I'm starting to feel a little foolish. I recently signed up to this website for a year - expecting that there would plenty of constructive thinking from someone who is both highly intelligent and has had years of experience helping people develop better ways of looking at the world.
Instead I find myself wading through endless denunciations of arseholes and dickheads.
In past 5 weeks, there have been 14808 words in Crit Psych file, and 15074 in Narcisso-Fascism. In Crit Psych, 0 arseholes and 0 dickheads. In Narcisso-Fascism, 3 arseholes and 1 dickhead, meaning a rate of about 0.013%. If that amounts to "endless denunciations," then the solution is one click away.
It may be too late, but let me attempt to reset the conversation by being open about how I got here:
I heard you talk on the YouTube channel "Neutrality Studies" some months ago. I liked your rebellious nature.
I looked you up to find out more about you and landed on YouTube videos you produced 10 years ago and this Substack site.
I felt, in reading your work, we might have shared goal in giving "our children and their children a half-decent chance of survival".
As I tried to read articles on this page, I was constantly reminded of the need to subscribe - which I did.
Having subscribed to the free plan, I was then constantly prompted to subscribe to the paid plan.
I thought, "This fellow seems to have his heart in right place and has done a ton of work: Why not give him a boost? Plus it will stop the website pestering me." So I paid $80 for a year's subscription.
My next question I asked myself was, "How can I make best use of my subscription?" I had gotten an automated message from you saying "Comments, suggestions or even a short commentary are welcome but I can't respond to all." Fine - I thought I should make comments about how further develop your ideas so that "our children and their children have a half-decent chance of survival".
There was no malicious intent; I am not here to try to look superior. If you haven't set this page up as a place for thoughtful collaboration, just say what the purpose is. On the other hand, if you leave readers to guess, don't blame us for guessing wrong.
Absent clear direction from you, and responding to your implied rebuke that I haven't read your work carefully enough, I have pored over the current article "Avoiding Illusions". It seem that you feel you know exactly what is wrong with society and how to fix it, and all readers need to do is applaud, subscribe and spread the word.
If that's all it is - I have come to the wrong place and that's my mistake.
You have suggested that if I'm only here to deliberately misrepresent your work, "the solution is one click away", by which I suppose you meant "get lost". Well then it's bye bye $80, but I guess I should have been more careful before pressing the 'buy' button.
Not that you seem interested, but maybe other readers are, so let me explain why I alluded to "endless denunciation of arseholes and dickheads" when, as you point out, you do not liberally sprinkle those words throughout your writings.
I wrote it because I was primarily commenting on this article. In this article, "arsehole" and "dickhead" only appear once: but they seem like very key concepts. After explaining how the next generation can easily enjoy a bright future if we simply follow your formula (train children to be calmly cheerful etc.), you then explain that this isn't happening because of arseholes:
"... so many arseholes in politics, in business and commerce, in the military and police, of course; in academia ... and even in religion..."
You dedicate the next two paragraphs to how arseholes arise through personality disorders. Even if you say you are talking about personality disorders, you can surely forgive the odd reader from imagining that you are only talking about personality disorders as they relate to the spawning of arseholes.
After that, you explain why good people can't take the reins and elbow out the bad ones. It seems that good people "... rarely want to make the jump into politics because they can't stand all the dickheads who are already there and making a noise."
So there we have the presence of "dickheads" being another key impediment to progress.
From my perspective, "arsehole" and "dickhead" were fundamental concepts in your article, and I would have thought I could say so without being told to get lost.
Phil, I think Niall is an Anglo-Australian. By the standards of both Britain and Oz, his language is actually quite restrained, lollol.
He was a bit short in his reply to you, I'll grant.
It's damnably difficult to fill up several weekly essays without getting "chatty", and chatty to the Anglo mind usually means earthy language.
Frankly, it's a crying shame that kids are told off for using the very same words that adults use. I don't like hypocrisy at the best of times, especially one that comes packaged with a lie (Every single study has shown that those who commonly use 'colourful' language tend to have a wider vocabulary than those who don't).
I currently can't afford to donate (I will when I become a Govt minister, that's a promise! lmao), and donations such as yours keep the articles coming, so it's not just Niall who is grateful to you.
But c'mon man! Dickheads and arseholes is just about the best summary of those in charge of Western societies, and personally, I'd probably be using the c*** word as well - about the blokes. And yes, I do have a degree, and have taught English too. I like to think with good results.
