>>>>>>Reading a book on the history of counterculture recently the author had these words in his final chapter, "A functioning, decentralized, distrubuted anarchy on a nine billion person planet isn't going to happen, kids. Not in my lifetime and not in yours. A more realistic, gradualist approach to a less authoritarian future is called for. But hey, very few want to seem unhip to their rad friends by confronting this dreary truth."<<<<<<<<<<

Are you sure that this is "truth"? It certainly seems a lot less likely that 9 billion people can be completely stripped of their individuality, centrally controlled, and kept ignorant in the age of the Internet.

>>>>This is a pivotal point. Neither schooling, nor drugs, nor communications or anything else seems to be exempt from the long hand of those who want to run and guide things. And I believe that many do so because they believe they can do it well.<<<<<

That's because they do it with schooling, drugs, and communications. Indoctrination and reinforcement. People can't want what they don't know about or understand. They lead lives of "quiet desperation", neurotic and anxious without understanding why, filling the voids with centrally prescribed nostrums that do little to help.

>>>>Either Lew Welch or Phillip Whalen said something to this effect--sometimes you can just step aside and let the machine roll right by. I think this is true.
My stance in this crazy, beautiful, glorius mess of a modern world is one I stole from the poet Gary Snyder. He believes that he long view of history will show the modern era-gas powered/mega states/corporations- to be an eddy in the flow of civilization.<<<<<<

This may be true. The learning and wisdom of the ancients were lost (some are still being re-discovered) until the establishment of the university system in the middle ages and classical education. The control freaks are well on their way to blasting us back to the stone age, if they succeed and mankind survives he might have to start all over again.

>>>>>Of course some believe that we are in a linear mode of history and that we will head to some final endpoint, and while that may be true I don't see it, nor do I buy it. It makes for good drama but the reality is we'll probably just keep mucking along.<<<<<

Even if you don't believe in "end times" there is no denying the inevitability of another asteroid or the Yellowstone caldera ending "life as we know it", perhaps all human life, except perhaps the "leaders" safe in their bunkers. Now that will be an interesting world, no one left but the controllers. Maybe that's what that rapture story is all about.

>>>>>>>In keeping with this tact I side with what has sometimes been called the great subculture. This subculture is represented as a subcurrent in all the great civilizations-Taoism, Zen Buddhists, Sufis, Gnostics, Tantrism etc...
Snyder describes this "ancient shamanistic-yogic-gnostic socioeconomic view" as one that holds --"Mankind's mother is Nature and Nature should be tenderly respected; that man's life and destiny is growth and enlightenment in self disciplined freedom;that the divine has been made flesh and that flesh is divine; that we not only should but do love one another.<<<<<

It's pretty obvious we don't all love each other.

>>>>>>>This view has been harshly suppressed in the past (and I would add the present) as threatening to both Church and State." (Thank the Lord.)
To his fine words I would add that the Great Subculture is one that values mankind and the Divine-Respecting that some things are unknowable but at the same time utilizing practical technologies- meditation, yoga, exertion, training, study, diet and the like to facilitate higher levels of awareness, such that the infinity of Now can be seen or at least recognized and honored.<<<<<<<

I'm not sure what this means. One man's Church is another man's prison, another man's higher awareness is seen as embrace of paganism. I'm with you as long as no one is forcing either.

>>>>>This is where my allegiance lies. Not with States, not with Religion, but with Creation, with (Wo)Man. Some will talk of God and Revelation and I say Amen, but look deeper. There is a current that flows beneath monstrous edifices of civilization that whispers to us, that says we don't have to give our power away, that we can trade and interact with each other minus the imposed hierarchies of scared little men who fear their own being so greatly they want to lord over others.<<<<<

If you mean absence of force and the free market, I'm with you here also.

>>>>To break through the fear it is necessary to work tirelessly and investigate the negative and harmful potential of the Unconcious. Recognizing and dealing with these forces can free us from them. Denying and hiding from them makes them powerful, makes them the boogeyman, the Devil, Original Sin. In doing so the job of the Church and State is done, we don't need them anymore to look after us.<<<<<

Original sin exists. We are all born flawed and capable of great evil, but usually only commit little evils. Call it sin or flaw, no one is born perfect and worthy of ruling others. Organized religion and the State look after no one but themselves, using the control of others to do so. All organizations are highly suspect, but especially those with "noble purposes".

>>>>So, while I don't think that we will wake up any day soon with a radically decentralized world and beautiful local economies that value the innate goodness of womankind and mankind,<<<<<<<<

Goodness is not innate in man (or woman), it is this thinking that has spawned moral relativism. This is not to say that there aren't some pretty good people out there. But none of them should hold power over other people. Even the "good" ones generally make utilitarian decisions that hurt someone somewhere, for the "greater good".

