Do you seek truth? Bring not with you pride. If you long for truth, you must become a scavenger of truth. For truth you must walk down dark alleys and break bread with disreputable individuals—thinking nothing of their standing in society. And if they offer you a bag of sand, you must comb through it meticulously for gold dust. Take no one as your authority, for reason and evidence alone must be your authority, but peruse the wares of all merchants, even the poor and unwashed. Take nothing on faith, but reject nothing on principle. And even what you come to gain through hard labor, be ready to put aside. Be prepared to remove even the clothes from your back if they impede you on your journey.
There is a certain danger in talking like this, however, because it has a tendency to feed into the masochistic urges of those that want to destroy the ego (The term ego is ambiguous and is used to mean a number of things. As best I can tell, when individuals say that they wish to eliminate the ego, they mean their pride, selfishness, and self-defense mechanisms, and that is how I am using the term here). The ego exists to serve the self, and if the self is good then the ego is also good. It is a sign of weakness in that it protects a self that needs protecting, but why shouldn’t the self be protected if it needs protecting? If you were strong you wouldn’t feel the need to boast for yourself, but you don’t get to become strong by destroying yourself and your means for protecting your interests. The degree to which I am unattached is the result of the degree to which I am attached. If I am powerful, I do not need to control every little thing, because I do not feel threatened. Of course, if I am not powerful, I could seek to destroy that part of myself that cares whether I am powerful or in control or not, but why would I want to do that? It’s a bit like folding in a game so that you don’t lose. Pride is good in the sense of self-esteem, self-affirmation, but it can be harmful in the sense of certainty or thinking that one has power one does not have. The former is a value assertion. The latter is the result of an inability in factual analysis. When it comes to valuing yourself, pride serves. When it comes to understanding, pride confounds. What’s more, however, there is a difference between circumstantial pride and unconditional pride. The former says, “My worth is tied to my having certain qualities, which I must protect or otherwise render myself worthless.” This confuses facts for values. The latter proclaims, “I value myself categorically, irrespective of circumstance, and I make rules to serve me rather than exist to serve rules.” In short, if by “ego” you mean the pattern of noncommitment, I can appreciate how that can be problematic. But if by “ego” you mean autonomy and you are trying to eliminate it, I think you are yourself suffering from the pattern of vicarious living.
Between the average tribal foragers and the average members of city-states, the average tribal foragers have it much better. They work two hours a day. They live at peace with their natural surroundings. They are the most egalitarian cultures on earth. They don't suffer from sexual repression (or, from Foucault's perspective, the oppression/obsession cycle in regards to sexuality). They are constantly walking, and so they are in great shape without ever having to workout. They have a diverse diet because they eat anything edible, and thus they receive excellent nutrition. They never have to worry about famine because they don't have crops, and if one food source goes bare they can just move on to another. They don't have to worry about disease because they don't have livestock or large groups of people crowded together in one place over their own waste to breed it. And they are extraordinarily healthy and happy living in a close-knit community. If we compare the average tribal society to the average city-state before the invention of antibiotics, the average tribal individual lived longer, loss fewer teeth, and had a community with a lower infant mortality rate as well as 0-1% population growth over a hundred years—perhaps because they were aware of plants that could be used as morning after drugs and valued sexual behavior that didn't result in pregnancy when pregnancy wasn't desired. In the tribal warfare they engaged in, very few people died. But tribal groups were wiped out by cold, disease ridden butchers that changed the carrying capacity of the land through agriculture and were thus able to build armies to conquer, kill, and enslave the groups around them. A tribe faced with this could either be enslaved or raise their own army, and either way the old way of living was dead.5
But this process seems to become more delicate as time goes on and power becomes more aware of itself, more sublimated. As Howard Bloom points out, when we compare the physical war that we fought with Japan and the economic war we are now fighting with Japan, it becomes apparent that both sides learned a lot from both wars. But the latter has much less waste and much more collaboration.
John Perkins talks about a legend in South America about the Eagle and the Condor. The Eagle represents the North—both North America, Western culture, and the industrialized city-state, as well as the mind and the “masculine” expansive principle. The Condor represents the South—both South America, indigenous culture, and the tribal group, as well as the heart and the “feminine” stable principle. In the first epoch, the two exist separately. In the second, the Eagle threatens to destroy the Condor. And in the third epoch, the Eagle has the opportunity to mate with the Condor and become one species. The “masculine” expansive principle of transcendence, if left unchecked, will result in eating up all of our resources, bottoming out, and destroying ourselves. The “feminine” stable principle of immanence, if left to its own devices, will result in a vulnerable state constantly open to destruction from outside sources—human or otherwise. In industrial society we have produced a sharp analytical intellect that is essential, and in tribal culture they have preserved a connection to the earth and awareness of energetic relationships that is equally essential. Our children are machines; their children are animal/gods. The marriage of the two cultures could produce a society both grounded and expanding as well as individuals actualized in both their minds and their hearts. And that would be nice. That would be something we would like to see.
1 Nietzsche was right to say that there are no atoms, in the most traditional sense of irreducible, solid building blocks. Even the laws of physics as we conceive them may prove to be more “habits of nature” than actual laws.
2 Then again, in a sense everything is perfectly just. The Universe is a democracy in which every degree of power gets a vote (and thus more powerful units and aspects of existence get more votes). Also, all actions have natural consequences. Confusion occurs when you think that consequences are in error simply because they do not match up with your values. It is your belief that your values are objective that is in error, however, not reality. If you want things a certain way, you alone are the justification and means for it. Kant declared that the ultimate goal of morality was to create a just society—in which happiness for each individual was in direct proportion to that individual’s acting morally. But, my dear Kant, in a sense that is already the case, and always is, necessarily (at least probabilistically). And the main reason you think it to be anything else is because you are confused about the nature of morality.
3 My apologies for leaving out Egypt, the Mayans, the Indians, Baghdad, and any number of other extraordinary cultures that did not follow my torch from east to west. I preserve this image more because it is poetic than accurate.
4 Why is a roast funny? Because those doing it love the person so much and think so highly of the person that they can say horrible things about the person without fear that it will diminish the person’s character or reputation. In general, for something to be funny it has to be both “wrong” and “okay.” There has to be some contradiction, something out of place, or something that is in some other way potentially threatening to the subject, but it has to be disarmed in such a way that the subject does not regard it as a threat (somewhat like a mimetic vaccine). The subject then experiences triumphant laughter. This explains both the unity and diversity in what individuals find funny—it has to be potentially threatening to you, and you have to be okay with it. Like love, laughter is a part of the pleasure of overcoming. You experience your having been extended in the process.
5 Read Thom Hartmann’s The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, especially pages 173-184.
If you identify with the message of this article, please email it to people, tell your friends, even print out copies to pass around. Together we can raise awareness. Thank you.
1 | 2
