A few thoughts on Dawkins and Bateson... and being enlightened through visual thinking.

It occurred to me this week thinking back on my reading of Bateson as I read Dawkins that these two authors manage to cover two ways of thinking about the levels of reality and evolution. Bateson exposes as much as he can the confusion of levels of logic type and their relationship to living mechanics and structural morphology; while Dawkins suggests that we're stuck in one level of thinking about evolution and overlook the importance of the smaller level, that of genes. I suggest that by combining these two concepts one comes out with a recognition that Dawkins is only half right and that Bateson's spiral is nearly the other half of the picture, that a cosmically grand however subtle combination of forces manifest themselves as what we describe as a finite molecular and living procreation, and thus delimit us within the biocentric slant of evolution having a purpose.  Genes do not by themselves manufacture life nor are they strictly speaking codes that determine life's eventuality.  Terrestrial molecules have been stroked just as gently or forcefully as any perennial in the garden by a mild or blustery wind—in their own dimension, where no human has been.  What inhibits our understanding is that we do not imagine, nor can we imagine rightly from the point of view of such an infinitely ambiguous dimension. And where these forces meet is where they are perhaps paradoxically one and the same presence in nature.  The concept of the Tao to my mind comes closest to tis idea, and yet no more can we rationally see the duality or plurality of any one origin nor imagine our ultimate fate as anything but that which derives from what we desire out of our confusion over this paradox.  I for one choose to remain in the realm of the arts as I try to fathom these portals to ultimate awareness.

be a gypsy then... free the earth out from under the empire!

I have very often compared our American conditions of existence and civil governance to that of fascism. Sadly I must update this belief by adding another aspect to my description of this.

Think back and recall for a moment that it was not only the Jews that suffered greatly due to the NAZI regime, but also that the Gypsies were singled out as illegitimate and even a danger to the supposed German gene pool, as well as any officially designated “other” such as homosexuals or “degenerates”.  The Gypsies may have been suspect officially because of their foreign origin, but of course this was mere justification for genocide. To offset the weight of the wheel barreled value of the Deutsche mark, human beings were gunned down and wagon loaded to premature burial.

And so it is not just that the murder and marginalization itself were offensive, but more it is alarming that this same wave of repulsion and repression are expressed more and more today in America. Consider for example how having ownership of property—more specifically a home mortgage debt—is so emphasized such that without it, without an official address, one can find little access to employment (“payroll” used to be literally a roll of currency) sustenance or financial representation. None of this is new to most of us though.  And yet our proposition of freedom, is actually countermanded by the stigma of being a gypsy—the same sort of frightening full independence which threatens the banking industry’s hold on everyone else through property. So, we are not really free. Paradoxically we are so free we are cut off and barred from the natural world. Humans rather have a suspended habitat.

Every occupy movement tent then, every subterranean shelter, every figure huddled in a doorway under a blanket, or under the highway overpasses is a reminder to us that life can exist with out the un-natural barrier of the banks (the free-lovin’ days of the “beach bum” have been supplanted by run-aways and children abandoned to the streets and the sex-trade). But it is also a reminder that the elite and privileged don’t want you to be independent of them. They want you in fact to be dependent upon them, while in fact they are just as dependent upon you for their service industry and the maintenance of their gmo lawns and expensive gadgets. 

The engine of the extreme upper class, the ultra-rich sadly need you to not be aware of this. How else would you be inundated by advertisements and messages of what you should want to purchase and possess to glorify your vanity but by having a place to sit comfortably yet only at the expense of being hypnotized and addicted to consumption of that which truly undermines natural living conditions on this earth?! Wake up America! You are enchanted and betrayed by your desire for leisure and pleasure!  This is our weakness through which you are oppressor and slave to the current fascist system of governance which is merely the tool of the global financial hoarding industry. 

Be a gypsy then, and continue to occupy where or when it seems appropriate to make your stand or gain your sustenance; find an arable place upon the earth and the potable water which are the inheritance of all living things and avail yourself. Do not let the privatizers of water and land bully you. Stand your ground until they cannot but see the evil in their means to possess you.  

Free the earth out from under the empire!