I agree too many politicians are in it for the wrong reasons, or at least have misplaced priorities. I suggest while pointing out bad behaviour might be valuable in small doses, it quickly starts to lose its sting if that's your main hobby. If a politician were to sit with you and me, reading along through this post and comment thread, I can imagine him looking at you and saying, "How does it help, Gnuneo, for you to go online and call me a c..t?"
Would they prefer I learned woodwork to build a guillotine?
How does it help? The same way that when we accidentally hit our thumb with a hammer we swear. It doesn't take the damage away, but we feel better about it somehow.
Having slept on this, I think I know what might be going on:
- When people feel depressed by their circumstances, they may come to psychiatrists for help.
- Psychiatrists have worked out that the easiest way to make a good living is to tell their clients that they have a problem that can be fixed by pills and other treatments that only psychiatrists are allowed to provide.
- Dr McLaren comes along and is justifiably outraged because blaming eccentric individuals for all of society's problems is (a) not useful and (b) not nice.
- So Dr McLaren goes to some trouble to explain how and why society and the people running it are the problem - which makes his clients feel better without the need for pills.
- In one sense, this is "good medicine". In another sense, it is just a band-aid; the client may feel better for a while but then still has to go out and deal with dysfunctional institutions.
- My issue with calling institutional leaders "arseholes" and "dickheads" etc. is that, irrespective of the accuracy of those labels, it doesn't get us very far. Institutional leaders will simply go into a huddle and issue disparaging statements about their critics.
- It seems to me that the answer is simple: People of good character should ignore the mediocre folks running our institutions, and instead come together to build better models of how society should run.
No. The biocognitive model locates the bulk of mental disorder in the individual's psychological state. Individuals are always advised: You can't fight reality.
Remember that Substack posts are journalism, not scientific treatises. Every now and then, a sharp word is permissible if it makes the point that believing our leaders when they say "We're the Goodies, they're the Baddies" has no factual basis.
Just imagine Kid Starver's reaction if some member of the public calls him a "dickhead" or "arsehole" to his face on camera.
I'm sure you can just imagine the crumpling of all of his self-importance on the spot.
Because that is what he really is, and he knows it. And he also knows that every member of the public who sees that recording will laugh and cheer - and agree.
We call it "earthy" language because it is grounding. One of those simple words can pop self-delusion quicker and more completely than an entire paragraph of more airy terms couched in clever-clever rhetoric (Barring it being a historic wit such as Wilde, fx).
Receiving your reply was an unexpected birthday gift for me, and, as always happens, it’s the unexpected gifts that make us happiest. I don’t want to cause friction in your hyper-prolific creative machinery — in other words, I don’t want to bother you — but for some reason I feel it’s worth going a little deeper into the question I raised.
It may have sounded a bit shanti-shanti on my part — Miss Universe-style talk — to speak of deepening our relationship with Nature, as opposed to legitimizing or rendering inevitable (pardon the expression) “our” nature, but I truly believe that “our” nature does not exist — or rather, that it doesn’t exist apart from Nature. I see Nature as the “naturally systemic system,” of which this so-called “our nature” is a part. And so, instead of seeing nature as ours, I see that we belong to Nature.
Perhaps this echoes La Palice, but I sense something here of profound meaning; it doesn’t seem to me to be merely a semantic issue. In fact, speaking from “my” experience — and so risking the appearance of contradiction — both the path toward Nature and the path toward love, as well as toward so many other graces of life, have opened themselves to me through the awareness that none of these things are mine. On the contrary — I belong to them; I devote myself to them.
There is a fundamental humility on the path to happiness which, when viewed as an individual pursuit, risks, I believe, losing its very meaning. Any crumb found along the way in this process of surrender to the “divine” — if we may call it that (without the religious baggage that often takes possession of meaning) — is organically “ours”: it belongs to everything, to everyone.
And this, of course, implies a deterritorialization of the human, an inner dawn that opens the windows of the self and gradually unveils what lies outside — that Other we used to see as enemy, as bearer of all evils, as guilty for our inner darkness. Pure attention defines there the reach of “humanity,” until, I imagine (for my little river is still far from flowing into that sea), that very definition — that existential demarcation — ceases to be useful.
Now, let me open up a little with you, at the risk of sounding ridiculous. For several years now, I’ve taken part in ayahuasca ceremonies. In one of them, which marked me deeply, I felt an irresistible calling toward something good, and I hesitated for a moment — because letting myself go would mean losing all control over what I still identified as “me.” I thought to myself: You have a daughter; you can’t go without considering that you’d be leaving your daughter behind.
