Encephalon

I apologize for anything I may have said in this forum that would give you reason to express reservations about the integrity of my marriage. My wife has always had the last word when it comes to "how much" and it has always been more than I need. We'll be fine, thanks.

I have to agree. I didn't want to fan the flames but the expression "pissing on the sapling of progressivism" is about as obscene as it gets without being pornographic. What you perjoratively call progressivism, and virtually every idea to the left of Rush Limbaugh, is considered by and large throughout the world to be nothing more than mechanisms for insuring that people have access to enough resources that grant them a dignified life without having to grovel at the feet of privilege. You once again demonstrate the most ignorant strains of political ideas, which amount to nothing more than the abolishment of social contracts and the embrace of social darwinism. This has been the crazy uncle locked up in the conservative's basement, and you seem to be renting a room down there as well. Ralis does remind me of a question I've often asked myself; what in God's name is it about Taoism that appeals to you, Joe, or are you one of the great numbers who only use the teachings to become a better fighting machine? Taoism, at the very least, is about remaining balanced in a world of constant change. The ideas you regularly regurgitate in here are as static as they come; maintaining the privileges of the ruling class while shrouding them in the rhetoric of the free market. Bullshit.

Hey Ralis, Hey Joeblast - It's been a little rough witnessing the exchange. It does NOT remind me of that famous relationship between John Galbraith and Bill Buckley, two accomplished scholars from very different schools of political thought who found tremendous happiness in their lifelong friendship. It was always a treat for thinking people everywhere to witness occasional and unexpected overlaps in their respective world views. There remain themes that can be plotted on multiple points on the political spectrum (I deliberately avoid recognizing the artificial bifurcation between liberals and conservatives precisely because it is artificial, and in the case of the American political spectrum, it is so embarrassingly narrow as to be almost insignificant). Galbraith and Buckley were both intimately acquainted with political theory of all kinds but never saw fit to excoriate the grand political ideas as either completely without merit or entirely unimpeachable. Much like Taoism, it was about achieving balance in a world of constant flux. I've done my best over my 51 years to attain a level of education that allows me witness these exchanges from as clear a vista as U could attain, and that continues to include plenty of study of political theory, including conservatism. I am always on the lookout for expressions of conservative thought that capture my conservative sentiments, and I'm gearing up to read "The Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater, after just finishing John Dean's book that he started with Goldwater entitled "Conservatives without Conscience." Actually, classic conservatism, never entirely defined or excavated, doesn't even exist anymore except in the minds of 80-year old history professors. I think it's safe to say that political debate in TTB will continue, for the most part, to be waged between people who restrict their sources of ideas and information to precisely those sources that reinforce them in the first place. Sorry, Joe, I've never agreed with a single thing you've said about anything of any consequence, but I've always found your line of reasoning internally consistent, more than I can say for a handful of folks in here who seem to change their ideas every time they flush the toilet. Ralis, being closer to my age and armed with a more rigorous education than my own, I trust to have given at least a cursory reading on the intellectual history of American political thought. Without this work, the robust dialogues of the past may be over, at least in America. I actually think they ended in here a long time ago.

