A comment on pseudoscience and woo labeling: just because you can’t yet mathematically prove that something exists, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t. Intuition can be the starting point for science and discovery; and often, proving the discovery takes time. Honest naysayers should be able to understand this at an instinctive level.
Easy to say something doesn’t exist if you can’t see all its parts.
Yeah- great scientists are frequently mystics. I think the “science needs to be objectively rational” is modern, incomplete and a neurological and cultural anomaly.
Dec 18, 2023·edited Dec 19, 2023Liked by Tom Morgan
Thank you, Tom. I especially I appreciate you highlighting that "the vast majority of humanity before us and outside of the West have always had an intuitive, embodied, “archetypal feminine” relationship with reality." I believe this is because we have all been born from a female body. You can read my full response here: https://immediacyforum.substack.com/p/born-of-a-woman
I recommend the last 4 pages of Tarnas' Epilogue, linked in that article.
One thing I find super interesting is that I don't think we put an appropriate economic value on the feminine. "What use is a woman's womb? It's just an empty space?" Hence we devalue both sacred containers, caring, sacrifice and intuition. Negative capability.
I don't know how we get out of that trap; because I don't think "tearing down the existing system" is an attractive idea for anyone except naive college students. It's something I'll be thinking about a lot this coming year.
I completely agree, Tom. How do we move to collectively valuing the space from which everything emerges? I look forward to your work in the new year as I will too and furthering this inquiry. Till then, take care.
Incredible insights. The engrained individualistic world-view we swim in will not easily dissipate. The tipping point, imo, will come , not as we try and figure it out swim in this cultural water, but when we are willing to engage with those that live/swim in the collective/communitarian worldview/water. We need to swim in an estuary, a combination of both.
The estuary metaphor is great. On one of Rebel Wisdom's closing podcasts I think they had a conversation with Jonathan Pageau. He said "rebel" or "dark web" wasn't how you built a moment, it was open, safe dialogue. He specifically referenced an estuary.
As the 3 wise men said in that video, perhaps the next buddha will be a sangha
That three way between McGilchrist, Vervaeke and Schmactenberger is amazing. It takes a while for them to warm up but when they do, they share some incredible insights and empowering ideas: the power law distribution, the difference between cognitive empathy and embodied empathy and the link to the dark tetrad personality traits. Worth a second visit to take notes.
You talk about half truths or omissions that are misleading. These are just narratives that advance the speaker's agenda. It is universal, even when you are writing your curriculum vitae, or filling out Linked-In. So how do you "parse" all the world narratives? That would be something to write about. We demonstrate our written ideas with some examples. All the examples have several ways to look at them, (opposing narratives).
The Ceausescu event is not about telling any truth. It is just another form of color-revolution, maybe spontaneous? I have never been attracted to Solzhenitsyn. Being in prison, he was definitely biased. There are always the constructive and the destructive. Can you build something NEW out of the destructive, out of complaining? I don't think so, in the minimum you have to balance the two. Did Solzhenitsyn ever say anything positive?
There are others who were in Soviet prison but did not bad-mouth the regime, and who are immensely positive in my view. One is Lev Nikolayevich Gumilev, an anthropologist who did amazing work under lots of oppression. Most of the oppression came from his University colleagues by the way.
✓Lee says: “The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved." You get over it though, unless you are one who loves to wallow in felt-memories.
✓The tyranny is not invisible for those with eyes. It is just that the "privileged" choose to excuse or ignore it, for their own convenience. That may include most of us.
✓About that myth: The Hebrew seers wrote that: "God ordered Adam and Eve to name everything that is". In other words, The Abrahamic God created mental duality at the first blow. So everything written by Hebrews, (and the Christian Bible), is a mental abstraction. I agree, that absolute evil can come out of these chauvinistic abstractions.
✓You definitely present made-up half truths:
We are all separate individuals.
We are free to do whatever we want.
Competition, survival of the fittest, is how evolution works.
____________
✓Modern individualism (and most of the so-called enlightenment philosophers), believe that life starts with the individual, after which comes groups and society. But research of Durkheim and Mauss shows that this is a limited Western View, and that many societies elsewhere in the world do not think this way at all. First, there are totems, and symbols of the group that define the group as a whole, and only after the group is defined, is the individual acknowledged. Individual consciousness comes from group consciousness, which means that group consciousness is the prerequisite for individual consciousness and not its result. "The Group" is not world-government nor all inclusive by the way. There are borders, just like there are boundaries in all human relationships.
