Philosophers

That is very interesting. One of the books I am working on is about the sacred feminine and deals with the c-word (not cervix, the other one), showing that it is most probably the oldest word in the human language--it is certainly the oldest surviving word. I explore the rich symbolism of the yoni as the axis mundi, or the terrestrial portal to the divine. Going back into the paleolithic the grave was directly connected to the womb.

Can you tell me more about this symbolism? Is it open for us to pass through? Or is it open for the birth of a new world?

I haven't had time to read all of the link that you shared, though I did find it very interesting and bookmarked it.

 

If "the beginning of the end of the Universe" is when the 10th gate (cervix) is open, then our population explosion (which is ongoing, with efforts to get a grip on it and handle it), is the evidence of the 10th gate being open. WIDE open.

So how does human population endanger the Universe?

Obviously, the answer to that question would be a *volume* of information too large to put into a few small paragraphs. It's a book (not a webpage) waiting to be written, unless such a book already exists .. I don't know.

As for the Kali Yuga Iron Age, the degradation of Humanity does seem nihilistic to me (where my use of the word nihilism is from annihilate, which means destroy). I think knowing the basics of Kali Yuga aids greatly in the discussion of the age of nihilism (and of "dark" and "darkness" mentioned throughout this thread).

Random snippet from around the web:

To the point of annihilating people's morale, and spirit, and joy? And "mental health"? Oh, okay. I get it.

What is anxiety all about, anyway? "Big Pharma" just wants to help (to create "zombies", whatever the Hell those things are).

There's something post 9/11 that has flipped the world upside down. ...

There's more I can say about the cervix, but it is far off topic for this thread.

 

I did get the "WIDE open" part.....

 

Yep, "the gate" is like a faucet turned on full blast .. it isn't a drip or trickle. And Humanity is trying to "choke" it off, so to speak.

But then, here's this reference to "too many legs open", when we're thinking of wide open in *literal* terms.

I can see too many mouths open
Too many eyes closed, ears closed
Not enough minds open
Too many legs open
Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, do
Why isn't it why, why
I don't see why I listen, why, why

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy5ZhDTxcFA"]SINÉAD O'CONNOR - just like u said it would b (1987) - YouTube

 

I think all this anthropological timeline making is not germane to wisdom
even though it is committed to memory. It satisfies academic interest but suggests no guidance for decision making except in the broad sense that life is cyclical so you can rest assured that while you are comfortable in one moment you may not be in the next and then again, this too shall pass.

Actually no. To be clear again in the cause of wisdom now is the only moment of power is why I bring it up this way.

See above

.
Nope, I haven't singled your timeline out.

However I do disagree with the idea of hierarchy or theological order, all exchanges of energy being equal. Which is more valuable for example, the life of ten minutes or the life of eighty years?

 

Yes---I think we have an awful lot of common ground.

Everything has good and bad elements behind it. It is hard to say that World War II was a good thing---but America prospered immensely for its sacrifice in the war. The Vietnam war was a terrible thing too, and was a blatant demonstration of American Imperialism. Yet it played a key role in the rebellion of the youth in the 1960's.

Likewise, I would not call nihilism a good thing, yet good things can come out of it. In a philosophical sense we can try to make an argument of the good behind a world without value. Existentialism is really just that. Sartre wrote in a description of existentialism that, to paraphrase, it is useless to question whether or not God exists, because there is no way to know. Instead we need to create an ethical human existence through our own actions.