I am not well-versed enough to speak to the details of this particular rift. I have my own issues with a couple people here, and to them I say, Nei Kung practice works!! I am far less judgmental and verbally combative in here than I used to be and I credit that with the emotional healing that my practice brings. Go in peace! But I still hold personal accountability as an essential component of an open forum. That debate about moderating that burned like a wildfire through this forum a few weeks ago barely touched on the subject of personal accountability for one's posted content. I've ruffled a few feathers in here by being overly diligent and confrontive when I thought that universally ascertainable issues and facts were being recklessly skewed in the direction of uninformed opinion. I felt like I was the only one screaming "Can't we at least agree on what a fact is?" To be sure, I'm completely at peace with the world in all its magnificent ambiguity and have jettisoned just about every metaphysical and superstitious notion I've ever held. (I'm a big fan of Deng Ming-Dao (365 Tao) precisely because he embraces my favorite stripe of Taoist humanism.) But I wasn't always this way. Until I started college at the ripe old age of 35 my spiritual life was constructed with metaphysics too, so I've learned to lighten up on people who are younger than me and still knocking on all doors. I do not abide stupid fucking bullshit nonsense very well, though, and I clearly have a lot to learn about how I respond to it online, especially when it comes wrapped in ostentatious sermons (I don't think the odds of ever learning this skill are in my favor). I may not be the most humble person in here, but I've worked like hell to cultivate the scholarship of my field, and if people want to challenge my observations, which they are welcome to do (THAT'S THE FUCKING FUNCTION OF THIS PLACE!!), then they damn well better do so with an informed opinion, rather than slinging accusations of hyper-intellectualism from a crockpot of pseudoscience and self-absorbed subjectivity. And, at the very least, they should be able to take it as well as they sling it. After several self-imposed suspensions (and two unintended but reasonably well deserved ones!) I've already had my fill. Anyone choosing to go on a TTB Forum Fast should be mindful of the surplus time they will acquire and EXACTLY how they choose to employ it. I've poured over dozens of books on CD from the Los Angeles Public Library (a really good library) and the following titles are my favorite for boning up on and putting into practice surplus time -- The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil A. Fiore The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss The Leader's Way: The Art of Making the Right Decisions in Our Careers, Our Companies, and the World at Large by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Laurens van den Muyzenberg Self-Esteem: Your Fundamental Power by Caroline Myss Maximum Confidence: 10 Steps to Extreme Self-Esteem by Jack Canfield The first two are amazing and would be my only choices if I had to make them. When I calculate the amount of time that I've put into writing a response that has bounced off the forehead of the jerk I was writing it to I come up with HOURS of daily cultivation time, working out, and refining my attitude and personal skills with the audio books listed. Every 24 hours the world gets closer to that moment of truth where we suddenly realize that living beyond our financial and ecological means is over for good. We should be preparing for that day, cultivating our chi flow to dissipate stress and fine tune our immune systems, acquiring skills that are going to be necessary when all the faucets and switches and relays stop working, and cultivating friendships with people you'll need to make it through the impending bottleneck. Not everyone will choose to. Some will simply find it easier to die. My time in here was well spent. I was exhilarated when I could come in here and finally write stuff other than college papers. But those days are over.

Thanks, but I don't do adultery, and I'm not at the mercy of my hormones. I have an 18-month window before my left shoulder joint replacement surgery. That's a lot of yoga and muscle rehab.

Yep, Rush was probably the first hate-monger to go national, although there were plenty of psychopathic radio preachers on rural christian radio stations throughout the country that were saying things like this before he hit the scene. After Rush, and Clinton's election, they multiplied like mosquitoes and became the Rush wannabes. An enduring question has been whether Rush really believes what he says. His intellectual and educational background, which does not exist beyond high school, seems to be consistent with what psychologist Bob Altemeyer described as RWA personality type, or right-wing authoritarian. Since Rush is plenty happy making big bucks as a corporate propagandist he's never personally exercised his authoritarian impulses the way an elected official can from office, but he seems happy enough to champion their goals while normalizing their corporate and state malfeasance. It's unlikely for people to play the role of corporate mouthpiece without internalizing the data they swim in daily. I just finished John Dean's "Conservatives without Conscience" and he utilized Altemeyer's work a great deal. Clearly, from a Taoist perspective, balance of ideas, and what we refer to as "a respect for the opinions of mankind" have no place in right-wing authoritatian thought, or of any stripe.