But I went. It was inevitable. I felt such a great love within me and such a pure calling that there was no way not to go. It was as if I had let go of my grip on a slippery slope and flowed into an infinite expanse of love and freedom such as I had never imagined could exist.
In this “our” world, sometimes we have love but not freedom; at other times, freedom but not love. But to immerse in both — for them to be the same reality, and for that reality to have no body, no end, and for us to have no body or end within it, for us to be it — a beatific consciousness, yet utterly real, for there is nothing hallucinatory in it: no ghosts, no visions, no distortions, no separation, no subject and object — it is wondrous.
And, as has been the rule in my ayahuasca experiences, the deepest messages I bring back are not products of interpretation — they incorporate themselves, they accompany us in this embodied journey through existence.
On this point, I once did a retreat of meditation and silence with one of the people closest to holiness — whatever construction that may be — whom I’ve met in life: a small Indian man named Bal. When the retreat ended, he invited me for a walk through the hills of Monchique, which had been ravaged by a fierce fire, and he urged me to look up toward the retreat centre. Around it, everything was burned, and there was a circle around the centre, as if the wrath of the god of fire had spared it.
Still a young man, awed and impressionable, I asked him: “Wow, how do you interpret this, Bal?”
And he, with that serene simplicity I remember (he passed away two years ago), looked up at me — as I was looking up at the mountain — and said:
“Interpret, my dear? Isn’t it enough for you to see?”
That was one of the lessons that never left me.
And so, returning to that infinite of love and freedom I experienced with ayahuasca — what it brought me was the awareness that that is where life goes when it ends. And from there, already leaning on the “crutch” of interpretation — and therefore without the same essential reliability — I ventured the hypothesis that it may also be from there that life comes when it begins.
Now, this might sound very esoteric, but let’s make it more practical: a baby. Let’s imagine that a baby comes from that “nirvana” (concepts are tricky — they always reduce and stigmatize). The baby emerges from the mother, and there is inevitably a crucial trauma. Pure attention is what we owe the baby — so that it feels safe, so that it feels responded to in its needs, its appeals, its most pressing desires.
The idea that the baby comes from such a space of fullness gives us a greater sense of responsibility. To listen, to feel, to understand — that is the essential task of parents. It is from there that the baby brings us news. And perhaps, speaking generally of course, setting aside physiological specifics, the baby’s cry is proportional to the distance between the place it came from and the place it has been thrown into.
If we look at babies this way, we will be closer to undoing a whole set of illusory concepts that limit our experience of living — whether as individuals, as societies or sociopolitical paradigms, or simply as nature itself.
That’s where my benevolent provocation about the destruction of the illusion of the “human” comes in. I once heard a member of an Indigenous community say that we humans are “earth that speaks.” And I fully agree. Conceived in this way, we do not fight for our land, since it is we who belong to it.
The question of Palestine, were this worldview widespread, would not even need to arise. Israel, as it is, would cease to exist — it would dissolve, earth upon earth.
Often, for example, I’m astonished at the reactions of so many “civilized” people to the “events” of the world. You’ll surely remember the destruction of statues and the uproar it caused — the outrage, from both sides. Some were outraged that the statues still stood; others, that they were torn down. Yet when a tree is cut down, no one is shocked.
A tree is life; a statue is death. We value more the faculty to kill than the faculty to generate. This is clearly a problem of the “human,” because it is disconnected from life. It no longer feels itself connected to the only truly systemic system that exists — Nature.
That biologically dominant human being you describe, Niall — he wants to kill Nature. And since treating evil with evil only doubles the evil, I think it is very important — essential, even — that we reconnect deeply enough to realize that the only way we have to end evil is to cover it with good; the only way we have to enter the night is to fill it with light.
And for that, we must know evil, know the night, devote pure — or as pure as possible — attention to “its” nature.
In my view, evil does not exist except as the absence of good. To make evil lose its fear of good, just as, conversely, to help the newborn lose its fear of the world, requires attention, communication, sharing, tremendous openness, kindness, generosity, perseverance. Faith. To believe in order to see, and to see in order to believe.
I’ll finish with a thought that seeks to undo a possible misconception — that I might see myself as a “bearer of good.” When I advocate for pure attention to the Other, I mean the deep Other, just as the deep self — both as sources of good. And I don’t feel that the liberation of the deep Other is possible without the liberation of the deep self.