✓Do we have to go to the "Left Hemisphere" to sort this out? I think that is a diversion or another half-truth. We can just look to the billionaires that run the west. Of course they dismiss mystery. There is no room for anything other than their narrative.
✓Reintegrating the Tyrant: Just a little study demonstrates the Internet has certain tendencies. It can go in one direction, maybe quickly, but does that mean it is possible to flood to the other direction? Not if it is counter to these tendencies, which are fragmentary to say the least. I can't feature that there is a "belief in all-connected". It is either an experience or not. Besides, as a belief it will never motivate, nor will it form a global coordination. I don't think it has any go-power at all. Now Solzhenitsyn is saying "Good-and Evil is in every heart". That is so Abrahamic. It is just convenience and short term self-serving in every heart. Why not leave "evil" out of it? Of course we fear social or professional ridicule, it is happening every day, and widely publicized. We mostly fear losing our "privileged status". ($)
✓Talking about mystical experience is really a long-shot too, up to a diversion.
I am not writing this article, so I am not proposing any solutions. but one way out would be to set up some small scale model that would not be (too much) opposed by the billionaires. The idea would be a more equitable distribution and to reward behaviors that wouldn't further deteriorate society. If it had anything to do with cooperation or the word "socialism", forget it.
One beta model could be a small business owned only by the employees. Their goals would be 1) to ensure the competitiveness and good management of their (Capitalist) niche enterprise. 2) They would want to support the community where they all lived, good infrastructure, schools, services, health and recreation. It is already happening, but I haven't checked how fast it is growing.
Small units up to 150, (the Dunbar number), could never be a majority. But even growing to a 10% model will shame the corporations into offering a more equitable distribution. Their employees would demand it.
The Emperor's New Clothes are resonating like never before. There are things that we individually know are untrue but can't point out because of tyrannical individuals and the movements they create.
I came across this today, which is very Morgan-esque:
My comments, Tom... https://johnstokdijk538.substack.com/p/only-the-lonely
Thanks John. I’m probably going to spend more of 2024 looking at practical ways into these ideas. Grateful for your input.
Great piece, Tom.
A comment on pseudoscience and woo labeling: just because you can’t yet mathematically prove that something exists, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t. Intuition can be the starting point for science and discovery; and often, proving the discovery takes time. Honest naysayers should be able to understand this at an instinctive level.
Easy to say something doesn’t exist if you can’t see all its parts.
Yeah- great scientists are frequently mystics. I think the “science needs to be objectively rational” is modern, incomplete and a neurological and cultural anomaly.
Thank you, Tom. I especially I appreciate you highlighting that "the vast majority of humanity before us and outside of the West have always had an intuitive, embodied, “archetypal feminine” relationship with reality." I believe this is because we have all been born from a female body. You can read my full response here: https://immediacyforum.substack.com/p/born-of-a-woman
Thanks for writing this Claudia.
It's an idea I've been wrestling with too: https://whatsimportant.substack.com/p/the-tyrant-and-the-king
I recommend the last 4 pages of Tarnas' Epilogue, linked in that article.
One thing I find super interesting is that I don't think we put an appropriate economic value on the feminine. "What use is a woman's womb? It's just an empty space?" Hence we devalue both sacred containers, caring, sacrifice and intuition. Negative capability.
I don't know how we get out of that trap; because I don't think "tearing down the existing system" is an attractive idea for anyone except naive college students. It's something I'll be thinking about a lot this coming year.
Also check out the latest Emerald podcast, it's excellent on this.
I completely agree, Tom. How do we move to collectively valuing the space from which everything emerges? I look forward to your work in the new year as I will too and furthering this inquiry. Till then, take care.
Incredible insights. The engrained individualistic world-view we swim in will not easily dissipate. The tipping point, imo, will come , not as we try and figure it out swim in this cultural water, but when we are willing to engage with those that live/swim in the collective/communitarian worldview/water. We need to swim in an estuary, a combination of both.
Thanks Dan, very generous of you.
The estuary metaphor is great. On one of Rebel Wisdom's closing podcasts I think they had a conversation with Jonathan Pageau. He said "rebel" or "dark web" wasn't how you built a moment, it was open, safe dialogue. He specifically referenced an estuary.
As the 3 wise men said in that video, perhaps the next buddha will be a sangha
A truly great piece here. So glad to know you.
Utterly mutual Mark
That three way between McGilchrist, Vervaeke and Schmactenberger is amazing. It takes a while for them to warm up but when they do, they share some incredible insights and empowering ideas: the power law distribution, the difference between cognitive empathy and embodied empathy and the link to the dark tetrad personality traits. Worth a second visit to take notes.
