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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: we stand collectively on a threshold, looking back we see clearly what we are leaving behind as we brace ourselves for the departure and bidding fond farewell to the twentieth century, more different from its predecessor than we can rightly imagine for there was another threshold that western civilization stepped though one hundred years ago. more than a turning point, the catalyst that would serve to undo all that had come before, changing everything, not the least of which being how society and more specifically the peoples within these societies defined themselves. the trigger event, the cataclysm that would break the back of history and forever set in stone the divide that separates us in our modern reality from the ancient world, and i would say historians in the years ahead will look upon this event with the gravity that has thus far mostly escaped our notice still being too close to see the patterns play out in their historical context. the world prior to the first world war, the great war or war to end all wars as it has come to be known, was the province of kings, noble houses ruled over europe, and though mostly blood related these families, they did love playing chess with the lives of their loyal subjects. a concept difficult for us to conjure up in our machinations, existing as we do in the full flower of democracy. this however was not their world, the world as it existed in 1913, when the few controlled the lived of the many with impunity, and their rule was unquestioned, although not entirely unquestioned. the late 18th century and into the 19th saw although on a small level, the actions of a resistance movement among the people, nobles began to be routinely assassinated, bombs being the principle means, members of the peerage were being murdered at an alarming rate, but none of such significance as to warrant action on the part of the royal households. until the killing of the archduke franz ferdinand, who was next in line for the austrian throne, a king in waiting. that tiny event had achieved political critical mass, and the chain reaction boiled over into an unstoppable catastrophe no one could have predicted. western civilization willingly and wantonly beat itself senseless and almost to death, and came out the other side spitting iconoclast venom, their kings had betrayed them sending millions to certain death, the church did not leave this carnage unscathed, many recall all too vividly the pressure placed upon them by the goodly church to take up arms and kill, die for your god like a good christian. the foundations of society had with their deception and treachery crumpled in the hands of those who had always fought the hardest on their behalf, the commoners. the world for these people, prior to the conflagration that would be the undoing of all things, was outside of themselves, and as in all societies the object of this collective focus had always been deemed the center of the universe. around which society would gather and draw collective inspiration and strength from. the omphalos, as the ancient greeks called it, and for them it was the oracle at delphi, or rather delphi in and of it self being the portal between the world and the heavens. for the romans it was rome it self that was the center of all things, royalty long having had some tenuous connection with divinity served for the people who lived under them as a living omphalos, the center all beneath them to be gazed upon and look to. needless to say the church, religion it self being the essence of the philosophy behind the concept of the omphalos, would languish as readily as the nobility had and these things were the pillars that supported civilized society, our devotion unifying us all. this was undone. the pillars smashed, leaving only a vacuum in the hearts and minds of the peoples of the western world who had been most effected by the purge that was world war one. the omphalos required a home , humanity needs to fixate, and if not outwardly then with introspection. unchained from both the stiffly control of the lords of the land and the grasping relentless neediness of mother church, common individuals began to see and think of themselves in a different way, not the first time in history to be sure, learned fellows from all ages stepped outside of the herd and observed the behaviour from a new perspective, their own perspective. but not a thing for the masses, not entire societies waking up together as the sun rose on a very different reality than they had known the evening before. no, the world had been reborn and people understood themselves to be individuals, and not property as their parents had been in the heady days before the war. the omphalos became us. we, each of us has become the center of our own universe. new ways of interpreting reality were born out of the fires of destruction and death of the war, driving sanity to the brink, new ways to expressing how the world had seemed to change found their voice in data and cubism, psychology being the new narrative, as individuals having found their thoughts to be truly their own. and this new inner voice now free to form opinions and envisage possibilities establishing intellectualism. the mind now free to develop, explore a world once only the purview of the class of nobility that had with a sweep of the hand been rendered an arcane relic of bygone days. individualism was now the zeitgeist and while attempt were made to resurrect the paradigms of the past, the absolute rule exemplified by the brief reign of the nazi,s the death throws of imperial grandiose. the trend towards what aliester crowley called satanic individualism, or what he saw rightly or wrongly as humanities fall from grace. no gods no masters, just as satan was cast down from heaven non serviam spat from his lips, 'i will not serve' and thus we all unwittingly found our way to freedom, in servitude to none in a house divided. and so we find ourselves looking back upon the world that created our view of reality, the science, art, politics that has shaped us even as we in our new found self determination shaped it, and we must ask ourselves, how much of what we have become do we dare surrender to the forces that would seek to send us all back to the world that came before, the world that would once again see us leashed. our individuality may be our undoing as we have lost the ability to see the world from outside ourselves and embrace the united humanity that had in the past made us much stronger even at the price of our personal rights and integrity.
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone: wow knave ... that was epic man more comments to follow
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supernaut9
supernaut9: What a ride :o
You have some writing skills for sure.
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(Post deleted by wanda the wanton 6 years ago)
FistOfStone
FistOfStone: individualism ... i find that in the modern world we all share a common assumption, that it is up to each person to choose his/her own worldview ... even if many simply believe what they are raised to believe, they understand that they have the option to believe otherwise, and choose not to take that option ... this is i think profoundly different from any other time in history - though this is a simplification, i think it is one that holds a good deal of truth
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone: if i know a person beyond the level of mere acquaintance, i can ask what his beliefs are out of sheer curiousity ... at most other times in history that question would carry with it a much more charged agenda, often a challenge: "are you one of us or not?"