One of Fela Kuti’s sons, Semi, said it perfectly in a recent concert to young Europeans:
“I know you’re always eager to free Palestine, the Congo, Sudan, Iran — a new one every week. Free Europe!”
"Evil" was invented c700bc by Zoroaster, the Persian prophet. The concept did not exist until then.
People were "Good or bad", which are relative to how they are behaving towards us. Ie, it's a subjective term.
The only way that "evil" has actual existence is that humans (the only animal that is stupid and deluded enough to manage to believe in such a concept) decide to believe they are "evil" and act accordingly.
However, Badness most certainly does exist.
And even "Very, VERY bad" [Bye Cheney and Kissinger].
It was Richard Bach who nudged me to understanding this, although it wasn't in Jonathon Livingstone Seagull but one of his other works.
Apart from that, very nice post imo. Psychedelics can be absolutely profound in the best way - it's still better to go through the hard work of meditation to get there, but only fash decry such shortcuts.
Niall, I continue to agree with your despite of human immorality, but I have several huge issues with this your article.
I dont have great biological educations, but it is evident to me that as much as nature provides for negative reactions, it also provides for positive ones. I think your blaming of our innate evolutionary structures is mostly misleading. Just as you cant reasonably appeal to nature for all things, so you cant blame nature for everything; in fact, it is the source of many miracles.
At a consequential level, power always gets people to the top of a society built on chaos. But not every society needs to be built that way. There are institutions that are well-positioned in moderation and reasonable communication, such as the United Nations (and this is not to say they are perfect). You cannot reasonably call power-struggles "contradictions" except ones of circumstances that may be improved upon.
A few paragraphs down, your article claims you deserve the Nobel Prize, which is another ponzi claim. You are referring to "our children" as a reference to making the world better. As an antinatalist who understands all the arguments against breeding more humans...what can I say? The secret to understanding humans, as I see it, is deeply embedded in understanding its ironies and acting with carefully applied kindness to those already existing, not in spreading your progeny.
You next claim that "personality" is the problem with humans. This is wrong. A lack of self-awareness with large personality may be a problem, but humans have developed moral agency and thoughtful consideration. Personality often helps to create and support communities.
Soon after this, you claim for a solution by "ordinary people". There is no such thing as "ordinary people". There are people with varying degrees of morality, on a spectrum.
I hope my points are seen as being helpful to you for honing your writing craft.
"Democracy" is a word with many potential meanings. This is literally the first week's topic in most PolSci courses.
At its core, "Democracy" means that everyone gets a say - and a vote if the matter affects them at minimum. At best a veto.
Needless to say, 'Western Liberal Representative Democracy" is a pale shadow of this ideal, more a figleaf for inherited wealth to pretend the public has a say every 4-5 years.
The essence of democracy is not, as we are usually told, that you can vote in the government you want but that you can vote out the government you don't want, and they have to go. However, money pulls strings behind the scenes.
By "democracy" you mean of course 'western representative democracy', rather than say direct democracy, or the Swiss-style referendum-democracy.
Yes, in that system we can kick the Blue Thatcherites out, and get the Red Blairite Thatcherites instead, have a big party for a couple of weeks at how we beat the Establishment, and then 4 years of a hangover when we realise that once again they beat us.
Rinse and repeat every few years.
It IS an interesting insight that voting is more negative than positive - we can get rid of one bunch, but we can't choose the policies of the next bunch really, and they are almost certainly the same as the previous bunch - but as I said, the first thing you learn in formal PolSci is that "democracy" has several, and sometimes conflicting, definitions.
I don't think it's a coincidence that it has become a 'Magic Word', rather than a solidly defined social-science concept that we can judge accordingly.
One CANNOT invade a country to "Impose democracy" there, anymore than someone can be put into prison to be taught positive freedom. And there would go the last 35 years of Western 'Liberal Interventionism' lies and excuses.
Phil, your response is better than I expected. I agree with points 1 to 3. My train of thought was to consider his arguments and not so much his manner, which is rather established fact.
I'm starting to feel a little foolish. I recently signed up to this website for a year - expecting that there would plenty of constructive thinking from someone who is both highly intelligent and has had years of experience helping people develop better ways of looking at the world.
Instead I find myself wading through endless denunciations of arseholes and dickheads.
