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Comfortably Numb – Coping, Captured or Total Capitulation - Part 1 of 2

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Comfortably Numb – Coping, Captured or Total Capitulation

 

Chapter One of Two

By

Cognitive Dissonance

 

Chapter Two can be found here. 


I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered why so many of ‘my’ generation, the so-called flower child social change community activist generation of the 60’s and 70’s, could have gone from long haired socially minded anti establishment ‘power to the people’ egalitarians to become guardians and enablers of the Ponzi universe as well as the most oppressive and manipulative power structure since……well, since I don’t know when. Even more damning and humiliating, how did we become a pulsating mass of self centered navel gazing mentally and physically obese obsessive compulsive useless shoppers who demand endless stimulation and entertainment?

And please don’t tell me that the social change activists and so-called malcontents of my generation were a small minority who have all since slipped away into gray bearded obscurity of menial professions and social conformity, because it just ain’t true. Many were the best and brightest of my generation and after leaving college, grad school and military service, nearly all took their diploma’s and/or military experience and blended into mainstream America where they’ve spent the last 30 to 40 plus years climbing the corporate and governmental ladder of professional success. In effect many have become exactly what they despised as young adults. It really does seem that what doesn’t kill you will overwhelm and absorb you. And that resistance is futile.

?Kent State

 


H/t Images by WilliamBanzai7 @ http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/

 

Upon graduation my button down banker uncle informed me (after closely examining my pony tail and beard) that it’s perfectly fine, healthy even, to strike out against the establishment when you’re an idealistic young adult. It’s all part of the rebellious youth phase we go through as we try to find our social sea legs. But what struck me as remarkable was his attitude towards what he termed the natural social order. He declared that if you are not part of the establishment by the time you’re 30, you’re just another one of life’s losers. He assured me no one ever built anything of substance or even made permanent changes while looking in from the outside.

He made a good point for essentially he was saying that if I really wanted to change the system I needed to do so from within. And it certainly didn’t hurt to be paid well while remaking the world. If nothing else (he helpfully reminded me) for the sake of my new wife and the bun in the oven I needed to conform to the system in order to survive in a world controlled by that very same system. Now that I was no longer shielded from the ‘real’ world by school I had real world obligations and responsibilities. Of course, once inside, a corrupt system almost always corrupts those who wish to make substantial changes along with those who just want to go with the flow. Talk about revenge of the status quo.

May I suggest we all pull out some college yearbooks from around 1965 to 1980 and spend a little time plugging some names into our favorite search engines? What we will find is a mixture of gray haired corporate, financial and governmental powers-that-be (along with an even larger class of junior underlings) that, while many weren’t necessarily all free love flower children, many were at one time involved in political, civil and environmental activism or as vocal war protestors.

My generation, a generation that shocked the world with its vocal and visible denunciations of American empire building and military conquest, is now right in the thick of things when it comes to abuse of Imperial power and manipulation of his or her fellow man. This metamorphosis so contradicts what my generation claimed to embody within their very souls that one is tempted to disbelieve these are the very same men and women. Such self delusions may calm the mind, but it just doesn’t ring true.

Big BenBlankfien

Are these men and women sell-outs, traitors to their beliefs, or are they just realists who are surviving like everyone else? Though I suppose we should redefine ‘surviving’. Is the act of gaming the system and our fellow man for our own benefit ‘surviving’, or is it total capitulation to avarice and pleasure via Borg like assimilation? I’ve been lectured by several of my old classmates over the years regarding our youth of naïve and innocent idealistic fantasies. A common theme thrust into my face is how hard they have worked to build this or that enterprise or profession. It’s pretty obvious they’ve been practicing their righteous indignation in front of the mirror for many years.

The point never was and still isn’t how hard they worked, but what they worked for and who gets screwed by all that hard work in their self described dog eat dog global game. Many of my old classmates regal me with stories of all the good their work has done…..conveniently pushing aside many of society’s ills as bigger social or governmental problems not of their making. I’m often told they don’t make the rules, they just play the game. Nearly every single one feels they are (relatively) pure of heart and mind and they can prove it with their cancelled checks to charity. When I ask if their business and political activities are creating the very social problems they are donating money to fix, they quickly change the subject or find someone else to talk to.