while sometimes even in modernity that question carries that agenda, it is entirely possible to ask it without an agenda at all, which seems to me uniquely modern
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wanda the wanton
wanda the wanton:

Rumsie i lov how you’re dealing with the issue of people’s definition of themselves as a huge block of change from century to century.

I couldn’t help but think of our present day corporate megalopolies who also love to play chess with their subjects/the public - they always seemed to me to be our version of the aristocracy, and one which is based solely on money, it's acquisition and ownership.

For some reason it has a calming effect on me to read that assassinations born out of hatred and extreme frustration (another form of terrorism) also occurred back in the days of kings and the nobility.

I also like your discussion of the omphalos. My favorite example of this being the pharaohs who were of course regarded as gods in ancient times.

I wonder if the heady new freedom to be one’s own omphalos doesn’t cause anxiety for an individual. It seems so much easier, more comfy and/or less of a burden to have the center of being outside one’s self as in former times where there was a cut and dried ‘god’ and all one had to do was fall into lock step with everyone else and drop down on your knees and worship.

The satanic approach of refusal to serve anything outside of the self is of course a growth spurt forward in the evolution of the soul but wow it sure seems to bring as I said a heap of anxiety - the ‘fallen’ condition is for sure not a warm and fuzzy place to be !

So ‘personal rights and integrity’ are the blessing slash curse of the individual who now has the responsibility of creating his own ‘best self’ as he is no longer handed it by his parents at birth.

Personally I’ve always had this nagging feeling that my parents failed to prepare me for this ‘whole thing’ this adult reality that i’m faced with. I’m on my own and I’ve had to figure it out for myself. So my personal experience substantiates the points you’re making about the times we live in.