In past 5 weeks, there have been 14808 words in Crit Psych file, and 15074 in Narcisso-Fascism. In Crit Psych, 0 arseholes and 0 dickheads. In Narcisso-Fascism, 3 arseholes and 1 dickhead, meaning a rate of about 0.013%. If that amounts to "endless denunciations," then the solution is one click away.
Dr McLaren,
It may be too late, but let me attempt to reset the conversation by being open about how I got here:
I heard you talk on the YouTube channel "Neutrality Studies" some months ago. I liked your rebellious nature.
I looked you up to find out more about you and landed on YouTube videos you produced 10 years ago and this Substack site.
I felt, in reading your work, we might have shared goal in giving "our children and their children a half-decent chance of survival".
As I tried to read articles on this page, I was constantly reminded of the need to subscribe - which I did.
Having subscribed to the free plan, I was then constantly prompted to subscribe to the paid plan.
I thought, "This fellow seems to have his heart in right place and has done a ton of work: Why not give him a boost? Plus it will stop the website pestering me." So I paid $80 for a year's subscription.
My next question I asked myself was, "How can I make best use of my subscription?" I had gotten an automated message from you saying "Comments, suggestions or even a short commentary are welcome but I can't respond to all." Fine - I thought I should make comments about how further develop your ideas so that "our children and their children have a half-decent chance of survival".
There was no malicious intent; I am not here to try to look superior. If you haven't set this page up as a place for thoughtful collaboration, just say what the purpose is. On the other hand, if you leave readers to guess, don't blame us for guessing wrong.
Absent clear direction from you, and responding to your implied rebuke that I haven't read your work carefully enough, I have pored over the current article "Avoiding Illusions". It seem that you feel you know exactly what is wrong with society and how to fix it, and all readers need to do is applaud, subscribe and spread the word.
If that's all it is - I have come to the wrong place and that's my mistake.
You have suggested that if I'm only here to deliberately misrepresent your work, "the solution is one click away", by which I suppose you meant "get lost". Well then it's bye bye $80, but I guess I should have been more careful before pressing the 'buy' button.
Not that you seem interested, but maybe other readers are, so let me explain why I alluded to "endless denunciation of arseholes and dickheads" when, as you point out, you do not liberally sprinkle those words throughout your writings.
I wrote it because I was primarily commenting on this article. In this article, "arsehole" and "dickhead" only appear once: but they seem like very key concepts. After explaining how the next generation can easily enjoy a bright future if we simply follow your formula (train children to be calmly cheerful etc.), you then explain that this isn't happening because of arseholes:
"... so many arseholes in politics, in business and commerce, in the military and police, of course; in academia ... and even in religion..."
You dedicate the next two paragraphs to how arseholes arise through personality disorders. Even if you say you are talking about personality disorders, you can surely forgive the odd reader from imagining that you are only talking about personality disorders as they relate to the spawning of arseholes.
After that, you explain why good people can't take the reins and elbow out the bad ones. It seems that good people "... rarely want to make the jump into politics because they can't stand all the dickheads who are already there and making a noise."
So there we have the presence of "dickheads" being another key impediment to progress.
From my perspective, "arsehole" and "dickhead" were fundamental concepts in your article, and I would have thought I could say so without being told to get lost.
Phil, I think Niall is an Anglo-Australian. By the standards of both Britain and Oz, his language is actually quite restrained, lollol.
He was a bit short in his reply to you, I'll grant.
It's damnably difficult to fill up several weekly essays without getting "chatty", and chatty to the Anglo mind usually means earthy language.
Frankly, it's a crying shame that kids are told off for using the very same words that adults use. I don't like hypocrisy at the best of times, especially one that comes packaged with a lie (Every single study has shown that those who commonly use 'colourful' language tend to have a wider vocabulary than those who don't).
I currently can't afford to donate (I will when I become a Govt minister, that's a promise! lmao), and donations such as yours keep the articles coming, so it's not just Niall who is grateful to you.
But c'mon man! Dickheads and arseholes is just about the best summary of those in charge of Western societies, and personally, I'd probably be using the c*** word as well - about the blokes. And yes, I do have a degree, and have taught English too. I like to think with good results.
Gnuneo,
I agree too many politicians are in it for the wrong reasons, or at least have misplaced priorities. I suggest while pointing out bad behaviour might be valuable in small doses, it quickly starts to lose its sting if that's your main hobby. If a politician were to sit with you and me, reading along through this post and comment thread, I can imagine him looking at you and saying, "How does it help, Gnuneo, for you to go online and call me a c..t?"