Slightly off topic, for an interesting twist on this overall theme, may I suggest the reader rent the German language film “Edukators” with English sub-titles? In the movie three young modern day activists, one hopelessly indebted, are educating society to its mindless consumerism when they bump headlong into an old time radical that is now thoroughly assimilated into our corrupt materialistic world. The result isn’t pretty for everyone involved and it illustrates how the material seduction of the idealist was and is a worldwide phenomenon. At least we aren’t alone in our abomination.

It’s all too easy to say it’s just a few bad apples that are responsible for this mess we’re in. Sadly nothing could be further from the truth. In fact the rot comes from nearly all the apples in the barrel including my own. The assimilated have become the quiet and complicit enablers of our own destruction, the supporting cast of characters in the biggest reality game show in history. The silent and silently assimilated majority now work in senior and junior positions within academia, think tanks, federal, state and municipal government, the mighty military machine itself and the hated CIA/NSA/DIA ‘intelligence’ services. And of course they run the corporate power structures that are the supporting foundation of all this abusive insanity.

There is simply no explaining this away as a few bad apples in the barrel. Something went horribly wrong and I’ve wanted to know how and why for a while now, almost as if by knowing I can more readily accept the fact that those brothers and sisters with whom I marched with many decades ago are now my spiritual, intellectual and financial mortal enemies.

 

Woodstock Summer

Woodstock 1969

H/t Images by WilliamBanzai7 @ http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/

This question has been haunting me for at least the last 10 years and it was one of the primary reasons I began looking within for answers. I’ve always assumed that the basic impulse that drives us to become what we are as individuals and as a society must live within all of us. Since each of us is not completely unique, but rather we share the same impulses and collective consciousness as everyone else with only the proportions mixed differently, it stands to reason we should begin within. This inner journey takes us down spiritual, religious and scientific paths in what is obviously an endless lesson in the workings of humanity and the human mind.

Of particular interest to me are the disciplines of psychology and philosophy. A basic working assumption I’ve held has been that since we are all biochemical creatures occupied by a consciousness, our emotional animal responses are influenced as much by biochemical reactions as by our social and physical environment. I’ll get back to this thought in Chapter Two.

Helmet 

Obviously this isn’t new territory I’m traveling since these basic questions have occupied man for thousands of years. And there is no doubt that history is replete with examples of generations going off the deep end and wrecking havoc on their country, region and even the world. In fact there appears to be an eighty year cycle of several generations each that endlessly repeats when mapping out these mega events. And it seems to me that each time this occurs there’s a divergence in the collective conscious mind.

A global insanity seems to take over the collective mind with cyclical regularity, with a small fraction of the population moving towards a greater than ‘normal’ abuse of power and the remaining much larger portion taking the other side of the abuser-abused relationship by moving towards a needy greedy passivity. However, this time it appears that with the help of major pharmacological and technological advances the effect has been magnified and leveraged exponentially.

While each cycle has its own rise and subsequent fall, the repeating 80 year cycles are also growing within what appears to be a larger mother cycle. After a while we begin to recognize that there are cycles within larger cycles within even larger cycles and it can be seen in the work of the recently deceased Benoit Mandlebrot. This makes sense when you understand that nature is nothing more than endless cyclical activity with small and large changes working their way through the system over vast swaths of time.

I’ve long thought there is a tie in between the syncing of multiple long and short cycles and the year 2012. No I’m not talking about the end of the world, but more along the lines of the rogue ocean wave syncing phenomenon. It does appear many forces are peaking together over the next few years, an awareness of which seems to be deeply embedded within the collective consciousness. This phenomenon has also been widely recognized by the alternative research community long before the 2012 end of the world fear memes were implanted into the collective consciousness by the pubic myth controlling mainstream media.

There are so many natural and scientific lines of (d)evolution, so-called progress and (I)maturation that are all peaking at or near this date, that mere coincidence or social hysteria should be ruled out as sufficient reason to ignore or even stop any personal investigation into this phenomenon. It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature and even worse to ignore her. I highly recommend you read “The Fourth Turning” by William Straus and Neil Howe if you wish to pursue this thought even deeper.