I did the Master Cleanse (lemon juice, maple sugar, cayenne in water) for ten days for the first time last December. I lost 10 lbs and felt fantastic. I gained all the weight back because I returned to my original eating habits, which include a lot of healthy food but, alas, I like my carbs. I repeated the fast in the spring and used watermelon when I needed to abate the hunger drives. (A watermelon fast is actually a great way to cleanse.) Then we visited our family for 2 weeks and ate like children and of course my weight went back up. I finished a 12-day fast 3 weeks ago and have been much more determined to take my diet seriously. A program I've been following advises that you pay attention to "energy gainers" and "energy drainers" and there have been a few surprises. But my caffeine threshold is down to 3-4 cups of black or green tea a day and I'm training myself not to overeat. I've also eliminated red meat and don't go too crazy with fish or chicken either, but a new "Sprouts" market just opened here in LA and they sell wild game so I'll likely try a little venison after workouts. My regimen will continue with a ten-day fast every 90 days, and if I can swing it, a juice fast on Saturdays. I love the feeling and clarity I get when I'm fasting and it's such a great exercise in impulse control an raising levels of will and determination. My nei kung practice and chi flow is noticeably stronger when I eat lower on the food chain. This alone is convincing enough, but mostly, I just have to do this because I turned 51 and want to take care of my heart as much as possible.

You're still trapped in your "one strategy fits all" fallacy. It's easy to imagine all the required conditions for a peaceful planet inhabited by spiritually evolved souls practicing voluntary association, but to regress those conditions back on our present conditions and say "Just be spiritual and it will all fall into place is hopelessly naive. We have to come to terms with the collective shadow of our species, in all its horrific permutations, before we start talking about creating a planet of zen masters.

You and Aaron both have erroneously assumed that the strategy to realize a democratic, sustainable, planetary culture at some point in the distant future calls for the same strategy as the one needed in our present era of historical development. As a species we're still taking our orders from our brainstem and the R-complex. Dismantling the structures of state oppression is just one process we're struggling with. Once we get through this era, providing that a viable human population remains, we can start refining our conduct and social structures on smaller, more democratic scales and evolve accordingly. You've pumped a lot of unnecessary confusion into this debate by unwittingly conflating two different human epochs and their respective challenges into one. It's clear that neither of you are big fans of contemporary scholarship but it doesn't take a lot to make the world comprehensible.

Well, the faculties of human memory being what they are, here, in fact, is what you said. Taken these two quotes of yours together, Aaron, demonstrates that while you did not use the term "spiritual infants," a term of my own construction in order to paraphrase, you did express a lack of respect if not outright contempt for the spirit that animates this movement, not to mention utter obliviousness as to its genesis and prospects. And the vulgar attempt to harness the moral leverage of Lao Tzu demonstrates an even deeper ignorance. Honestly, do you not take seriously the contents of your own memory? We can save the lesson on what exactly constitutes civil disobedience for another day if need be. You and I aren't the only ones who read Thoreau. In closing, I see that your appetite for left-handed compliments is still in force. Surely you must be aware of their transparency.

That may have been the message of his concluding remarks but he began his political screed by labeling the protesters as spiritual infants for exercising their constitutionally protected and time-honored right to non-violent assembly and civil disobedience, acts which have traditionally been regarded as enlightened behavior by the public in response to oppressive and corrupt regimes. This is the inevitable result of the compartmentalization of ideas. This is just one area in which Taoism offers a rectification. Ironically, the collapse of petroleum-fueled industrial consumerism will necessitate the very skills and social relations that facilitate what I believe people are trying to describe as anarcho-syndicalism, which basically small-scale worker ownership of the means of production and the end of wave slavery. Once food-production becomes the most important industry, a great deal of psychological pettiness, fussiness, and flamboyant expressions of egocentrism that have been encouraged by consumerism will simply wither and reveal a more humble and mature spirituality. It's interesting that Aristotle once said that a city of over 100,000 people would be unmanageable, simply because there are too many private interests to reconcile, but human ecologists who study future models of sustainability imagine cities of 30,000 surrounded by greenbelts and adequate water sources as the ideal scale.

