The Zen Iconoclast’s Credo (Part 3)

(The Left and The Right)

     While the Right Wing is characterized by selfishness and greed, the Left Wing is one of illusion and utopia.  The Right Wing feigns its beliefs in order to gain support of the populist masses.  Whereas in the left wing, we find the True Believers, for no revelation or amount of fact can dissuaded them from their belief that they have found the true path, and they have no more understanding of the teachings of their idols than do the religious right of theirs.

     The last great thought that came from left was feminism and connecting it with the struggles of minorities, gay rights and labor (and this is in danger of becoming passé). As for the right wing, they are too damned selfish to have any great thoughts and their energies are squandered on bigotry and hatred.

The Zen Iconoclast’s Credo (Part 2)

      Deep within the human soul reside the twin demons, avarice and the lust for power.   For they are the cause of much misery and human suffering among the innocent.  And, it is necessary for the evolution of humankind that these demons be confronted.

     Because of avarice and the lust for power, all political systems are failures, (this includes western religions as western religion is politics using a specific dogma to control people and maintain its power base).

     The most pervasive method for not dealing with these demons is the blame game, as Flip Wilson was so fond of saying "The devil made me do it!"  Those in the left political spectrum blame right wing political systems for the cause of human misery, the religious say we are caught in the war between good and evil (god and the devil) and the neighbors blame my dog.  Because, if we blame something or someone else, we don’t have to take responsibility for own behavior.  But we need to take a hard, close look in the mirror and confront these demons.  For it will take the entire human race, working in concert, to hold these demons in check.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Let us examine the human tendency to label things.  When we label something, we labor under the illusion that we understand it, and, can therefore avoid dealing with the complex realities that are involved.

     Labels can come with a certain amount of emotional baggage and can also be used as swear words as per a certain talk show host who labels everyone with whom he disagrees, ‘a liberal.’  This should give great comfort to those who consider themselves liberals because it puts them squarely in the majority, for it would surely be a truly forsaken world should the vanguard of the Oprichniki hold sway.

     We, often, label ourselves in order to assert our uniqueness.  The two groups most prone to this self-labeling are religious and leftist political organizations.  They continually re-label themselves over minutiae into smaller and smaller groups.  The insidious nature of this recursively labeling makes each of us distinct in a world of nearly seven billion people and renders us virtually incapable of forming a basic meaningful bond with another human being.

     Using labels in an attempt to simplify things can only lead to further confusion.  Take China, for example, whose government is considered to be communistic, but its economic system is decidedly capitalistic with excesses that would do J. P. Getty and Andrew Carnegie proud (slave labor and all).

     With labeling comes mis-labeling. Refer to the China example; the government is considered to be communistic. Now that's wrong from the start. In order to understand these things we must come to terms about some basic definitions (labels). Capitalism and Communism are economic philosophies NOT political ones. Democracy, dictatorship and single party rule are examples of political philosophies and structures. There have never been any communist entities as Karl Marx envisioned them because Marx said that communism is the ownership and control of the means of production by the people NOT the DAMNED state ('cause we all know how the government can screw things up when it gets involved in something).  And let me say it again, the ownership and control of the means of production by the STATE is not communism (it really fucked up is what it is!). Cuba is not a communist country; it a dictatorship with a really screwed-up economy.

-30-

The Zen Iconoclast's Credo (Part 1)

     Attention must be paid to the area of general human failings that exist in all political, religious, social and business entities.  We must become aware that these are learned behaviors and we must unlearn them.  Idolatry is a most noxious learned behavior.  One of the root causes of idolatry is belief without reason or examination and it is ubiquitous.  One must realize that idolatry is a two-way street.  For example, a cult leader cannot be a cult leader without followers, a god cannot be a god without worshipers, a capitalist cannot be a capitalist without wage slaves and all are caught in the web of idolatry.  Some other forms of idolatry include the pecking order, one-upsmanship and keeping up with the Jones.

     No one is exempt from the phenomenon of idolatry.  I, myself, although acutely aware of it, am not exempt from being ensnared in its trappings.

     No one person can be right all the time.  We are all human and therefore, we are sometimes wrong.  To idolize someone, to the point that everything they say is gospel, is an example of not being able to think for yourself.  You must gain the ability to glean out that which is true and correct, ignoring that which is not.  Those who become idols (or claim to represent them) want to teach you what to think, not how to think, because if they taught you how to think, you may find some disagreement with their precepts and that would erode their power base.  There can be a fine line between learning how to think and what to think, often when we feel that were are learning how to think, we are just being fed regurgitated rhetoric on what to think.

     An idol should strive to be a teacher not an idol, because one has the responsibility to try to bring others up to their level, and not to glare down at them from above.  I would like to make the following point about teaching. It is the most noble of professions, but it has been compromised by economic expediency.  Teachers are reduced to churning out cogs to maintain the status quo.  We are trained to go out and spend money in order to keep the socio-economic machine running.

     If we cannot overcome such failings, humankind will not evolve.  Those who claim to have the answer for betterment of humankind use these human failing in their rhetoric, dogma and practice.  Proclaiming they will make the world a better place for everyone but, because they are caught in the web of these human failings as well, they are no better than potential Oprichniki who would be destined to become more oppressive and cruel than those they strive to supplant.

     Human needs must be put ahead of economic expediency.  The expectations that people learn to have about relationships are linked into economic need, not human need.  The epitome of relationships in modern culture is marriage, but look at the history of marriage.  Just within the last few hundred years, marriage was used by patriarchal societies to amass wealth and power; women and children were mere chattel.  The reality is that marriage is not about love; it is about what's best for the socio-economic system.  Marriage is an archaic institution that should be abolished.  Marriage attempts to force you into a mutually exclusive relationship with underlying dynamics of ownership of one's partner.  To expect one person to meet all (or even a majority ) of the physical and emotional needs of another is an exacting demand and there are few people capable of this.  One may find that having a small number of stable, on-going non-primary relationships of a platonic and/or sexual nature would replace or eliminate the need for a primary relationship.

     Although, I can understand gay marriage as a political statement, I don't understand why anyone would want to emulate such an oppressive institution.  I believe in 'civil unions for all,' even heterosexuals.

     The essence of politics is how we treat each other and tactics in politics is politics, if your tactics are suspect than your politics are suspect, as well, and everything you do is tainted, in other words, the end does not justify the means.

     The idea is firmly entrenched in the left political spectrum that changing the political system will change the social structure of society for the better.  Have they forgotten their dialectics?  Perhaps, it will happen in the reverse manner.

-30-