The problem one runs into when researching anything these days is the degree of sterilization that has been burned into the so-called history textbooks, aka the widely distributed and generally accepted version of world events called ‘history’. The old saying about history being a series of lies generally agreed upon rings true once you get off the beaten path and burrow into the astonishingly large selection of alternative information sources available to the inquisitive, many of which are serious works of scholar. Just be aware that some alternative sources are no doubt planted or seeded with disinformation to further confuse the issue and derail the casual researcher.

Finding a deeper truth is not easy and most certainly won’t be handed to you or me on a Silver platter, so act accordingly. Remain skeptical, but always keep an open mind. Just because something doesn’t mesh with our world view doesn’t make it incorrect. The more certain we are of something, the greater the likelihood there is an error in our thinking. This occurs because our absolute certainty effectively closes our mind to everything other than what will confirm our belief. This is a subtle cognitive process that works in the background without us being consciously aware of it unless we wish to be. Constant vigilance is required to counteract this bias, requiring us to eat humble pie on a regular basis.

The massive cognitive dissonance the average American experiences when reading revelations contrary to their conditioning assures the powers-that-be that the straying lambs will quickly return to suckle from mother’s propaganda teat. This is by design. The purpose of disinformation is to sow confusion and to demoralize, which in turns promotes emotional and psychological tension and infantile responses. We tend to return to mother, or in this case Big Brother, when we are frightened, confused or hurt.

While intellectually we might object to this description, in practice we almost always travel down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid to the lower levels of (perceived) personal safety when we deny or ignore our innate authority and responsibility to our self. Those who do not have the courage to look within and know themselves are susceptible to easy manipulation. Big Brother is here because ultimately both collectively and individually we want him to be here, regardless of whether this is a conditioned response or not.

Maslows


Some may not agree with this assessment. I respond by asking the reader to explain to me why so many people, including many here on Zero Hedge, are calling for someone, anyone, to stop the banking Ponzi as well as the governmental and corporate corruption? What about you and me? Is it not our responsibility to safeguard our own personal and community interests and doesn’t this systemic corruption endanger us? Why are we calling for an external authority to exert control over these rogue entities when you and I are the ultimate authorities of our body and mind? What exactly is our obligation here?

It seems we have declared our responsibility to be little more than to point fingers and to be the righteously indignant victim calling for truth, freedom and justice to be handed down from higher authorities. The biggest roadblock to understanding what has happened in the past and what’s occurring today is our own willing participation in normalcy bias and preconceived notions of what truth is and what is a lie….starting with the lie that we’re all just helpless innocent victims. The fact that most people believe they aren’t responsible in the least for the mess we are in is our biggest bias and the primary roadblock to affecting change.

It’s easy to say we aren’t influenced by our early childhood and young adult training and conditioning and another matter entirely to clear the mind of the ingrained beliefs that have not only sustained us for decades, but which bind us to those around us, be they family, friends or abusers. We are conditioned human animals and for the most part we don’t like to stray too far from the comforting herd. Tragically this flaw is consistently and effectively used against us by those who wish to control. And it is our denial of this that binds us to the false promises, which in turn keep us bound to our personalized hamster wheels.

Since the Ponzi’s masters and their methods are already so thoroughly examined and documented here on Zero Hedge I would rather spend most of my time exploring the passive and compliant masses for a greater understanding into why, rather than who or how. An innocuous comment on a WilliamBanzai7 post back in December of 2010 got me thinking about not seeing the forest from the trees while also reminding me of a classic song by Pink Floyd called “Comfortably Numb”.

Comfortably Numb


For thousands of years kings, religious leaders and governments large and small have employed psychological and propaganda operations against their own people. This is a given and only the brain dead, hopelessly naive or ideologically blinded cannot see this as a fact. Sadly the ranks of these three cognitive armies are bulging with new recruits as the fear meme is infiltrated ever deeper into the collective consciousness.

As we begin to recognize we’ve been duped and our options are rapidly being extinguished, we will begin to fight among ourselves rather than combine to fight our common enemy. This self directed deception also serves to give us a handy reason to avoid looking within for our own culpability. The distracting rallying cry is often “It’s them, not me, who are the problem.” For us passive observers (enablers) the hope (intent) is that enough chaos and civil disorder is created during this upheaval that the central government collapses under the burden of maintaining social order, thus allowing us to keep our own hands clean.