I actually tried to answer that question in my graduate studies by examining the effect that $250 billion a year of worth commercial advertising (just in the U.S)can have on public opinion, and the results aren't surprising; that money gets spent because it works. To all those abroad who shout slogans about the Ugly American I say that we've been targeted with commercial advertising for at least 80 years, and intensely aggressive electronic media, including political propaganda for 60 years, and I would challenge any culture to withstand that kind of bombardment without negative effects, such as the acquiesence, unquestioning obedience to authority, conformity and intolerance of dissent that characterizes the American public. Butt.... willful ignorance and anti-intellectualism is practiced like a favorite pastime in this country, so I believe the line of culpability cannot be chiseled in stone but maybe sketched out in sand.

I think the unitive effect of the internet is vastly overstated but that's another subject. The question you pose - What to do? - is an important one, and it's the same question that's been asked for decades. The only problem is that we've skipped an essential question that needs to be asked first, and that is, "What's the problem?" Seriously, just an exercise. You're beamed aboard an alien spacecraft and interrogated on the conditions of your home planet. Your safety and security depend on the depth, breadth, and rationality of your answer. They will harvest your brain and serve it on Ritz Crackers if you don't comply. What are you going to tell them? What's the scoop on Planet Earth? Warning: Reckless answers can make you appear stupider than in real life. Answers that are conceived through the prism of American partisan politics, such as "If only the liberals (conservatives, progressives, fascists, blah blah blah) did blah blah blah..." indicate that your mental universe can fit inside an empty can of roasted peanuts, so please don't hazard an opinion. Answers based on the surreptitious machinations of the Illuminati, or the deleterious effects of environmental carbonic acid on the pineal gland should also be kept under your hat. (Not to micromanage the outcome, but your high school biology teacher may have already shared it with you!)

Convincing has nothing to do with it. It's a rediculous idea. There isn't enough arable land, water, and animal resources to support all those people, assuming that they all woke up the following morning with fishing/hunting skills, animal husbandry and agricultural skills at their disposal. An economic contraction is inevitable - anyone who can't see it isn't paying attention. This includes almost all of our elected officials and captains of industry, except for those who do know and have chosen to keep quiet because they haven't figured out how to divulge the bad news without precipitating a social calamity. If we had the courage to truly accept our condition rather than bullshit ourselves with fantasies about how to "get the economy going again," we would see three very viable choices (I'm quoting the leaders in the human ecology, urban geography field): rebuild the American railroad system, not with bullet trains, but standard diesel electric engines; retool the urban environments and make cities less auto-dependent; and encourage small scale, non-petroleum based agriculture in greenbelts around the cities. Anyone who thinks, as do plenty on this board, that the aberration on one of Jupiter's moons is actually a spacecraft of a benevolent alien culture gearing up to save us actually deserves what they get; waking up to world where trucks don't deliver food to Safeway anymore, light switches that don't work, toilets that don't flush. Unfortunately, barring some major breakthrough in harnessing solar power (all that's left) this is the fate of our consumer culture.

Thanks for those words of encouragement and optimism. I share your celebratory tone regarding our checkered past but I'm obliged to reserve my optimism for unexpected breakthroughs on the human front (technosphere), such as solving our post-oil energy needs, i.e., solar powered electrolysis for hydrogen power. On the biosphere front, the news is less rosy. Oil has made it possible to grow enough food for 7 billion people to live on a planet with a carrying capacity of 2 billion, and that's a best-case scenario. But even if we figure out how to solve the energy deficit, we've got changing climatic conditions that could still place limits on population growth due to floods, draughts, and superstorms. Humanity will survive. Civilization? Probably not. I do agree with you that those lucky enough to make it through the next bottleneck will be practitioners of the bodymind practices you listed. Environmental factors of immunosuppression will be too rampant to live without them. On another note, the recent attempts to cast the Occupy Wall Street movement as a trite and immature movement of aimless troublemakers appear astonishingly shortsighted to me. Even if one were to embrace the stream of corporate apologia that passes for news these days, framing the event within the historical record of peaceful assembly (a Constitutionally guaranteed right that's been violently suppressed for most of American history, btw) yields some interesting clues about the ongoing experiment is self-governance. Some writers are comparing this movement with the global uprisings in other countries, the common theme being that people are sick and tired of groveling at the feet of privilege. Exercises that cast Lao Tzu as the scolding parent admonishing the misbehaving children are too asinine to measure. I still think "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century" by James Howard Kunstler is the best primer in one volume on what's up ahead for us earthlings. Based on what he writes, and what we know of ancient Taoist villages and the modern ecovillage movement, it appears that a hybrid Taoist/ecovillage model will suit the best interests of those who summon the courage to live.

