I'm living in France where we are currently watching the police fight with high school students - we've even seen kids struck in the face by stun grenades (and worse) - we are witnessing our own violence against our own children live on the news.

I'm also reading a book called : Goliath's Curse

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Which basically traces the history of societal collapse, and compares it to our current situation.

It argues that civilisations are practically predestined for collapse due to the inherent violence of subjugation.

Power corrupts itself and is always abused - power is abuse. Governments always tend toward corruption and self serving greed. Inequality always tends toward further inequality and violence.

The usual solution is revolution - "Eat the Rich".

But would we do any better in their place? Or are the roots of violence embedded in our own psyche, in our own greed and fear?

Emmanuel Levinas was a French Existential philosopher (born 1906 - died 1995).

He preferred to think of philosophy as the "wisdom of love" rather than the "love of wisdom"

Philosophy is an inquiry into the nature of existence. Levinas argues that, as humans, this inquiry begins in our relationship with each other. 

When we look at the face of another person, we witness their vulnerability and mortality. We see ourselves

Wisdom is not a solitary intellectual achievement or a set of rules we learn from a book. Instead, wisdom is generated entirely through and within our concrete relationships with other people.

Intelligence is defined as a response, how you adapt to circumstance, its not about how much we know. So it is the other person who "wakes us up" by providing the opportunity to see that I am not the center of the universe.

Wisdom doesn't appear in a void. It requires The Saying (Le Dire) - ie. communication with another person. It is not about the facts being shared, but the safe space created when two people are able to see each other.

Howdy - The question of self keeps coming up, and someone suggested we could start this week's dialogue by looking at a 5 minute video clip - where Bohm compares the self to a corporation. (from around the 32 to the 38 minute mark).

nb. we're meeting this Saturday 19th of September on Zoom at the new time of 4:30pm CEST (thats 8pm in India and 9:30am CDT) - comment below, or message me if you'd like to join us.

>“...just as we see our own faces by looking in a mirror, similarly when we wish to know our own character, we can know them by looking at a friend. For a friend, as we say, is another self.”

(Aristotle, Magna Moralia)

aka "Friends hold a mirror up to each other"

When Aristotle calls a true friend "another self", he means that a friendship allows two people to share a single moral and emotional life. He points out that it is incredibly difficult to accurately judge our own actions.

Friendship allows you to appreciate and understand virtue in a way you cannot through introspecting alone.

Dialogue is an experiment with this mirror of relationship. We observe, not by thinking about ourselves, but by watching ourselves in action.

>"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
- George Bernard Shaw

Dialogue is an inquiry into a default state of human interaction : misunderstanding and identity.

Does true connection and community require an active, deliberate effort to swim against the current? (the current of our own psyche) - or is it more about an opening up, an allowance for awareness? Is fearlessness and curiosity a choice?

>"If you tell me two things about someone's beliefs, and from that I can confidently guess the third, then I am completely uninterested in that person." - Anonymous

Am I a pre-packaged product of political groupthink? Is that an identity worth defending?

If I am anti nuclear power, if I am anti GMO foods - can we also assume I'm into alternative healing? Do I also have to be into crystals, astrology and yoga?

Maybe I can't hear you because we're not speaking nor listening from the same reality?

>“I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem.”
- Slavoj Žižek

There is a difference between having a specific philosophical view and actually seeing the world in that way. If you have truly integrated some mind altering worldview then the world that you see will no longer be the same.

There is a difference between believing a story and clearly seeing a fact.

Imagine that we manage to describe the problem of self and violence clearly in simple terms that everyone can understand (eg. the 4 noble truths) - that would be wonderful - but adopting a model or believing a claim about ourselves is not sufficient - not the endgame.

There must be some correlation between the story you believe and your relationship with reality.

Having the best theory is not sufficient to solving the crisis of humanity - even with the best beliefs about the self, I still exist, I am still struggling and confused.  If I’m holding onto theories I might actually be contributing to the problem (of the knower clinging to what it knows).

Theoretical models are really just claims - but adopting (more or less reasonable) claims is not the same as clarity, or freedom from suffering - theory is just a pointer.

Philosophy might not be so much a remedy but more of a wake up call. Apart from the story, what else is necessary?

nb. we're meeting this Saturday 5th of September on Zoom at the new time of 4:30pm CEST (thats 8pm in India and 9:30am CDT) - comment below, or message me if you'd like to join us.