Yeah these guys are absolutely top of their game. Have a short interview with John Vervaeke dropping shortly.
I’ll be watching for sure. I really enjoyed his conversation with Tim Bishop too.
When we expand our definitions, we can see how everything overlaps, how we are all one.
Hello Tom Morgan,
You talk about half truths or omissions that are misleading. These are just narratives that advance the speaker's agenda. It is universal, even when you are writing your curriculum vitae, or filling out Linked-In. So how do you "parse" all the world narratives? That would be something to write about. We demonstrate our written ideas with some examples. All the examples have several ways to look at them, (opposing narratives).
The Ceausescu event is not about telling any truth. It is just another form of color-revolution, maybe spontaneous? I have never been attracted to Solzhenitsyn. Being in prison, he was definitely biased. There are always the constructive and the destructive. Can you build something NEW out of the destructive, out of complaining? I don't think so, in the minimum you have to balance the two. Did Solzhenitsyn ever say anything positive?
There are others who were in Soviet prison but did not bad-mouth the regime, and who are immensely positive in my view. One is Lev Nikolayevich Gumilev, an anthropologist who did amazing work under lots of oppression. Most of the oppression came from his University colleagues by the way.
✓Lee says: “The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved." You get over it though, unless you are one who loves to wallow in felt-memories.
✓The tyranny is not invisible for those with eyes. It is just that the "privileged" choose to excuse or ignore it, for their own convenience. That may include most of us.
✓About that myth: The Hebrew seers wrote that: "God ordered Adam and Eve to name everything that is". In other words, The Abrahamic God created mental duality at the first blow. So everything written by Hebrews, (and the Christian Bible), is a mental abstraction. I agree, that absolute evil can come out of these chauvinistic abstractions.
✓You definitely present made-up half truths:
We are all separate individuals.
We are free to do whatever we want.
Competition, survival of the fittest, is how evolution works.
____________
✓Modern individualism (and most of the so-called enlightenment philosophers), believe that life starts with the individual, after which comes groups and society. But research of Durkheim and Mauss shows that this is a limited Western View, and that many societies elsewhere in the world do not think this way at all. First, there are totems, and symbols of the group that define the group as a whole, and only after the group is defined, is the individual acknowledged. Individual consciousness comes from group consciousness, which means that group consciousness is the prerequisite for individual consciousness and not its result. "The Group" is not world-government nor all inclusive by the way. There are borders, just like there are boundaries in all human relationships.
✓Do we have to go to the "Left Hemisphere" to sort this out? I think that is a diversion or another half-truth. We can just look to the billionaires that run the west. Of course they dismiss mystery. There is no room for anything other than their narrative.
✓Reintegrating the Tyrant: Just a little study demonstrates the Internet has certain tendencies. It can go in one direction, maybe quickly, but does that mean it is possible to flood to the other direction? Not if it is counter to these tendencies, which are fragmentary to say the least. I can't feature that there is a "belief in all-connected". It is either an experience or not. Besides, as a belief it will never motivate, nor will it form a global coordination. I don't think it has any go-power at all. Now Solzhenitsyn is saying "Good-and Evil is in every heart". That is so Abrahamic. It is just convenience and short term self-serving in every heart. Why not leave "evil" out of it? Of course we fear social or professional ridicule, it is happening every day, and widely publicized. We mostly fear losing our "privileged status". ($)
✓Talking about mystical experience is really a long-shot too, up to a diversion.
I am not writing this article, so I am not proposing any solutions. but one way out would be to set up some small scale model that would not be (too much) opposed by the billionaires. The idea would be a more equitable distribution and to reward behaviors that wouldn't further deteriorate society. If it had anything to do with cooperation or the word "socialism", forget it.
One beta model could be a small business owned only by the employees. Their goals would be 1) to ensure the competitiveness and good management of their (Capitalist) niche enterprise. 2) They would want to support the community where they all lived, good infrastructure, schools, services, health and recreation. It is already happening, but I haven't checked how fast it is growing.
Small units up to 150, (the Dunbar number), could never be a majority. But even growing to a 10% model will shame the corporations into offering a more equitable distribution. Their employees would demand it.
FOR SURE IT WILL BE DECLARED ILLEGAL.
.
The Emperor's New Clothes are resonating like never before. There are things that we individually know are untrue but can't point out because of tyrannical individuals and the movements they create.
I came across this today, which is very Morgan-esque:
https://unherd.com/?p=494120?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3
Thanks Anne Marie!