Yes I have tons of ‘rights’, ones i don’t even use, and i have integrity which needs to be fiercely protected against those who would wish to rob me of it in various ways; but in a way i long for the easier path of giving up my rights and living more simply in the shadow of something greater than me.
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone in reply to wanda the wanton: your comments about anxiety remind me of a book called "all things shining" by hubert dreyfus and sean kelly, a book i hold in very high regard
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: thank you guys, and yes conkey you are spot on i think about the anxiety issue, relying on ones own druthers is indeed nerve racking, or it has always been so for me. and this is timely, again, just today i was having a brief chat with my coworker from somolia, a practicing muslim, and i have no idea how we ended up there but we were discussing worries, he he claimed he had none, gobsmacked i asked him to explain, and he went on to tell me that he see,s no reason to dwell on issues that cause for him any kind of conflict or needless burden, my future is assured, and so with his faith in his god always in focus, his reality is centered, quite outside of himself, his life on this plain merely being the stage upon which he demonstrates his devotion and finally gains his passage. so no anxiety. i assured him i would be happy to feel anxiety on his behalf. interestingly i told him about my plans to buy an english language version of the quran, and he offered to pay for it, explaining that in his faith showing an outside the light curries great favour, and ensures a high position of exaltation in the realm beyond. and to your point conkey about personal rights to establish ones own individuality, there is a small movement up here in canuckistan to remove from birth certificates the designation male or female, the reasoning being it is an arbitrary label that parents have no right to inflict upon a self determinate offspring who will find their own way in life, the concept of male and female being antediluvian in some fashion. individualism run amok. we all on some level would seek a greater caretaker force, a net, which is exactly why fundamentalism is on the swing up. in scary times gods are an asset just as there are no atheists in foxholes. but with the increase in religious absolutism we see a decline in the fervent self determination that has driven society at large for over a hundred years, and we are witnessing the return of the herd mentality. we are stronger as a group, is the allure. awesome impute, thank you again.
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone in reply to theKnaveofNevermore: lol did he really say that his paying for your quran was motivated by his desire to get good seats in paradise?
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone: dude let me buy you 5 qurans, i'll get on the good side of gabriel for sure then
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone: i wouldn't agree to let him pay, personally ... if he had said "i'd like to pay for it as i believe islam is the way to eternal peace, as a token of our friendship that revolves around discussing islam i would like to show you that doing good to others comes first for us, and i'd like to offer you the gift of our holy text, and if you ever need anything, just let me know, my friend" ... then i would let him pay
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: yes absolutely, i balked initially and in truth i will not willingly take his money, but his motivation was entirely selfish, or not, i,m not really sure, by his reasoning a soul saved is the earning of wings. so.... would gabriel smile upon the quran i wonder, lol , in point of fact i shall likely get the book and say nothing to him about it. my own curiosity in the matter having gotten the best of me. but one thing i had discerned from our chats, is money figures very large in how morality is defined in that faith. and everything seems to be based on its relative value. strange and highly contradictory.
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: i was beaten to the punch, he showed up today with a quran in his possession and turned it over to me, quite proudly. i will have to find some way to return the money without offending him, code of the desert and all of that. and so it was written, damn endlessly. this is going to be a task.
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: when we look back, we can clearly see exactly how the twentieth century unfolded, the dawning of the industrial age, the moment when offering our hands and our backs was no longer sufficient and cleverly contrived mechanisms stole from mankind its place in the social hierarchy, making an entire generation obsolete and rendering them surplus. times were changing at the turn of the century as the remnants of the 19th gave way to the promise and specter of what was to come, following sharply on the heels of the industrial revolution, the catastrophic conflagration that swept across europe bringing a pointed end to the surplus of young men that had now found themselves to be a potential burden to their countries, now laid waste in their millions the war to end all wars closing forever the chapter of history known simply as the gilded age. the war changed the world in ways we are still only now coming to terms with. for an eternity noble houses ruled over the populous, hand in hand with the divinity of faith handed down from god having absolute and final say over the lives of dutiful men in service to their betters. all undone at wars end, kingdoms shattered and mighty church now the betrayer, seen clearly for its dark dealings in the undermining of the social order and its all too eager participation in the wholesale slaughter of a generation. god, or those that would speak in its stead, fallen from grace in the eyes of the stunned multitude who left reeling from the insanity that was the first world war, cut themselves loose of all that came before, understanding perhaps that they, society as a whole could no longer look to kings or holy men for the answers they needed to find their purpose. instead looking within themselves. and for the first time in history, perhaps, understanding that they had it within themselves to be the individuals they know on some deep level they had to be. the twentieth century as it began to fulfill its destiny embraced this new and wonderful paradigm, the age of individualism having been official born. some would call it humanities fall from grace, others humanities defining moment. the twentieth century continued to change us as it matured, exulting the rise and triumph of modern man, self determinate and self absorbed with freedom to express the new found self in what ever way. this opening the door to deconstructivism and societies new found disdain for the philosophy of absolute order, in this postmodern age of relativism and chaos. the latter part of the twentieth century elevating the individual to a place in the social fabric that simply would have been insane two centuries before. the universe is about me, and how i perceive it, a brash statement no common man would have uttered in that other time long ago, but times, they change, and society changes with it, and now as we collectively brace ourselves for the transition into the twenty first century we see that another kind of threshold has been breached, for now we live in an age of connectivity, and we buzz about with our devices, hooked into the collective, the hive mind, all lesser parts of a much greater whole and we willingly surrender ourselves to this new master, this new headless deity, all forming our groups our affiliations, to whom we are beholden and in service to, politics, faith, the human spirit in all its various manifestations, together forming the new reality collectively bound with in the confines of this new medium, the internet, but wholly separate and very tribal in its construct. the net being the unifying platform which has served to separate us from one another in ways kings never could. the twenty first century is observing the end of individualism as the human instinct to gather and form 'family' groups over shadows and overwhelms our personal need to be the independent people our grandparents fought to become. we all, especially the youth who have grown up in a world of smart phones and instant access, step into this new reality with the understanding that we are small parts of a greater whole and that we all may find our niche that we may blend into the group that best reflects the values we hold dear, and with their like minded appraisal validate us in a way we could not have experienced on our own within our more individualistic view of ourselves. tribalism is the end of individualism and as the twenty first century plays it self out, we will increasingly find our selves seeking out those that fit into our world view, and allowing them in, making the herd stronger. liking the same things, viewing the world as one, with out kings, with out gods, with no single face to represent us, just the anonymity of the community, the greater whole which has in the end stolen from us our omphalos and placed us all outside of the universe we now look at from afar.
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wanda the wanton
wanda the wanton: ............ Much of this reminds me of something I've always remembered from Thomas Merton - I dont have the exact quote but it was something to the effect of:

No matter how one interprets the larger historical epochs of man, the large scale disasters and resurrections, the movement is always ... though sometimes imperceptibly ... forward.
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wanda the wanton
wanda the wanton: ............... actually my above reference doesnt really apply to the points you're making so please consider it an 'aside'.
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone: whoa how did i miss this? excellent piece knave, i have to say the theme of recovering a quasi-omphalos in the variegated echo chambers of the internet, as a kind of product of the need to connect with others who share your views after experiencing the loneliness of an individualistic worldview that nobody shares, is brilliant ... it reminds me a bit of hegel, except for the fact that hegel would expect there to be a positive synthesis of communal omphalos and individualistic omphalos - your assessment of this "synthesis" is more of a negative (or at least neutral) one, the small groups of the internet being mere shadows of the now dead communal omphalos

is the way forward perhaps the ability to have an omphalos that is both fully communal and normative for the individual who chooses it, yet not normative for those who don't? i see no contradiction in a buddhist and an ayn rand follower being fully committed to their own ways of being without believing that each other ought to share that way of being - yet seeking others that do
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: thank you the entire thesis struck me as being significant and fascinating, but not ideas of my own but a synopsis, what i took away from the book i have only just recently finished, i may have spoiled the book somewhat, but i wholly endorse its reading. it pained for me a clear portrait of where we are and how we got here, and in light of recent significant events on the american landscape timely and frankly an aid in understanding where people minds are. i know i,ve mentioned it before, but again, 'making sense of the twentieth century, john higgs. this is the first installment of the wire book report. next up, war and peace, did it really need to be so long winded.
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone in reply to theKnaveofNevermore: yes I assumed you were summarizing higgs, but most people who have elaborate views, if they are honest, could trace different parts of their views back to someone else, who in turn can trace parts of their views back, etc ... and even if one of your ideas seems original to you, likely it is more of a variation on an idea you encountered before, and even the way in which you vary the original idea is probably the same way in which you have seen other ideas varied ... I could take this all the way to the extreme and say that no idea is original - but i'd rather say that what originality IS begins with aping other ideas, just as a child apes a parent's behavior, beliefs, attitudes, etc. until the aping develops and varies over time and comes to form something decidedly different from what is being imitated