The existentialist Heidegger responded to Nietzsche’s declaration that God is dead, and reluctantly agreed. He said that we need to re-approach the question of being, going back to the beginning, so that we may find value in life and if the gods do exist, prepare a way back for them, if they don’t at least we will have given value back to life. He saw his own work as preparing the way for that process. But he had to go with what he had in the Post-Nietzchean world of philosophy. (oh no, there is that word, ‘post’ again. Actually I should say post-Nietzschean-god-is-dead-declaration.) Therefore he stated that it is the finality of life that gives it value. We should value life because it, and its temporal nature, is all we have. Some people can find value in this (or perhaps they make themselves believe they can?) But there is still a nihilistic side to this. If you have ever had a month-long sabbatical, you may know what I mean. It starts with, “I have a whole month to do what I want—I am going to enjoy it and do so many valuable things!” At the halfway point you are like, “I still haven’t done half of what I wanted, and the first half went kind of fast---but I still have half a month!” A week later: “Oh man this is going by too fast! There is so much I wanted to do, what happened?” On the last days, “Oh man. It’s almost over. Why did time fly by so fast…?” Fortunately life lasts a lot longer than a month, but as its end approaches, for too many people, there is that sudden sense of “What have I done with it.” Or even more significant, “When it’s over, what will I have?” When you are in your twenties, it is a lot easier to embrace a philosophy such as this. When the Doctor tells you that you only have a year to live, many people find that to be a very different story. Heidegger’s conclusion based on every thing he had to go with, leaves us in the end, for most people, with nothing—a cold dead body in a coffin, which has no meaning to the nothingness we have become. (Though within Heidegger’s exploration of being, we can certainly find hints and hope of a metaphysical nature.)

So yes, we can work nihilism into a positive on a philosophical level, and mankind’s experience of such can certainly leave him wiser, and hopefully lead to a new understanding. But the problem is not one of how philosophers, or even the expressers and displayers of the dreams of the collective unconscious (artists, actors, writers, moviemakers, musicians, etc…) portray nihilism, rather it is how it plays out in overall society, even by those who are oblivious to it, or its implications. This is where the negative lies. This is where we find out what happens in a society without morals, values, truth.

Now, I am aware that the world is not as evil and violent as the media makes it out to be. There is a school shooting (Columbine) and suddenly everywhere there is a school shooting. While in truth the incidence has not increased as much as the national media attention makes it out to be. I would however wager that since the Columbine shootings, the incidence today is certainly higher.)

Nonetheless, I think that any baby boomer could tell you how innocent and naïve we still were back in the 50’s and 60’s. When we had a run in with the police, our parents were called and it was they who usually dished out the punishment. In the early 60’s Time or Life magazine did an article of a rambunctious weekend for a group of kids. It shocked America---the terrible, wild things these kids did. Today the same story would be so tame as to never be newsworthy (I can’t even remember what they did---that’s how tame it was). …Ah, but now I am sounding like an old man, “When I was a kid…”

But a good example of how nihilism has manifested itself in modern society, is the book, ‘The Cheating Culture, Why more Americans are doing wrong to get ahead,’ by David Callahan. I found that one fairly recently, though it was copyrighted in 2004. Then there is the comedic farce of the election we had in 2012—not so much on the side of the democrats, mind you—but the hypocrisy---take for example, Gingrich and his position on family values—and the fact that his own marital history was so contrary to the conservative position he stood for, and that a good portion of the country didn’t even care. In my hometown of Denver, there is a serious epidemic of hit and runs. It has gotten so bad, that every news channel is running daily reports on it. I could write all night about the growing problems of Modern society, drug addiction, the increase of depression, etc. etc.---but then I’m sure everyone knows of these things. The key word that describes today is disingenuous.

Now as for the world, I don’t think the whole world needs to fall victim to nihilism to mark the Age of Nihilism. After all, the Industrial Age left most of the world behind—and even today it has not reached every corner. But modern culture today is largely a globalized American culture. I spent many years living in Japan, for example, and I have watched the spread of Western culture impact that country, breaking down traditional values. People in their 30’s are already living in an alien culture compared to the older generations. In a land of lifetime employment, many of that generation have lived working one temporary job after another (a new phenomena of arubaito), seeking pleasure (as they assume we in the West do) in between jobs. The even younger generations might as well be from a different planet.

Jihad is another example. It is largely a reactionary movement, reacting to the nihilistic (heathen) threat of Western culture. Yet oddly, militants will end the day after planning suicide raids, or preaching ‘Death to America’ by eating at a Denny’s or a McDonalds. Corruption and graft is a way of life through out the Middle East fed even more so by Petro-Dollars.

