"The Abortion Debate: Its Deeper Meaning
Social issues of great emotional intensity are often symbolic expressions of eruptions in the collective unconscious. The more hysterical, rigid, and uncompromising a person or group is in advocating a position, the greater the chance that the advocacy is but the surface expression of deeper issues with which the person or group is grappling. In the case of the "pro-life" side of the abortion debate, we find perhaps the shrillest, most uncompromising, most militant advocates of any social issue. More, we find apparent contradictions and hypocrisy; as, for example, in those who claim "sanctity of life" as their motive while bombing abortion clinics.
When surface contradictions appear, fear is at work. What beliefs do the "pro-life" forces hold? First, most base their actions on a traditional, often fundamentalist, Christianity. The Old Testament Jehovah was the world s first dysfunctional parent, alternately blessing and condemning His human creations, drowning the race when it dissatisfied Him, demanding infanticide of Abraham as proof of obeisance.
To believe in the Jehovah model of a creator, then, is to live in perpetual fear of a wrathful, vengeful creator figure who has the power and the will to snuff out the lives of those who displease Him. One feels tiny, frail, and helpless. While Jesus' later teachings were meant to steer the race toward an image of a God of love and forgiveness, conservative Christians tend to cling to the Old Testament Jehovah as the model of their creator.
Consider the fetus. It is tiny, frail, and helpless. It is utterly dependent on its mother, forever at her mercy, incapable of independent action or freeing itself from her omnipotent control. The mother-fetus relationship thus symbolically represents the relationship between conservative Christian and Jehovah. And because one hesitates to do battle against a wrathful and omnipotent God - a prudent choice! - the inner conflict is projected outward, onto the world at large, onto the fetuses floating in their helpless dependency. Here the fundamentalist can finally do battle against the secretly despised creator figure. Here millennia of chafing under the creator's capricious omnipotence can finally be rectified.
Just Say Yes: Drugs and Human Consciousness
Many point out the apparent hypocrisy of society s banning certain drugs while allowing other potent mind-altering substances - nicotine and alcohol, for example - to be sold in every corner store. Comparing the statistics between the devastating effects of alcohol - lost productivity, drunken driving, broken families, and so on - versus the minimal social effects of marijuana, why then does society permit one and ban the other?
For the capitalist system to function, the ruling class needs a large pool of complacent, uncomplaining workers who willingly sacrifice their own fulfillment and family life in order to serve the system by performing repetitive, mindless tasks. The present system could not survive in a culture of conscious individuals whose highest priorities were relationships, meaningful work, and personal growth. The system persists only because so many willingly work as drones in order to achieve a baseline level of comfort and security.
Alcohol is a depressant; it dulls the mind and body. It prevents clear thought, purposeful action, and introspective searching. In short, it is the perfect drug to offer in unlimited quantities to workers whose minds must be dulled from thinking too clearly and sharply about their condition and the system in which they are trapped. The custom of heading straight from work for the bar is the ruling class s dream routine: for rather than protesting the inhuman nature of the work they do, workers drown the cries from their anguished souls in the quick poison of a shot glass. The system also subtly encourages the use of alcohol as a symbol of rebellion among the young and disenfranchised, for what true rebellion can grow from a sedated, comatose populace?
Mushrooms, peyote, LSD, Ecstasy, ayahuasca: now these are truly dangerous drugs! They lift the mind above the mundane everyday world into realms of greater wisdom and awareness; they expose the lie of separation on which the system is built; they restore a sense of life purpose loftier than owning a home; they foster direct experience of the unity of all life; they encourage the user to pursue spiritual growth and loving relationships as higher goals than economic stability; they offer glimpses of eternal life after physical death.
What threats to the system! What would happen to the economic juggernaut paving over the earth if suddenly everyone placed family, enlightenment, and personal growth as higher priorities than making a living? If everyone understood the unity of all life and protested the destruction of the natural world as the necessary price of "progress"? If everyone dropped their tribal and national allegiances and bonded in one global family?