From the linked article "Quantifying anger in American Politics" :

>IN JUST THE past two months Donald Trump has described unnamed Democratic candidates as “jihadists” and “radical lunatics”... He has also attacked former Republican allies, calling Tucker Carlson and others “losers”, while describing Marjorie Taylor Greene as “neurotic”....

>Economists set out to explore the evolution of political fury. They trawled more than 150 years of congressional speeches and millions of social-media posts, categorising their emotional character.

> From 2013 to 2025 the share of policy-related sentences expressing anger in voter tweets rose by 35%. In comments on Reddit, an internet forum, it rose by 46%.

>Authors are careful not to attribute the rise in anger to any single cause, though there are plenty of theories :

• Fewer Americans have friendships that cross the political aisle
• America’s political tribes don’t consume the same news sources.
• Democrats and Republicans view members of the other party as immoral and dishonest.
• Partisans say that the other party makes them “angry”

 

>“Regardless of where it starts, it is going to be a reinforcing feedback loop,”

Rage has an affect on the world and on me

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John Gray (Philosopher) aka the world’s greatest pessimist - claims that modern humans, compared to stone age cavemen, have failed to progress whatsoever.

Human nature, he argues, is an inherent obstacle to cumulative ethical or political progress 

We have of course accumulated great advances in technology and have succeeded somewhat in imposing laws to protect us from violence.

But are we any happier, or less anxious, than a primitive hunter-gatherer?

Psychological progress might be a myth.  
If we define progress as a movement away from our tendency for cruelty or suffering - have we succeeded?

Currently society is divided - and thus progress is impossible.  Because we cannot even agree on what progress consists of.

Can we even listen to ourselves?

>K: There must be a connection. There must be some relationship with the ground. Otherwise, what is the meaning of living?

>DB: That is what I was trying to say before. Without this relationship... 

>K: ...there is no meaning.

>DB: What is the barrier? 

>K: `I'. 

>DB: Yes, but I meant more deeply. 

>K: More deeply, all your thoughts, deep attachments - all that is in your way. If you can't leave these, then you will have no relationship with that. But man doesn't want to leave these.

>K : Please don't become anything.

(The Ending of Time, Ojai, 1980)

We are born, spend our life in confusion, sorrow and greed - cause a lot of harm and trauma - and then die - leaving a load of rubbish for others to deal with.

What is the meaning of such a life?

K and Bohm are saying that there can be no meaning in our lives if there is no relationship whatsoever with the ground of being.
This immediately leads them to the obvious question - what prevents this relationship?
Is it possible for a human to live a life with at least some beauty and meaning?

To be touched by beauty, when we are trapped in hell, necessarily requires absolute unconditional freedom.

Neither time, effort nor circumstance play any part.

nb. we're meeting this Saturday 29th of August on Zoom at the new time of 4:30pm CEST (thats 8pm in India and 10:30am EDT) - comment below, or message me if you'd like to join us.

>“I think that there is the possibility of the transformation of consciousness, both individually and collectively. It’s important that it happen together – it’s got to be both. And therefore this whole question – the ability to dialogue, the ability to participate in communication – is crucial."

(David Bohm, On Dialogue)

Dialogue provides an opportunity for us to see what being human is like. Dialogue provides a space for us to look together at who we are. Its an experiment, where the question is : can we look together at what it means to be me? Its meditation in relationship.

We might ask : what is this "transformation of consciousness" business all about?

Some say its about freedom from identity, conflict and suffering. Unfortunately, if we really are constrained by our fears, our beliefs - if protecting our selves is paramount - then looking at ourselves honestly is impossible.

Communication starts with relationship. If I feel heard, maybe I can finally start listening to myself. What am I actually saying, what am I doing, what am I resisting? What is this life that we are living?

In order to hear what someone is saying, and to see who is saying it - you need to park your opinions.

In Dialogue, instead of "park" we say "suspend". We need to be free from ourselves, and free from the known, in order to see clearly.

The person listening seems to participate in the reality that they are experiencing. This seems to be an obvious fact.

For example, a child, a philosophy student, a religious fanatic and me, listening to Karl Marx speaking, would not be hearing the same message. Some of us might feel we are listening to gobbledy gook, others might hear terribly evil blasphemy, etc..

So are we really listening - are we really communicating? If we are all hearing something different, what is it that we are actually listening to?

It seems that we have been evolving over thousands of years into the people we are today, with brains that see ourselves and everything else in a certain way. It feels to me like I am the central most precious being in the universe and that my beliefs, my fears and my desires are the highest authority.

