Solitaire

So I was sitting there in a very radically mood, and I figured, okay, it's not 2004-5 anymore (pretty much when I stopped following events with any frequency and lost my head). Bush is gone. Hooray. But what about Obama?

Well, he and the democrats seem to be in charge, which is good. So good, in fact, that I almost thought there'd be no reason to even get back into politics.

But then I read a Paul Krugman essay about the radical right taking over the republican party (which doesn't worry me much), and it occurred to me-the democrats are WAY right of where they used to be. In fact, it's like they surrender a little ideological turf as the right wing PR machine gets stronger and stronger in order to cater to voters. Probably a sound strategy for winning votes, as people are getting duped left and right (no pun intended) in the United States, but yet, something's very very wrong about this. If the trend continues, with the nutjobs pulling the whole country in the direction of fascism (mind you, we're not there yet, and probably weren't even in the Bush Administration), we're going to be in dire straights soon.

And another thing-something I got out of reading On Empire was that the USA is sorta a pseudo-empire more so than a shadow empire, as I believed previously. There's differences-much like, despite moving towards fascism, we're not fascist or going to become that. But we may wind up in a pseudo-fascist setup, which sounds nasty. What's irritating about this situation is there's no word for a pseudo-empire (pseudo-empire being a horrible way of describing things), and should we wind up swinging back to the right, we won't quite be fascist, but something new altogether without a name. And in absence of such a name, most will believe us to be the democracy we keep repeating ourselves to be. When we're actually, thanks to the past century or so worth of PR bombardment we've experienced, more like a subverted democracy. What we actually are at this point is impossible to tell, but I get the feeling that if a lot of us want to actually become a democracy it'll require a lot more vigilance and effort towards maintaining such a system than is currently happening. I just glanced at the wikipedia list of governments, and cannot really say for sure what the hell we are-though I think a lot of people are trying to sway opinion by proving to people that we're, say, a kleptocracy (rule by thieves, I think). Which is an argument you can easily make and defend, but it doesn't feel quite so dead on. Also I can think of arguments for that type or probably four or five others off the top of my head, and all the while realizing that we're a representative democracy (a sort of Republic Lite) on paper. This is a cute, and powerful, rhetorical tool, but I don't know if it's an accurate portrayal of the truth so much as a persuasive opinion argument that'll probably be made irrelevant in wake of other people making equally powerful arguments for other systems...

The first step in retaking the country from the folks ruining it is to determine exactly the nature of the problem. Right now it's not even clear what's being looked at. I think the second step would be to determine what people want collectively and to begin pursuing that...but i'm just musing on things right now.

Apparently, sometimes when I'm mucking about in the bookstores spending money I don't have, I come across something interesting and valuable to read. "Propaganda", a propaganda propaganda piece (as in, propaganda for propaganda itself) as well as a manual on the subject, was such a book. Written by Edward Bernays, also known as the father of PR, it's interesting and scary.

But it's part of the puzzle in figuring out exactly how the country is pieced together. I can't say how effective the stuff is, but i'll say this much-even if there's no invisible cabal ruling the country, there do appear to be largely invisible influences that are dramatically effective in manipulating the public (myself included) mind. I'd elaborate but I hurt my back again and i'm in pain and kinda doped up. The book turns out to be as interesting as it is frightening; i'm starting to see how cynical types work and operate in our country.

What I have yet to see is any effective way to counter the effects of such types, or whether that's even possible; the manual, as part of its advertising the technique, says propaganda is "Here to stay" and likes to push it as a neutral thing. That being said, I do wonder where exactly you're stepping over a line in your attempts to be influential; as best I can tell, the whole project of propaganda as we know it today is the subversion of democracy, or if not that, is unfortunately causing such subversion...

Note: This heavily paraphrases from the Eva Wong translation of the Lieh Tzu in the part describing the three realms. Shambhala published and sells it HERE: http://www.shambhala.com/html/catalog/items/isbn/978-1-57062-899-3.cfm (Pages 90-92) On to the essay.



Lieh Tzu and the Three Realms

In Lieh Tzu's story 'Dreams', he discusses three distant places populated by very different peoples. While clearly mythical, these realms are in fact describing the psyche or internal worlds of different groups of people we can see everywhere in the real world, as is discernible by how they treat dreaming phenomena.

The realms are as follows:

The first is a land untouched by the energies of yin and yang; as a result, the people there dream for fifty days before waking, and do not work, eat, or wear clothing. There is no night or day, and no change in the seasons; you could almost say they live in a perpetual twilight haze. As a result of the circumstances of their existence, they take dreams to be reality and waking life to be a dream.

The second land is a realm like ours; yin and yang energies touch it in perfect balance. As a result, there is division between day and night, and between the seasons; there is a variety of people there, people essentially of all types from all walks of life, who live in an organized society, harvest crops, and have a leader. They spend half of their time dreaming, and half of it awake; as a result of this, they take dreaming to be dreaming, and waking life to be reality.

