The Impossibility of Utopia? A Response to Humanism by John Gray

by Dogpatch 16 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Dogpatch

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fcPEGEJ8Sg&feature=related

  Although not particularly impressed by the narrator...

  I find that John Gray, author of "Straw Dogs" and "Black Mass" reveals the abject failure of mankind both in the past and inexorably in the future to create a Utopia. It is especially interesting to me because this is most of what many cults are really all about. The desire to create their own heaven results in hell on earth, often culminating in the death of millions of humans.

  Thoughts?

  Dogpatch
• 

  BizzyBee

  Very interesting, Randy. Hard to argue with the premise that man's lot is exactly as we see it - in our own hands - not on a progressive plane. We'd like to think that we will never return to the dark ages, but what must those in Nazi death camps have thought a mere 60-some years ago? They were experiencing a type of inhumanity one would have thought had been long left behind. Giving rise to the thought - is there yet more ahead of us?
• 

  Dogpatch

  Perhaps "civility" is only microns thick when one's dreams are in danger of being mucked up. Certainly fits how cult members react when their hope is challenged by the record of history.

  If one hydrogen bomb was deliberately launched on the U.S., Russia, China, etc. by a known entity (country), do you really think a chain reaction of cruel animal instincts in launching many more, if not all, could be prevented?

  Ready to place my bets.... whose game?
• 

  cognizant dissident

  I wouldn't take that bet, Randy. I think we are all animals with a very thin veneer of civility and it doesn't take much for us to drop the veneer and follow our primal urges to dominate and destroy.
• 

  Mall Cop

  It's hard to hear and to thnk about. Idealolgist will one day use nuclear weapons and .......
• 

  Dogpatch

  Cognizant: Well then you and I will both win the bet. :-))

  Randy
• 

  tall penguin

  I read "Straw Dogs" after leaving the JW's. It was a real eye-opener. As I still have strong tendencies towards idealism, it was a real blow to my sense of self. I'm still processing it all some four years later. It's hard to let go of the idea that mankind is progressing. It's a delusion, no doubt, but a hard one to shake.

  tall penguin
• 

  Terry

  If one hydrogen bomb was deliberately launched on the U.S., Russia, China, etc. by a known entity (country), do you really think a chain reaction of cruel animal instincts in launching many more, if not all, could be prevented?

  Perhaps the cruelest problem faced by humanity is recognizing that we are part of the animal kingdom locked into a kill and eat nature from which we cannot escape except briefly by imagination.

  As long as we postulate gods and devils, angels and demons, hell and heaven and a list of Do's and Don'ts out of the sky we doom ourselves to

  surprise when our best-intentioned social inventions fail again and again.

  We are all in a COMPETITION for food, mates, territory, wealth, ideas and status.

  The goody-goody tries to play by the rule book while the selfish rascal scores by running out of bounds and bribing the referee.

  Man's capacity to be shocked by corruption astonishes me!

  "What? You mean the Senate voted themselves another payraise?"

  "Who? Our pastor?"

  "My wife would never do that!"

  "Not my best friend!"

  "Steriods?"

  It would be laughable if we weren't so ridiculous in our incredulity.

  Why do we listen to some idjit telling us about Cures the Doctors Don't want us to know about?

  We do we buy house-flipping Real Estate tips from fast talking money gurus?

  Why do we sit in Mega Churches as they pass the plate and build glass cathedrals and furning their homes with golden toilet seats?

  Naive beliefs, superstitious weakness, untested premises and distaste for skeptical thinking.
• 

  poppers

  Yes, God will wave his wand at some point down the road and "improve" humanity - "The Christian view of the future requires God to intervene in the process...We need an interventionst God, or we have no reason for optimism"; it hasn't happened yet has it, but let's just continue to wait and have "optimism" because, because...well, because that's what our religion or faith tells us to do.

  For humanity to "progress" there must be a shedding of this old consciousness that keeps us where we've been and open ourselves to a consciousness that isn't "isolationist" in its perspective, which is what Christianity and most religions do. In other words, when people continue to identify with entities, both personal and collective, that keep us separate from one another we will continue as we've been doing. But religion doesn't foster that kind of opening, and instead it highlights and magnifies separation. Is it no wonder that we continue to have the problems that we do? The perspective of separation inherently breeds suspicion, fear, and ultimately violence toward what is seen as "other". But I guess we're to continue to believe that only "God" can intervene on our behalf; that's how old conditioned consciousness operates. Perhaps it's time for a change away from that conditioned thinking, which only keeps "old consciousness" intact.

  The change in consciousness necessary for humanity to "progress" rests on the shoulders of each person, and necessitates the courage of each person to examine how they themselves continue in identifying with separation. It's not about waiting for some future glorious time when "God" will make humanity right, but to find out right now how they create and maintain this separation within themselves, and then discover directly what lies beyond that separation - to find that which is whole, to find that this "wholeness" is what all of this drama unfolds in, and to discover that "what you are" is not separate from this wholeness, that nothing is separate from anything else. This discovery reveals that we are not who we think we are, and if this is true for "me" it is true for everyone else. This belief in and identification with separation is the source of our "problems". It doesn't "require God" for this to be seen, only an honest inquiry within ourselves.

  This is a "quiet" revolution on the individual level, an "evolution of consciousness" that disssolves the limited perspective of the individual and opens one to the open perspective of wholeness. This cannot be mandated by others and forced upon people - it's a slow growth movement that springs up within oneself when the "old" way of viewing things is seen to no longer work. Nobody can make another "ripe" for this opening to happen. It can only be pointed to - the rest is up to the individual and rests on their willingness to let go of the old conditioned ways of seeing things. Without a doubt, this takes a lot of courage because who is willing to challenge their own identity as a separate individual? Who is willing to see beyond their current identity with culture, religion, and nationality? This separation is in the mind only - who/what are you without that mind created identity? Do you have the courage to find out or are you going to continue on as before and wait for "God" to intervene? This is an invitation to find out for yourself.
• 

  Dogpatch

  poppers says,

  Perhaps it's time for a change away from that conditioned thinking, which only keeps "old consciousness" intact.

  I'm sure that's what all the mass murderers believed as well... Stalin, Hitler, Rome, Idi Amin, etc.

  It always turns out with "ethnic cleansing" in the end. Millions die, the world forgets, then it happens again.

  Randy