Would they prefer I learned woodwork to build a guillotine?
How does it help? The same way that when we accidentally hit our thumb with a hammer we swear. It doesn't take the damage away, but we feel better about it somehow.
strange, and yet true, lol.
Having slept on this, I think I know what might be going on:
- When people feel depressed by their circumstances, they may come to psychiatrists for help.
- Psychiatrists have worked out that the easiest way to make a good living is to tell their clients that they have a problem that can be fixed by pills and other treatments that only psychiatrists are allowed to provide.
- Dr McLaren comes along and is justifiably outraged because blaming eccentric individuals for all of society's problems is (a) not useful and (b) not nice.
- So Dr McLaren goes to some trouble to explain how and why society and the people running it are the problem - which makes his clients feel better without the need for pills.
- In one sense, this is "good medicine". In another sense, it is just a band-aid; the client may feel better for a while but then still has to go out and deal with dysfunctional institutions.
- My issue with calling institutional leaders "arseholes" and "dickheads" etc. is that, irrespective of the accuracy of those labels, it doesn't get us very far. Institutional leaders will simply go into a huddle and issue disparaging statements about their critics.
- It seems to me that the answer is simple: People of good character should ignore the mediocre folks running our institutions, and instead come together to build better models of how society should run.
So - I'm feeling less foolish this morning.
No. The biocognitive model locates the bulk of mental disorder in the individual's psychological state. Individuals are always advised: You can't fight reality.
Remember that Substack posts are journalism, not scientific treatises. Every now and then, a sharp word is permissible if it makes the point that believing our leaders when they say "We're the Goodies, they're the Baddies" has no factual basis.
Just imagine Kid Starver's reaction if some member of the public calls him a "dickhead" or "arsehole" to his face on camera.
I'm sure you can just imagine the crumpling of all of his self-importance on the spot.
Because that is what he really is, and he knows it. And he also knows that every member of the public who sees that recording will laugh and cheer - and agree.
We call it "earthy" language because it is grounding. One of those simple words can pop self-delusion quicker and more completely than an entire paragraph of more airy terms couched in clever-clever rhetoric (Barring it being a historic wit such as Wilde, fx).
Hello again, Niall!
Receiving your reply was an unexpected birthday gift for me, and, as always happens, it’s the unexpected gifts that make us happiest. I don’t want to cause friction in your hyper-prolific creative machinery — in other words, I don’t want to bother you — but for some reason I feel it’s worth going a little deeper into the question I raised.
It may have sounded a bit shanti-shanti on my part — Miss Universe-style talk — to speak of deepening our relationship with Nature, as opposed to legitimizing or rendering inevitable (pardon the expression) “our” nature, but I truly believe that “our” nature does not exist — or rather, that it doesn’t exist apart from Nature. I see Nature as the “naturally systemic system,” of which this so-called “our nature” is a part. And so, instead of seeing nature as ours, I see that we belong to Nature.
Perhaps this echoes La Palice, but I sense something here of profound meaning; it doesn’t seem to me to be merely a semantic issue. In fact, speaking from “my” experience — and so risking the appearance of contradiction — both the path toward Nature and the path toward love, as well as toward so many other graces of life, have opened themselves to me through the awareness that none of these things are mine. On the contrary — I belong to them; I devote myself to them.
There is a fundamental humility on the path to happiness which, when viewed as an individual pursuit, risks, I believe, losing its very meaning. Any crumb found along the way in this process of surrender to the “divine” — if we may call it that (without the religious baggage that often takes possession of meaning) — is organically “ours”: it belongs to everything, to everyone.
And this, of course, implies a deterritorialization of the human, an inner dawn that opens the windows of the self and gradually unveils what lies outside — that Other we used to see as enemy, as bearer of all evils, as guilty for our inner darkness. Pure attention defines there the reach of “humanity,” until, I imagine (for my little river is still far from flowing into that sea), that very definition — that existential demarcation — ceases to be useful.
Now, let me open up a little with you, at the risk of sounding ridiculous. For several years now, I’ve taken part in ayahuasca ceremonies. In one of them, which marked me deeply, I felt an irresistible calling toward something good, and I hesitated for a moment — because letting myself go would mean losing all control over what I still identified as “me.” I thought to myself: You have a daughter; you can’t go without considering that you’d be leaving your daughter behind.