>>>>>>I do believe that we can tell the stories around the campfire that point to a better world, a better way, preparing the ground for those who come after.
Perhaps this is such campfire?<<<<

I believe it is. But the last time I discussed such things around a real campfire my socialist brother in law started sputtering and ran off with a 6 pack. He couldn't justify his Faith but couldn't abandon it either. Sigh.

>>>>Instead of looking at the negative and getting down, fearing the great Powers that Be, let us cultivate that which is good and beautiful, that which can't be destroyed. The lotus roots itself in the muck and bursts forth in beauty. Flowers can bloom in bloody pits brimming with offal.
I have hope. When I bow my head touches the floor. Until all beings are enlightened...<<<<

We have little other choice (sorry to be negative). Exposing the Powers that Be for what they are will go a long way toward de-legitimizing them.

From "Brave New World Revisited":
"Under a scientific dictator education will really work-with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.....Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.

JS,
You said, "I believe it is. But the last time I discussed such things around a real campfire my socialist brother in law started sputtering and ran off with a 6 pack. He couldn't justify his Faith but couldn't abandon it either. Sigh."
Maybe he is a thug, witch doctor or a mooch. Maybe he knows what he is but can't find the language to obscure that fact from you.
From General Semantics I have came to understand that it is imperative to understand the symbols used to manipulate us and to understand what our own standards are.
It seems to me that the Planned Simplicity movement is about responding to our own standards and refusing to respond to the symbols used to manipulate us.
Once I realized that it is easily seen that the chief symbol used by our wannabe political masters is fear.
Ron

Hakim Bey ( if you look him up be warned he is a Radical Anarchist-Not a pretty picture Free marketer) wrote a book called T.A.Z. (Temporary Autonomous Zones) in which he described how individuals who want to be free in an increasingly top down world will seek out time and place where they can express themselves and be free. As the poster above mentioned most people enjoy being captives, slaves if you will. Freedom is hard stuff. That's why I say I don't think you will see a free flowing anarchy or decentralization any time soon.
Just wondering, but you seem very radicalized to your notion of anarchy and decentralization. Is this because it is a new one? I've been all about what you preach for a long time and I've had a chance for it to soak in and the initial urgency has passed.

Interesting that you say that, Ron. In the book "Brave New World Revisited" I quoted above Huxley makes a point of the fact that language and symbols are of primary imporatnce in the conditioning and reinforcement process. And as we see nowadays, meanings of words and ideas are changed, they become code words for different ideas entirely. Like "No Child Left Behind". An education in this use of language and symbols is very important, but it is not supported, even by a lot of libertarian types. This is because they still want some degree of indoctrination so some type of cooperation with the system is achieved at the expense of individual freedom and choice. I think this is why people are so rabid about school "socialization". What they really are worried about is kids buying into the system as they did so they will get their goodies that they think they worked for, keeping the hive going. But as Huxley points out, people are not that social, they are more like dogs in packs than ants or bees in a hive. I think my brother in law is just "socialized". He is an extremely nice man, but one of the "quietly desperate" types.

I don't think my views are urgent as much as just strong. You are right, some folks don't want freedom, and I'm not against them not having it at all. If people want to live as hive creatures, joiners, or part of a herd of 10 minute haters that doesn't bother me, I think they should be free to do it, I think they should be free to contract into slavery if they want. The thing that bothers me is the well-meaning people who think that "we" must cure all social ills which automatically defaults everyone into the herd of slaves working for others (which I believe is now 107 workdays out of the year). When they say "we" they are taking my choice and freedom from me. Of course if I object I am selfish, hate the poor, etc. I don't mean to preach, I usually respond when someone posts something that needs to be supported or refuted. I have had these feelings and ideas for my entire life but never understood really why until I got online and read people who thought as I did. I have been in work and school situations where we were put through the consensus shaping process, facilitation, all that change-agent stuff. I encountered it again when I was active in my kids' school, I just didn't understand what was going on, the process being used on us. So, no, this isn't a new passion, although my conversion to Christianity is.

I read BNW every few years to see how much more true it is. It's getting there.
"No child left Behind"-I wonder if they used that to appeal to all those who love those Rapture books by Tim Lahaye?

JS,
" I think my brother in law is just "socialized". He is an extremely nice man, but one of the "quietly desperate" types."

JS, can't you imagine the mental condition of a person that bought into socialism as a young person, perhaps as a child, and has gotten to the point they realize the system doesn't and can't work. Going further they come to realize the entire socialist system operates on the basis of unfulfilled promises. He will never get back what he has put into the system nor will he ever see the promises to him and others fulfilled. Worse at this time in his life he has no idea how self reliance and capitalism would work to his advantage -- don't forget in the schools where he was socialized he was also shortchanged on any knowledge that is required to stand on his own.
Ron

LOL. I never thought of that.

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