Cool stuff. For my money, you can't beat Eastern Body, western Mind by Anodea Judith for really powerful psychological insights into the chakras. Caroline Myss' Anatomy of the Spirit also blew me out of the water. I took about 8 months and committed all my meditation practice to mentally rehearsing affirmations for each chakra. It definitely had a positive effect. check out Judith here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghxz4EzR3IM

Good job. Are the emboldened phrases yours? I post this again from www.criticalthinking.org I only wish I would have kept all the criticisms of this doc rendered in this forum - really spooky stuff! Valuable Intellectual Traits Intellectual Humility: Having a consciousness of the limits of one's knowledge, including a sensitivity to circumstances in which one's native egocentrism is likely to function self-deceptively; sensitivity to bias, prejudice and limitations of one's viewpoint. Intellectual humility depends on recognizing that one should not claim more than one actually knows. It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one's beliefs. Intellectual Courage: Having a consciousness of the need to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs or viewpoints toward which we have strong negative emotions and to which we have not given a serious hearing. This courage is connected with the recognition that ideas considered dangerous or absurd are sometimes rationally justified (in whole or in part) and that conclusions and beliefs inculcated in us are sometimes false or misleading. To determine for ourselves which is which, we must not passively and uncritically "accept" what we have "learned." Intellectual courage comes into play here, because inevitably we will come to see some truth in some ideas considered dangerous and absurd, and distortion or falsity in some ideas strongly held in our social group. We need courage to be true to our own thinking in such circumstances. The penalties for non-conformity can be severe. Intellectual Empathy: Having a consciousness of the need to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them, which requires the consciousness of our egocentric tendency to identify truth with our immediate perceptions of long-standing thought or belief. This trait correlates with the ability to reconstruct accurately the viewpoints and reasoning of others and to reason from premises, assumptions, and ideas other than our own. This trait also correlates with the willingness to remember occasions when we were wrong in the past despite an intense conviction that we were right, and with the ability to imagine our being similarly deceived in a case-at-hand. Intellectual Integrity: Recognition of the need to be true to one's own thinking; to be consistent in the intellectual standards one applies; to hold one's self to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which one holds one's antagonists; to practice what one advocates for others; and to honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in one's own thought and action. Intellectual Perseverance: Having a consciousness of the need to use intellectual insights and truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations; firm adherence to rational principles despite the irrational opposition of others; a sense of the need to struggle with confusion and unsettled questions over an extended period of time to achieve deeper understanding or insight. Faith In Reason: Confidence that, in the long run, one's own higher interests and those of humankind at large will be best served by giving the freest play to reason, by encouraging people to come to their own conclusions by developing their own rational faculties; faith that, with proper encouragement and cultivation, people can learn to think for themselves, to form rational viewpoints, draw reasonable conclusions, think coherently and logically, persuade each other by reason and become reasonable persons, despite the deep-seated obstacles in the native character of the human mind and in society as we know it. Fairmindedness: Having a consciousness of the need to treat all viewpoints alike, without reference to one's own feelings or vested interests, or the feelings or vested interests of one's friends, community or nation; implies adherence to intellectual standards without reference to one's own advantage or the advantage of one's group. Valuable Intellectual Virtues (June 1996). Foundation For Critical Thinking, Online at website: www.criticalthinking.org)

Those are good points. Where does it leave us, then? I'm entirely at peace with the ambiguity of it all. My practice is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Thanks for that! cLeod's book takes a WIDE! look at specific practices from many schools. And, he's great to have in LA! I just spoke with him after a meeting last Sunday. I relish the works by clinicians. Next on my list is Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstein, a clinical psychiatrist.