But I went. It was inevitable. I felt such a great love within me and such a pure calling that there was no way not to go. It was as if I had let go of my grip on a slippery slope and flowed into an infinite expanse of love and freedom such as I had never imagined could exist.
In this “our” world, sometimes we have love but not freedom; at other times, freedom but not love. But to immerse in both — for them to be the same reality, and for that reality to have no body, no end, and for us to have no body or end within it, for us to be it — a beatific consciousness, yet utterly real, for there is nothing hallucinatory in it: no ghosts, no visions, no distortions, no separation, no subject and object — it is wondrous.
And, as has been the rule in my ayahuasca experiences, the deepest messages I bring back are not products of interpretation — they incorporate themselves, they accompany us in this embodied journey through existence.
On this point, I once did a retreat of meditation and silence with one of the people closest to holiness — whatever construction that may be — whom I’ve met in life: a small Indian man named Bal. When the retreat ended, he invited me for a walk through the hills of Monchique, which had been ravaged by a fierce fire, and he urged me to look up toward the retreat centre. Around it, everything was burned, and there was a circle around the centre, as if the wrath of the god of fire had spared it.
Still a young man, awed and impressionable, I asked him: “Wow, how do you interpret this, Bal?”
And he, with that serene simplicity I remember (he passed away two years ago), looked up at me — as I was looking up at the mountain — and said:
“Interpret, my dear? Isn’t it enough for you to see?”
That was one of the lessons that never left me.
And so, returning to that infinite of love and freedom I experienced with ayahuasca — what it brought me was the awareness that that is where life goes when it ends. And from there, already leaning on the “crutch” of interpretation — and therefore without the same essential reliability — I ventured the hypothesis that it may also be from there that life comes when it begins.
Now, this might sound very esoteric, but let’s make it more practical: a baby. Let’s imagine that a baby comes from that “nirvana” (concepts are tricky — they always reduce and stigmatize). The baby emerges from the mother, and there is inevitably a crucial trauma. Pure attention is what we owe the baby — so that it feels safe, so that it feels responded to in its needs, its appeals, its most pressing desires.
The idea that the baby comes from such a space of fullness gives us a greater sense of responsibility. To listen, to feel, to understand — that is the essential task of parents. It is from there that the baby brings us news. And perhaps, speaking generally of course, setting aside physiological specifics, the baby’s cry is proportional to the distance between the place it came from and the place it has been thrown into.
If we look at babies this way, we will be closer to undoing a whole set of illusory concepts that limit our experience of living — whether as individuals, as societies or sociopolitical paradigms, or simply as nature itself.
That’s where my benevolent provocation about the destruction of the illusion of the “human” comes in. I once heard a member of an Indigenous community say that we humans are “earth that speaks.” And I fully agree. Conceived in this way, we do not fight for our land, since it is we who belong to it.
The question of Palestine, were this worldview widespread, would not even need to arise. Israel, as it is, would cease to exist — it would dissolve, earth upon earth.
Often, for example, I’m astonished at the reactions of so many “civilized” people to the “events” of the world. You’ll surely remember the destruction of statues and the uproar it caused — the outrage, from both sides. Some were outraged that the statues still stood; others, that they were torn down. Yet when a tree is cut down, no one is shocked.
A tree is life; a statue is death. We value more the faculty to kill than the faculty to generate. This is clearly a problem of the “human,” because it is disconnected from life. It no longer feels itself connected to the only truly systemic system that exists — Nature.
That biologically dominant human being you describe, Niall — he wants to kill Nature. And since treating evil with evil only doubles the evil, I think it is very important — essential, even — that we reconnect deeply enough to realize that the only way we have to end evil is to cover it with good; the only way we have to enter the night is to fill it with light.
And for that, we must know evil, know the night, devote pure — or as pure as possible — attention to “its” nature.
In my view, evil does not exist except as the absence of good. To make evil lose its fear of good, just as, conversely, to help the newborn lose its fear of the world, requires attention, communication, sharing, tremendous openness, kindness, generosity, perseverance. Faith. To believe in order to see, and to see in order to believe.
I’ll finish with a thought that seeks to undo a possible misconception — that I might see myself as a “bearer of good.” When I advocate for pure attention to the Other, I mean the deep Other, just as the deep self — both as sources of good. And I don’t feel that the liberation of the deep Other is possible without the liberation of the deep self.
One of Fela Kuti’s sons, Semi, said it perfectly in a recent concert to young Europeans:
“I know you’re always eager to free Palestine, the Congo, Sudan, Iran — a new one every week. Free Europe!”