That’s the myth at least, the pipe dream if you will. That the weak shall rise up and inherit the Earth, a myth which if not outright believed by the masses is the fall back false hope that enables our inaction as we await our savior and salvation. The sad and inescapable conclusion I keep coming to is that as long as the powers-that-are can keep the masses distracted, fearful and (increasingly over the past 70 years of the present suicidal cycle) comfortably numb, little to nothing will be done to change the status quo that the powers that be are not implementing themselves.

It seems this is the only way to get us to fight and kill each other in anything other than single numbers. The really efficient mass murderers must be trained by central governments (formerly known as kings and religious leaders) to do their bidding in the same way Flipper was trained to ‘act’ for the cameras. Actually they treated Flipper better. The vast majority of us simply won’t strike out at unknown human beings and kill on command without first being desensitized and then reprogrammed in order to silence, at least temporarily, the risk adverse and empathetic spiritual soul within.

We have been trained, conditioned more accurately, like lab rats from birth to seek the softer easier way, the path of least resistance and the road very well travelled……all classic signs of a herding animal. I have come to see this as conditioned into us from birth by the master’s social control systems as well as passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years. Mental, emotional and intellectual slave’s teaching fellow slaves how to be good little productive slaves. This helps explain why we must be stripped of our individuality and ego and then rebuilt and retrained to operate as a cohesive military fighting unit in order to walk directly into danger and fight for those who enslave us.

War

 

Even when this has been successfully accomplished and we become efficient killing machines, being shelled and shot at causes psychological damage, which in the modern era of state sponsored mass murder is diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder. Contrary to the popular myth that man is a violent animal I contend that a relatively few men and women manipulate and coerce you and I into becoming violent animals either through outright physical oppression (aka slavery) or through social conditioning, training and propaganda. Widespread use of the carrot and stick helps the process along. To those who point to ‘evidence’ of violence over the last several hundred, even thousands of years, I point out that this conditioning has been going on for a very long time.

But with the introduction of designer drugs and expert psychological manipulation, combined with nonstop propaganda via the idiot box and a captured news media, never before have so few been able to control so many so completely. Scroll back up and carefully examine Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid with this thought in mind. The belief that man is naturally violent is a myth perpetuated by the controlling government(s) to serve its purpose and swallowed by a public looking to justify and rationalize our own willing and apathetic participation in the killing machine. Fear is a very poor long term motivator unless you’re trying to perpetuate violence among the slaves as a control mechanism.

At this point in our devolution into collective madness we are more than willing to internalize as the truth any information we are conditioned to be in agreement with no matter how ridiculous or categorically inconsistent with common sense or established fact it might be. This is the central tenant of denial, the desire to believe what we wish to believe without critical review or vetting.

Therefore, by controlling the overall meme that determines what is true and false and then feeding people information that confirms what they’ve been conditioned to believe, we for the most part are willing to be led by the nose wherever our masters take us. We are played as puppets and yet we believe that most (if not all) of our thoughts and decisions are made as independent entities and not as part of a managed and manipulated collective.

The fact that we can decide to leave for work at 6:53 AM or 7:10 AM, thus retaining the illusion of freedom of choice, means little when we must be at work no later than 8:00 AM. We engage in this psychological sleight of hand to feed and sooth our ego in order to deny our captivity and we are deliberately encouraged to do so by our owners. From the master’s point of view, the only thing better than kept slaves are slaves who keep themselves.

Our ego has been so thoroughly flattered since birth by delusions of freedom, truth, justice and the American way, along with visions of our magnificent benevolence to the world, that we would never tolerate, never mind entertain, the idea that we are herded like sheep and cattle to our thinking, feeding and reproduction pens. At this point in the collective farce the only difference between the USSR of the 1970’s and 80’s and America of 2011 is that the Russian people knew they were being lied to, used and abused.