The Philippines, well… I guess that was a nihilistic culture from the time the Spanish destroyed all of their Native beliefs and replaced it with Catholicism---they just don’t realize it yet. Ok, I am only half joking. But the people living in the cities are struggling to get ahead from the bottom of a cesspool of nihilism. As a side note I will say that after returning to America, I really missed the nonstop comedy that Philippine election campaigning provided. I felt sorry for the people that were being led by such phonies, but I loved the blatant hypocrisy, lies, idiocy, and mudslinging. Until our last presidential election. We have truly fallen to the level of the Philippines. I laughed my way through our campaigns and the election, but the implications for our country are not good at all. Anyway, this nihilism centered in the big cities is pretty common all over South East Asia.

Europe has already gone through a long culture of nihilism. After all, the styles of art that reflect Modern nihilism originated there. They gave us existentialism; it was in Europe that materialist philosophies gained the greatest ground and influence; and so forth. The European Post-World War II experience was entirely different from that in America. It took many decades to remove the ruins and rebuild from the war—that wasn’t simply due to the fact that they are slow builders in Europe. Of course, in more recent decades, modern culture was defined by American culture, so on the surface, as hedonistic drives saw a resurgence from the depressing ashes of Post World War II, everything may have looked great again; then you have the hopes of the European Union that provided optimism to the fallen empires, but the financial and Euro-crisis show how economically fragile the Union truly is (for the very reasons I pointed out as far back as the late 1980’s when they formed).

Post-Soviet Russia offers nothing in meaning that I am aware of (though I haven’t traveled there).

India is a horribly corrupt country where violence against women and castes remains horrible even as they try to deal with the religious-based repression. I suspect that the value of women under the goddess-based beliefs is decreasing too as traditional values, such as castes and women’s positions in society are challenged nationwide in India.

Africa is still dealing with the horrible wars and biases imposed upon, and played upon them during long years of colonialism. Today you have an impoverished 1st wave (agricultural based) continent struggling to imitate Industrialized American Modern culture.

I could go on and on…

To move on, I disagree with your conclusion that consumerism or addiction must come first. Yes that happens, but there is often an underlying cause behind addiction (and I’ll include consumerism here, because consumerism can be either an addiction or a programmed response). It is kind of like a problem of, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? For example, are people so stupid that they do not realize what meth does to the human body? I don’t think so. Instead people rationalize how they won’t become addicted or that they will avoid such bodily destruction. I have watched two people go through this process. One of the guys even argued that I don’t understand, as he rationalized how he won’t become addicted. But he has been struggling to find his path in life, but he feels that it is all so meaningless. He doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to do that… He is in his twenties, maybe even 30 now. He wants his life to be something, but he is lost. And now he is addicted to meth too.

But it is not because of him that I have come to this conclusion. And it is not just my conclusion.

Finally, to clarify, I do not see the ‘enlightenment’ as happening overnight. I think it will be a long drawn out process, much like the industrial revolution. Some aspects of this will involve a shifts in attitude that come about as social changes induce changes in the psyche---a psychological evolution.


Here's the Pink Floyd song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stImV0RomL4"]The wall - Empty spaces, What shall we de now - YouTube

 

That makes sense---it is the human cervix that is wide open, not the cosmic cervix.

Humanity is destroying the earth---not the universe---though it is the extent of the universe we all know.

nihilism comes from the Latin term nihil, meaning nothing or nothingness. The word annihilate comes from nihil as well. Yes, nihilism often results in material annihilation of some sort or other.

 

This verdict is vain and brutal. We participate in change. We don't know what we are doing.

 

School shootings / violence are present in every decade of the 1900's, some in the 1800's too.

 

There is a very good book on this subject---I think it is called, Panic. It shows how the media blows everything out of proportion and the negative social impact it has----for example, instead of spending the limited money on education, many schools around the country, after Columbine, wasted it on metal detectors and other largely ineffective security measures. Yet there was no actual increase in school violence that warranted such measures. There are much better examples----but the media does blow such things out of proportion.

On the other hand, the overall increase in crime in cities over the past 50 years or so, also means that there is less reporting of crimes that used to be considered newsworthy.

 

Yes---we do not know what we are doing, but perhaps we are figuring it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvgG-pxlobk"]Welcome to the Anthropocene - YouTube

You can check more at the website: anthropocene.info/en/home

 

"we must find a safe operating space for Humanity"

O.O