Thank you so much, Niall.
"Evil" was invented c700bc by Zoroaster, the Persian prophet. The concept did not exist until then.
People were "Good or bad", which are relative to how they are behaving towards us. Ie, it's a subjective term.
The only way that "evil" has actual existence is that humans (the only animal that is stupid and deluded enough to manage to believe in such a concept) decide to believe they are "evil" and act accordingly.
However, Badness most certainly does exist.
And even "Very, VERY bad" [Bye Cheney and Kissinger].
It was Richard Bach who nudged me to understanding this, although it wasn't in Jonathon Livingstone Seagull but one of his other works.
Apart from that, very nice post imo. Psychedelics can be absolutely profound in the best way - it's still better to go through the hard work of meditation to get there, but only fash decry such shortcuts.
Sorry, it's Seun Kuti.
Niall, I continue to agree with your despite of human immorality, but I have several huge issues with this your article.
I dont have great biological educations, but it is evident to me that as much as nature provides for negative reactions, it also provides for positive ones. I think your blaming of our innate evolutionary structures is mostly misleading. Just as you cant reasonably appeal to nature for all things, so you cant blame nature for everything; in fact, it is the source of many miracles.
At a consequential level, power always gets people to the top of a society built on chaos. But not every society needs to be built that way. There are institutions that are well-positioned in moderation and reasonable communication, such as the United Nations (and this is not to say they are perfect). You cannot reasonably call power-struggles "contradictions" except ones of circumstances that may be improved upon.
A few paragraphs down, your article claims you deserve the Nobel Prize, which is another ponzi claim. You are referring to "our children" as a reference to making the world better. As an antinatalist who understands all the arguments against breeding more humans...what can I say? The secret to understanding humans, as I see it, is deeply embedded in understanding its ironies and acting with carefully applied kindness to those already existing, not in spreading your progeny.
You next claim that "personality" is the problem with humans. This is wrong. A lack of self-awareness with large personality may be a problem, but humans have developed moral agency and thoughtful consideration. Personality often helps to create and support communities.
Soon after this, you claim for a solution by "ordinary people". There is no such thing as "ordinary people". There are people with varying degrees of morality, on a spectrum.
I hope my points are seen as being helpful to you for honing your writing craft.
Hi Marcus, how about saying a few positive things about the article to balance things out a bit :)?
Positive things, such as how neatly or grammatically correct the article is worded? What positives are you imagining?
eg. The article:
- Offers cross-pollination of ideas between specialities.
- Often explains scientific idea without jargon.
- Generally communicates in language that everyone can relate to.
- Expresses a concern for future generations.
- Offers an antidote to misplaced ideals (eg. those who believe that democracy is perfect).
"Democracy" is a word with many potential meanings. This is literally the first week's topic in most PolSci courses.
At its core, "Democracy" means that everyone gets a say - and a vote if the matter affects them at minimum. At best a veto.
Needless to say, 'Western Liberal Representative Democracy" is a pale shadow of this ideal, more a figleaf for inherited wealth to pretend the public has a say every 4-5 years.
The essence of democracy is not, as we are usually told, that you can vote in the government you want but that you can vote out the government you don't want, and they have to go. However, money pulls strings behind the scenes.
By "democracy" you mean of course 'western representative democracy', rather than say direct democracy, or the Swiss-style referendum-democracy.
Yes, in that system we can kick the Blue Thatcherites out, and get the Red Blairite Thatcherites instead, have a big party for a couple of weeks at how we beat the Establishment, and then 4 years of a hangover when we realise that once again they beat us.
Rinse and repeat every few years.
It IS an interesting insight that voting is more negative than positive - we can get rid of one bunch, but we can't choose the policies of the next bunch really, and they are almost certainly the same as the previous bunch - but as I said, the first thing you learn in formal PolSci is that "democracy" has several, and sometimes conflicting, definitions.
I don't think it's a coincidence that it has become a 'Magic Word', rather than a solidly defined social-science concept that we can judge accordingly.
One CANNOT invade a country to "Impose democracy" there, anymore than someone can be put into prison to be taught positive freedom. And there would go the last 35 years of Western 'Liberal Interventionism' lies and excuses.
That may be, but is your purpose in this forum to describe the disaster or to design the future?
Phil, your response is better than I expected. I agree with points 1 to 3. My train of thought was to consider his arguments and not so much his manner, which is rather established fact.