And while they openly drowned this ugly realization in alcohol, they also developed alternative markets and barter system that proved useful when the system later collapsed. We however remain spellbound by the magician while also self medicating; only we tell ourselves we do so for different reasons such as depression or anxiety. What no one wishes to discuss is that our depression is the warning sign that something is terribly wrong. Sadly, given half a chance, denial marches on using whatever means available.

In Chapter Two I will begin to expand upon the physical means by which we are kept comfortably numb as well as our role in our own pacification and enslavement.

Cognitive Dissonance

08-01-2011

 

 

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Sun, 08/07/2011 - 11:43 | 1532630 Manthong
Manthong's picture

Epic Post

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 13:25 | 1517349 scratch_and_sniff
scratch_and_sniff's picture

American politicians always seem to mention that they are working for Americans, I'll do this for Americans, I'll do that for Americans...well who the fuck else would they be doing it for? Their efforts at appealing to base nationalism is kind of funny from an outsiders point of view, nearly everything they say relates back to some kind of nationalism, and they get away with it so effortlessly that any old fool could go into politics - from a political point of view, you people take the bait too easily.

Its easy to see why some think they are being brainwashed, as an observer, sometimes i might watch American news or some daft American caper TV show and think, who could watch this, or who could fall for this gibberish, and it dawns on me...phoneys! There are too many phoneys in America and you cant brainwash people into being phoney, no brain washing technique in this universe can do that kind of a job on anyone, they watch it because they love it, they were born that way, fucking Dolly Dimple, and i love them for it, but what a bunch of suckers.

I’ll be looking forward to your hard proof in the 2nd part of the article CD.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:44 | 1516861 Mediocritas
Mediocritas's picture

I've noticed a fair number of the older boomers slipping into a kind of funk that's somewhat captured in the movie "Broken Flowers". They are perfectly aware of how they betrayed their own ideals and they now live in a hollow, guilty affluence, frequently falling into depression that isn't being cured by the drugs big pharma make billions lying about. They lost their fire to fight the system because they BECAME the system and the system rewarded them with dopamine. That's really the key to it all. We're all junkies, nothing more, addicted to dopamine, and like any junkie, we will predictably follow the path of least resistance to the next hit. For the flower children that meant becoming card-carrying members of consumer society. Who can blame them? Any human population in the same place and time would do the same.

But now as their years are fading away and their worn cogs are being spat out from the machine to be replaced by newer components, it's dawning on them that they were expendables. The boomers I tend to associate with (mostly academics) are highly educated and high net worth, but their feeling of worthlessness is palpable. They see the world, understanding all too well what's really going on, but I cannot recall any (that I know personally) who is actually taking action based on their knowledge and happily embracing the role of "elder". Instead, each is falling into a passive, self-pitying, spiral of helplessness, or perhaps simply continuing the same behavior that worked for them in the past (machine compatibility). They have no fire, no soul left to rage against the machine, because they gave all to the machine and the machine consumed it with no return. It's quite sad to see. Smart people, surrounded with everything they want, but little that they actually need, fading away into death and doing nothing about the misery. Like any junkie, they need more and more gear as time goes on, but never manage to recapture the earliest highs. Even though some may recognize and acknowledge the addiction, there is no honest, empowered desire to break it.

Meanwhile, the machine (dealer) simply moves around the world to wherever the meat is the most naive.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 17:02 | 1518359 oldman
oldman's picture

Medio,

I really don't understand/have forgotten the dopamine story, but I do see in activity as the greatest threat here in the US of A.

I supposed that this was due to adrenaline rushes causing the ups and downs to flucuate so dramatically with sugar, alcohol, drugs(not plant medicines) and activity---big chemistry stuff---is there where the dopamine comes into play? I just thought it was the ups and downs from adrenaline and the reason we LOVE FEAR and VIOLENCE

I get it sometime from just hanging around dudes and dudettes as an observer---plus it is part of my conditioning, this fear and violence and constant activity.

Great post, hombre     thanks    om

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:54 | 1516903 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Ouch. Double ouch.

You should be writing this shit, not me.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:19 | 1516773 Anonymous Hand
Anonymous Hand's picture

CD, you are a very eloquent anarchist. Thanks for writing it out.

On the other hand, you suffer from a classic anarchist's disease - you talk too much, therefore your politics are boring as fuck.