The third land, however, is a sun scorched wasteland. Nothing is said about the yin and yang energies, but the description states that there is no night; the sun and moon shine on the land at all times, and as a result it is hot, and the land cannot support crops. The people scratch a meager existence from the land by eating fruits and rough tree roots, are very violent, and rarely sleep. As a result, they know nothing of dreams.

Instinctively, the assumption is that none of the three realms are really real. And to tell the truth, none of them can be seen from space. But if you examine them closely, you see that they describe the mental worlds lived in by people along the action/dreaming spectrum. Though Lieh Tzu does not explicitly make this connection, it is visible through example.

On the one hand, we have the dreamers, or those who think, muse, and turn things over in their head; not necessarily in their sleep, either. These people generally get little accomplished, but they certainly are passive and peaceful. Where they err is in thinking that the dream is the reality; the idealist who does not work towards a better world, or the artist who does not create anything, are both examples of this. They are those who dream instead of acting.

At the other far extreme, we have those who act and never dream. Doers, essentially; the soldier who never questions his orders, the ruthless businessman who does anything to make a profit or a quick buck, perhaps people who have left things like dreams, ideals, and visions behind in favor of functionality in the waking world. These are those who act instead of dreaming.

And holding the center, naturally, we find those who work together and cooperate. They both dream and work towards their dreams; as a result, they do not perhaps live in a perfect world, but it's certainly a far cry from a perpetual twilight realm where nothing happens and a blasted wasteland where every man is against everyone else. The difference between them and those at the extremes is rather simple-they both dream and work towards common objectives, dreaming yet not regarding it as real-as is part of the lesson inherent in Lieh Tzu's story-balance is needed between action and dreaming. Those who dream in favor of acting live in an insubstantial, hazy and evanescent world where nothing changes; those who only act and know nothing of dreaming or fantasy eke out a violent existence competing for a meager survival, while those who can live in balance actually build a society that works and live in a land that changes with the seasons.

Lieh Tzu's parting question, however, is a little more elusive.
"What then is the difference between waking and dreaming?"



Anyway, that's the rough draft of the essay. Not sure whether or not I've mentioned this, but it's the start of a nonfiction project I need to finish up on 'radical dreaming'. Huzzah. Don't know whether I'll post the later essays up here yet. And again it's a draft, and I apologize to all involved parties for not really knowing the proper way to post references and such. I'll take this down if anyone things it's infringing copyright laws or something...

I'm now about four blocks away from the Richmond city projects. Hooray. Also, I will be posting delicious fantasy links and the odd, subversive essay shortly, as soon as I er, get around to doing that. But the confusion should be mostly over for now. Maybe I can do regular posts again.

Not a proper essay, just a few links and some thoughts. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but at some point I was reading a Lieh Tzu story entitled "Dreams" (google him if you don't know who he is or haven't heard of him, I hadn't until recently). It inspired an essay, which in turn inspired an essay series, which may or may not be book length. This depends on whether or not the topics I come up with are covered elsewhere. I haven't figured out how I want to publish it (Creative Commons or shoot for publication), though I think I'm going to post the essay I did on Lieh Tzu up here eventually. It and an 'ending' essay may well be the only ones to get finished if I spend any more time jawing off about it as opposed to sitting down and doing the work involved. So on that note, on to Mythology.

I don't think every pantheon has a god of dreams-or if they do, they're not easy to find. I spent an hour going through the search results of Godchecker, a kinda whimsical site on mythology, whose search engine definetely sidetracked me with every deity and being related to the aboriginal Dreamtime, but yielded a few hits of interest. Greek Mythology looks to have the most interesting collection of deities, with Morpheus, Somnus, Phobetor, and Phantasos (Dreams-realistic, sleep, phobia/nightmare/animal dreams, abstract/vivid imagery dreams, in that order). Also Asclepius. A-sleepy-us? Hmm. The Native Americans' section just has Manit, god of dreams, hallucinations, and visions. This is a little more straightforward to me, but I did a lot of drugs and hallucinated a lot in the past.

Morpheus apparently sleeps in a cave on an ebony bed surrounded by poppy (what? say it ain't so), but he didn't manage to compose Xanadu despite a propensity of potential opium on hand. Or perhaps he did. Maybe you should google him or it. And who WAS Kubla Khan, anyway? Speaking of things that don't get finished...

There's more, of course, but I want to finish researching and writing this article/essay.


EDIT: Oops. I think the poem is entitled "Kubla Khan" and starts with the phrase "In Xanadu". This is what happens when you don't google things.


Forgot the links. Here ya go. Mythology sites. Without which we wouldn't have any FANTASY. Which is named after PHANTASOS. Fun stuff.

Encyclopedia Mythica (scholarly)
http://www.pantheon.org/
Godchecker (light-hearted/funnish)
http://www.godchecker.com/