all ideas come from other ideas, but they develop into something unique by virtue of their foundations in imitation
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone: as for war and peace, I never read it, it was too intimidating, but I have read some of Tolstoy's other works, they are some of the only fiction I've ever been able to enjoy, along with dostoevsky
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: oh absolutely clench most everything is in one way or another derivative, even if a person were to choose to write fiction, they are cherry picking elements of reality to flesh out atmosphere within the work. but this was entirely my point in this exercise, to convey my impression of the piece, we have only our experiences to draw upon, and while creativity is humanities penchant, only a percentage think creatively so far outside of the box that their work has no semblance of any kind of recognizable frame of reference to draw on at all, there is no box. but it is often said, there is nothing new under the sun, and we can only break things and rebuild them in some other variant that is of a more personal nature. and no i have not read war and peace. but i am not short of things to read of late. haha.
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: ken burns the noted documentarian who brought us the heart felt and wrenching piece on the american civil war several years ago has created another, the needless horror that was the vietnam war in its virtual entirety, how it pertained to americans and also deeply from the perspective of the long suffering vietnamese, whose plight began for them long before the second world war. the tale of the vietnamese began at the turn the of century when france did what was only too common a thing for european powers through out the 19th century, colonize countries that could not repel them. so the french moved in and usurped the government and crowned themselves masters of the land, the zeitgeist being, should not those with power take the lead, is it not their duty to do exactly that. after the first world war, american president wilson declared that all countries deserved their autonomy and sovereignty. america formally taking a stand against what they perceived as the evils of greed driven colonialism, having been a colony it self once upon a time. the very young ho chi minh, traveled from his home in vietnam in the years after this great european conflict in hopes he could convince the powers that be in paris that in this 'new' world order france had no claim to vietnam and please release his people from their rule. he was rebuffed, and spent time wondering the world, an man of his time, and a visionary. in the beginning stages of the second world war, japan moved an occupation force into vietnam with the motivation to exploit and rob the small nation of its resources. ho, being the patriot and nationalist hurries back to his homeland and taking to the mountains of northern vietnam gathers to him a force which he organizes into a resistance movement, they fight the japanese effectively, even if their french overlords remained sitting on their hands doing nothing at all about the japanese. ho and his people learned many lessons in their dealing with the japanese marines, and upon their withdrawal ho,s attention returned to the french, and their needful removal. in their time dealing with the japanese they became an effective fighting force and now referring to themselves as the viet minh attacked french interests were ever they found them, they ask for help in their struggles and even approached the united states, the hero,s of the second world war and liberators of europe to help them liberate themselves from their french oppressors. america was an ally of the french and france that time just after the second world war looked like it was becoming friendly with soviet russia, to stay in their good stead america ignored the please of the vietnamese. ho, turned to the communists, not because he had any communist resolve, but because being a nationalist he could not turn down the support the east was offering, weapons. by 1954 the french forces were completely routed at dien bien phu. the french abandoned their holdings, their occupied land, their plantations, and in time left vietnam altogether. the good bye gift they left the vietnamese was a protracted war with america, paris made it quite clear to president eisnenhower that vietnam had fallen to the communists exactly the way korea had and this was the straw that would have the whole of south east asia fall to the red menace, such was the fear of communism at that time that america was quick to respond, seeing that virtually all of the antifrench and thusly communist sentiment thrived in the north which had long been ho,s stronghold both against the japanese and the french, the americans set about convincing the south that they would if terms could be agreed upon help the south drive the communists from their lands, and indeed this fear did send those sympathetic to ho north into so called communist hands. the south knew the americans would bring money with them and found their support a refreshing change from the french who had made saigon their paris east. ho, however being a savvy man who understood politics and what lay down the road for his country with his uneasy alliance with the moaists and the kremlin , knew a eventual conflict with the west was likely inevitable . he had asked his loyal soldiers, those that had served with him during the japanese conflicts, and who had taken action against the french and beaten them, those who called themselves the viet minh, to travel south, to shed their military guise and become workers and farmers to stay like dormant seeds waiting for the rains of war that they may bloom again and fight the cause. so they remained hidden, living normal lives but always loyal to the north. when the the shooting began and the conflict and unease became a purge, the line on the map between north and south became a palpable one, a line drawn by the americans. in time the soldiers of the north took up arms as they had done in the past and they were called the viet cong, the americans assured the south these were merely farmers and of no consequence, certainly not the battle hardened forces that had effectively and relentlessly taken on the french and japanese which they actually were. with renewed support from the east, ho raised a formal north vietnamese army and together with the viet cong, fighting far forward in a commando fashion, demonstrated that america would bleed if it kept on its course. the americans underestimated these strange talking little men at every turn, and this conflict as it spun out of control became for america what the first world war had been for all of western civilization, a turning point that there would be no returning from, the vietnam war broke america in half, a divided that had not been so pronounced since the civil war a hundred years before. america had been united in both the first and second world war, and even in korea with the fear of communism first rearing its ugly head, the country pulled together resolutely. but somewhere in the chaos and fog the war had become too real, too visceral a thing to be ignored the way previous wars had, vietnam was televised, a historical first, families could watch their boys, or men who looked exactly like them get blown to pieces nightly, in near real time. this was the bloody dagger that tore down the middle pulling the right and left apart. a divide as strong and real now as it was in 1968, when forces on each side took to capital hill and face one another in their thousands. battle lines that remain.
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone in reply to theKnaveofNevermore: you have a hell of a knack for history knave ... you have significantly influenced my understanding of contemporary western and specifically american culture, particularly the degree to which it was influenced and shaped by the wars of the 20th century
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FistOfStone
FistOfStone: excellent and detailed summary of burns' documentary
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theKnaveofNevermore
theKnaveofNevermore: thanks man, i wholly recommend the series, understanding the war you understand the sixties, and understand that you can get a clear idea as to what is going on between the right and left now, being a legacy of the war.
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