It seems like me and the world I see, are really how they appear to be - that my reality and I are separate things; and not just a product of my psychology or my culture.

Is there a danger in feeling separated from my reality? Is our psychological baggage necessary? Is it possible to see this whole movement clearly?

>We have built this world - the chaos, the uncertainty, the misery, the confusion - we have put it together, it is our world. So shouldn't we try to understand one of those problems.  What is the factor of distortion in our life?

>I want to lead a sane, balanced, happy life, but something goes wrong. I want to find out if it is a seed in me. You follow?

>I don't want explanations - we'll all give explanations - that doesn't solve my problem. 'What is the factor, what is the seed in me that makes life so ugly?'

>Is it because we look for happiness outside instead of inside?

>I say, one of the reasons is the desire to be secure, another reason is the pursuit of pleasure, another reason is fear, the desire to have somebody to help you or to lead you, or some element in you which wants to escape from all this chaos. I can give a dozen explanations. At the end of it I'm still there.  (Krishnamurti, The Problem of Existence, Saanen1972)

The self is a problem that thought cannot resolve

That life occurred is itself a miracle - that it is full of disorder and violence is a shame.

We need order in life but our thoughts and beliefs force us into contradiction - we cannot continue to betray one ideal when working to obtain another ideal.

Does freedom from our own selfish sorrow need a miracle?

nb. we're meeting this Saturday 15th of August on Zoom at the new time of 4:30pm CEST (thats 8pm in India and 10:30am EDT) - comment below, or message me if you'd like to join us.

What does it mean to live a good life?

How do I decide what a good life is? Will my beliefs help me find the good life? Do I follow my instincts, my feelings? Or are my thoughts, my reasoning more reliable?

Socrates says that to live a good life we need a virtuous character. And that virtue is based on understanding - that we don't knowingly do bad things on purpose, but only because we are ignorant.

Epicurus reckoned that the good life was approached by seeking pleasures and avoiding pain - and that the best results would include peace of mind, simple living and close friendships.

>The art of living is the greatest, most important art.  To inquire into the art of living there must be an immutable honesty.

>I am confused; my life is in disorder. I am fragmented, broken up inside, and out of that confusion I create a pattern, an ideal, a scheme, and I say I am going to live according to that scheme. But the origin of that scheme is born out of my confusion. So what I have to understand is why am I confused and disorderly. If I can understand that, out of that comprehension and perception, order naturally comes without effort.

J. Krishnamurti, talk 3 Bombay, 1984

nb. we're meeting this Saturday 1st of August on Zoom at the new time of 4:30pm CEST (thats 8pm in India and 10:30am EDT) - comment below, or message me if you'd like to join in.

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Here's a list* of 3 psychological habits that are necessary for a group to choose violence.

1. Outsourcing our critical thinking to a third party. (Our beliefs are powerful - its a shame to let outside authorities - like charismatic influencers or AI - choose your beliefs)
2. Willful ignorance. (ie. deliberately ignoring the facts. Aristotle considered Amathia - a greek word meaning : celebration of ignorance, or anti-intellectualism - to be the greatest threat to society).
3. Conformity. (aka Indoctrination, aka groupthink - the attitude where we must defend our beliefs against all other ideas. Nietzche called this the preference of Loyalty and Identity over Truth)

*compiled by D. Bonhoeffer - someone who observed his countrymen become increasingly violent and who was eventually executed by the government of his own country - this was in 1940's Germany, but it could have been in Italy, or Rwanda in the 1990's, or the recent genocide of the Rohingya, sparked by increasingly hateful posts on facebook.

Decades before modern AI, Krishnamurti spoke about the future relationship between humanity and intelligent machines.

If humanity continues to identify itself with thought, what happens when machines become better at thinking than we are? 

What happens when we no longer need to think deeply for ourselves? 

The 2 dangers he pointed out were that we would continue to be shaped by outside authorities - in fact this problem would be worse than ever - seeing how the machines would be better than most gurus at using thought and language.

And also we would increasingly opt out of the world and plug ourselves straight into entertainment matrices. Whether through sport, media, religion or endless distraction, a life devoted to stimulation which ends up as another way to deaden the mind.

If we continnue to be controlled by thought then we are now at a point where the future of humanity is no longer in human hands.

Freedom from thought is now or never - the only way is love - through the flowering of a mind free from fear and psychological conditioning. Is that asking too much?