive and we have since become good friends.
For a long time I’ve understood intellectually how you can’t really ever judge another person, especially never having “walked in their shoes”. Now I totally get it on a very deep emotional level.
July 4th, 2005 at 2:59 am
think the fact of the matter that people seem to keep forgetting about “Elites” is that they are real people. Every one of us is here living life, and we each face the same types of experiences and decisions as the rest. Certainly for some of us those decisions become concentrated and the experiences become very intense. But is deciding to nuke a country any more emotionally difficult than deciding to divorce your wife of ten years? Both signal the end of the world, though on different scales. Both involve guilt and rationalizations run amok.
———
What I always liked about the gnostic gospels is way they depict the archons as incompetent, bumbling, keystone kops
Are the elites more powerful than the archons? I don’t think so.
Lord Vader, the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers!
July 4th, 2005 at 6:48 am
I’ve been wondering about this myself; I recently reread some of the Disinfo Book of Lies, where William Burroughs is quoted as saying that the “enemy” (the Archons) have “no sense of humour” and that “they totally lack understanding of magic.”
I don’t really know about either of these … I mean, I’ve seen George W. Bush laugh - so he obviously has a sense of humour. Whether what he’s laughing at is what I’d deem funny is another thing entirely.
Secondly, they - the rulers - work some hardcore magic, in that they actually create realities which people live in. But enlightened? Well, labeling like that sort of indicates a judgement call, I’d say, which is totally dependent on your own belief system - so who’s to say, really, who “gets it” and who doesn’t?
Besides, concerning the magic(k) part - consider Bush. He gets his information from a group of people around him, all with different agendas; he’s also coached, in that people tell him what to say - write speeches for him and so on - as well as dress him up for different occasions and so on. So that’s a magickal ritual right there; you make the world conform to a set of beliefs through the use of symbols, which is made all the more powerful when people actually tune their nervous systems onto these memeplexes “they” generate.
I agree that keeping tabs, as you said, on people’s level of enlightenment or whatever is pretty useless. That would be another empty husk/qlippoth right there, one which is meant to further enhance your sense of ego and self esteem by validating parts of one’s belief system. Which amounts to mere metaphysical wanking, of course.
July 4th, 2005 at 9:17 am
this was one kick ass post! and I think it would be good that other people shared your opinion on that matter.
July 4th, 2005 at 10:35 am
The understanding that they are human is vital, including for those who would worship authority rather than damn it.
But I think it’s a valid question as to how psychologically (and spiritually) well those in positions of authority are. I have experience with recovery movements, and one of their concepts is that the desire to control other people is a form or symptom of insanity. Maintaining and expanding power over others takes so much of one’s self (and this would be true if the political dramas I’ve watched are at all accurate) that one doesn’t have much time for true self-reflection, and one spends too much energy manipulating other to maintain self-control.
Listen to politicians, twisting language so much what they say means next to nothing. Take a look at soldiers, marching like emotionless robots. They’re human, but how in touch are they with reality? How in touch are they with themselves?
Another recovery movement concept is that insanity can be contagious. We’re human just like them.