The ascent of humanity - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

pai mei · 12-18-2008, 02:15 AM

A book I found. The author denies the concept of "intellectual property", so the book is for free here:
The Ascent of Humanity online text

A quote:
The Realm of Me and Mine

Quote:

As that word mine indicates, ownership implies an attachment of things to self. The more we own, the more we are. The constellation of me and mine grows. But no matter how large the discrete and separate self grows, it is still far smaller than the self of the hunter-gatherer. The pre-separation mind is able to affirm, all at once and without contradiction, "I am this body," "I am this tribe," "I am the jungle," "I am the world." No matter how much of the jungle we control, we are smaller than the one who knows, "I am the jungle." No matter how dominant we are socially, we are far less than one who knows, "I am my tribe." And far less secure, too, because all of these appendages to our tiny separate selves may be easily sundered from us. We are therefore perpetually and irremediably insecure. We go to great lengths to protect all these accessories of identity, our possessions and money and reputations, and when our house is burglarized, our wallet stolen, or our reputation besmirched, we feel as if our very selves have been violated.

Not only does our acquisitiveness arise out of separation, it reinforces it as well. The notion that a forest, a gene, an idea, an image, a song is a separate thing that admits ownership is quite new. Who are we to own a piece of the world, to separate out a part of the sacred universe and make it mine? Such hubris, once unknown in the world, has had the unfortunate effect of separating out ourselves as well from the matrix of reality, cutting us off (in experience if not in fact) from each other, from nature, and from spirit. By objectifying the world and everything in it, by making an other of the world, we necessarily objectify ourselves as well in relation to that other. The self becomes a lonely and isolated ego, connected to the world pragmatically but not in essence, afraid of death and thus closed to life. Such a self, cut off from its true nature and separated from the factitious environment created by its own self-definition, will always be insecure and will always try to exert more and more control over this environment.

pai mei · 12-30-2008, 02:58 AM

"He must be cut off from the past. . . because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising."
--George Orwell, 1984

The Pressure to Break Free

Quote:

To most of the roles society offers, I say, "You are made for more than that." We inhabit, in the words of Ivan Illich, "a world into which nobody fits who has not been crushed and molded by sixteen years of formal education." The very idea of having to be at a job "on time" was appalling to early industrial laborers, who also refused the numbing repetitiveness of industrial work until the specter of starvation compelled them. What truly self-respecting person would spend a life marketing soda pop or chewing gum unless they were somehow broken by repeated threats to survival?

Maybe some will say : "they did not want to learn, lazy kids, they deserve those jobs !". I say that without them, and their boring jobs our "advanced civilization" would crash. We are not "civilized" if we force people to do those boring jobs to survive.
"Somebody needs to do them" some will say. No. They do it only for the money, to survive. And as I said in another topic I opened - that work is not needed !

Quote:

An oft-cited example is the !Kung of the Kalihari Desert in southern Africa, who were studied by the anthropologist Richard Lee.ii He followed them around for four weeks, kept a log of all their activities, and calculated an average workweek of approximately twenty hours spent in subsistence activities. This figure was confirmed by subsequent studies by Lee and other researchers in the same region. In one of the harshest climates in the world, the !Kung enjoyed a leisurely life with high nutritional intake. This compares to the modern standard of forty hours of work per week. If we add in commuting time, shopping, housework, cooking and so forth, the typical American spends about eighty hours per week aside from leisure time, eating, and sleep. The comparable figure for the !Kung is forty hours including such necessary activities as making tools and clothes.

Other studies worldwide, as well as common sense, suggest that the !Kung were not exceptional. In more lush areas life was probably even easier. Moreover, much of the "work" spent on these twenty hours of subsistence activities was by no means strenuous or burdensome. Most of the men's subsistence hours were spent hunting, something we do for recreation today, while gathering work was occasion for banter and frequent breaks.
Primitive small-scale agriculturalists enjoyed a similar unhurried pace of life. Consider Helena Norberg-Hodge's description of pre-modern Ladakh, a region in the Indian portion of the Tibetan Plateau.iii Despite a growing season only four months long, Ladakh enjoyed regular food surpluses, long and frequent festivals and celebrations, and ample leisure time (especially in winter when there was little field work to do). This, despite the harsh climate and the (proportionately) enormous population of non-working Buddhist monks in that country's numerous monasteries! More powerfully than any statistic, Norberg-Hodge's video documentary Ancient Futures conveys a sense of the leisurely pace of life there: villagers chat or sing as they work, taking plenty of long breaks even at the busiest time of the year. As the narrator says, "work and leisure are one."

That way to "Work" which was not the "work" - "slavery" of today, is being destroyed everywhere by money, and "economic need" not real need. That ancient way of work was in fact "living", the thing we hope to do when we "retire". Those people did not work, or have "vacations" they just lived.

Quote:

Not only does school prepare us to submit to the trivialized, demeaning, dull, and unfulfilling jobs that dominate our economy to the present time, not only does it prepare us to be modern producers, it equally prepares us to be modern consumers. Consider Gatto's description:

Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a clientele. A small business, small farm economy like that of the Amish requires individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and universal participation; our own requires a managed mass of leveled, spiritless, anxious, familyless, friendless, godless, and obedient people who believe the difference between "Cheers" and "Seinfeld" is worth arguing about. "

Zeraph · 12-30-2008, 09:31 AM

Looks like a cool treatise, wish I could read all of it (migraines). From what I skimmed, I agree. I refuse to devote my life to "slavery." I'll find another way of living or die trying. Survival is for the weak

Not Right Now · 01-10-2009, 10:15 PM

THis sounds a lot like the basis of a great deal Eastern thought. Transcendance can only be found through seperation of mind and body. One must realize that the body is just vessel before they can actually learn anything about their own mind/spirit/etc....

12-30-2008, 09:31 AM	#3 (permalink)
Zeraph Eye See You Location: The Cosmos	Looks like a cool treatise, wish I could read all of it (migraines). From what I skimmed, I agree. I refuse to devote my life to "slavery." I'll find another way of living or die trying. Survival is for the weak __________________ "What silence can there be, what lack of sound compare to a snowfall from dark air falling quietly to sea?" luv ya

01-10-2009, 10:15 PM	#4 (permalink)
Not Right Now Insane Location: Far Away	THis sounds a lot like the basis of a great deal Eastern thought. Transcendance can only be found through seperation of mind and body. One must realize that the body is just vessel before they can actually learn anything about their own mind/spirit/etc.... __________________ I only came to dance.