The system allows drugs which fracture, sedate, and suppress consciousness. It bans drugs which enhance, stimulate, and expand consciousness. That is the sole criterion. "
Alexander/Ramon Stevens
Spirit Wisdom
Social issues of great emotional intensity are often symbolic expressions of eruptions in the collective unconscious. The more hysterical, rigid, and uncompromising a person or group is in advocating a position, the greater the chance that the advocacy is but the surface expression of deeper issues with which the person or group is grappling. In the case of the "pro-life" side of the abortion debate, we find perhaps the shrillest, most uncompromising, most militant advocates of any social issue. More, we find apparent contradictions and hypocrisy; as, for example, in those who claim "sanctity of life" as their motive while bombing abortion clinics.
When surface contradictions appear, fear is at work. What beliefs do the "pro-life" forces hold? First, most base their actions on a traditional, often fundamentalist, Christianity. The Old Testament Jehovah was the world s first dysfunctional parent, alternately blessing and condemning His human creations, drowning the race when it dissatisfied Him, demanding infanticide of Abraham as proof of obeisance.
To believe in the Jehovah model of a creator, then, is to live in perpetual fear of a wrathful, vengeful creator figure who has the power and the will to snuff out the lives of those who displease Him. One feels tiny, frail, and helpless. While Jesus' later teachings were meant to steer the race toward an image of a God of love and forgiveness, conservative Christians tend to cling to the Old Testament Jehovah as the model of their creator.
Consider the fetus. It is tiny, frail, and helpless. It is utterly dependent on its mother, forever at her mercy, incapable of independent action or freeing itself from her omnipotent control. The mother-fetus relationship thus symbolically represents the relationship between conservative Christian and Jehovah. And because one hesitates to do battle against a wrathful and omnipotent God - a prudent choice! - the inner conflict is projected outward, onto the world at large, onto the fetuses floating in their helpless dependency. Here the fundamentalist can finally do battle against the secretly despised creator figure. Here millennia of chafing under the creator's capricious omnipotence can finally be rectified.
Just Say Yes: Drugs and Human Consciousness
Many point out the apparent hypocrisy of society s banning certain drugs while allowing other potent mind-altering substances - nicotine and alcohol, for example - to be sold in every corner store. Comparing the statistics between the devastating effects of alcohol - lost productivity, drunken driving, broken families, and so on - versus the minimal social effects of marijuana, why then does society permit one and ban the other?
For the capitalist system to function, the ruling class needs a large pool of complacent, uncomplaining workers who willingly sacrifice their own fulfillment and family life in order to serve the system by performing repetitive, mindless tasks. The present system could not survive in a culture of conscious individuals whose highest priorities were relationships, meaningful work, and personal growth. The system persists only because so many willingly work as drones in order to achieve a baseline level of comfort and security.
Alcohol is a depressant; it dulls the mind and body. It prevents clear thought, purposeful action, and introspective searching. In short, it is the perfect drug to offer in unlimited quantities to workers whose minds must be dulled from thinking too clearly and sharply about their condition and the system in which they are trapped. The custom of heading straight from work for the bar is the ruling class s dream routine: for rather than protesting the inhuman nature of the work they do, workers drown the cries from their anguished souls in the quick poison of a shot glass. The system also subtly encourages the use of alcohol as a symbol of rebellion among the young and disenfranchised, for what true rebellion can grow from a sedated, comatose populace?
Mushrooms, peyote, LSD, Ecstasy, ayahuasca: now these are truly dangerous drugs! They lift the mind above the mundane everyday world into realms of greater wisdom and awareness; they expose the lie of separation on which the system is built; they restore a sense of life purpose loftier than owning a home; they foster direct experience of the unity of all life; they encourage the user to pursue spiritual growth and loving relationships as higher goals than economic stability; they offer glimpses of eternal life after physical death.
What threats to the system! What would happen to the economic juggernaut paving over the earth if suddenly everyone placed family, enlightenment, and personal growth as higher priorities than making a living? If everyone understood the unity of all life and protested the destruction of the natural world as the necessary price of "progress"? If everyone dropped their tribal and national allegiances and bonded in one global family?
The system allows drugs which fracture, sedate, and suppress consciousness. It bans drugs which enhance, stimulate, and expand consciousness. That is the sole criterion. "
Alexander/Ramon Stevens
Spirit Wisdom
posted by Tracy at 1:47 PM
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