I sure hope you're out building farms and communities when you're not writing blogs. Waking the world up to revolution will be painful in inverse relation to the amount of groundwork that gets done to prepare for independence.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:51 | 1516894 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

 

CD, you are a very eloquent anarchist.

Sorry, but I reject the label. It may be your interpretation, but it is not my intent nor what my words say. I always return to looking within. Always. The only anarchy I promote is within in order to destroy the insanity within.

And boring is good. Then you slip under the radar and avoid the thought police.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:49 | 1516884 Anonymous Hand
Anonymous Hand's picture

Gah. Two years on this site and I still haven't figured out to post a jpg. At least I've learned how to buy gold and get off the grid. Here, just for you:

http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0905/your-politics-d...

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:56 | 1516909 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

You can only post a picture if you are a contributor. Let me help.

Meow

Tue, 08/30/2011 - 22:58 | 1617715 blindman
blindman's picture

how does one define a contribution being the
defining characteristic of a contributor?
there the rub. let it burn.
the money. is burning

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 14:37 | 1517702 oldman
oldman's picture

Cog,

This photo is the best thing I have seen in months.

Thank you so much!                      om

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 10:14 | 1516562 Trifecta Man
Trifecta Man's picture

Oh, I now see the connection.  In the 1960's, our generation turned to illegal (and therefore higher priced) drugs to escape reality.  Now our generation turns to legal (and higher priced) drugs to escape their reality of pain.  The difference is that American firms are capturing the profits.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 03:44 | 1515950 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

The media complex is only interested in very few. Generally speaking "not you and me" although I really wish I could say "not me" going on two years now. The fact of the matter is "we all take a random walk down wall street" since the blood line/money line connections are so varigated. Basically "you just don't know" and that's my criticism CD of your piece. Living is not some form of mechanism. As "the powers that be" intrude into the personal life of others--how is one to know if in so doing they aren't ultimately accelerating their own demise? With Zero Hedge itself on board such activities and "wanting in" the reality of the human ego is clearly manifest. "I know the odds of getting killed as a fighter pilot are high. It just won't be me." Entire human collectives exist around such an ethos--and the more people know they in fact will die for being a part of it by and large the larger the collective! One need only look at Europe of the 20th Century and pretty much the rest of the world today (since nationalism has been America's biggest export by far) to understand that. Obviously there need not be any drugs or media insanity to get that ball rolling--although one need only look at the "enthusiasms" of the current power structure to realize there are many "nationalisms" that feel America's nationalism must be front, center and attacking to maximum effect. the fact of the matter is the poets really do have it right CD--"all you need is love"--leave it at that and you'll understand how much true evil truly does invade our world, our lives, our minds--and how there's nothing we can do about that but maybe along the way we can find some significant other with which to share a meaningful life with. Without it you'll never get over the bitterness and rage--and ultimately the powerlessness. Let the suicide machine run its course. It's not enabling anything good (let alone Godly) in this world. We know it has already failed by constantly "being there."

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 05:07 | 1516015 the mad hatter
the mad hatter's picture

Great article... is changing the system from within even possible?

 

Obama in 2006 said that raising the debt ceiling is a sign of leadership failure.

In 2011 he raised it by 2.5 trillion.

We are all accomplices in this consumerist crime against the Earth and to truly protest it we need to become like John the Savage in Huxley's Brave New World. Problem is the Earth is so fucked up now.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 03:24 | 1515933 Lord Koos
Lord Koos's picture

I think it is dangerous to over-generalize any generation of Americans, but especially the boomers since they are so numerous. Maybe it's because I happen to live in a very liberal city with highly educated population, but I know so hundreds of people who are pretty much outside the system, who didn't work for corporations, and who also participate in movements for social change. True, many middle-class boomers did "sell out" - they eventually wanted families, the good life, etc. That's pretty much what most of humanity wants, isn't it?  Now that boomers are hitting retirement age, their home values are in the toilet, their pensions are in bad shape, and the government wants to take away their SS benefits, after they've been paying into the system their entire lives.  Not a happy ending for millions of people.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 06:27 | 1516057 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

I agree that "hundreds of people who are pretty much outside the system, who didn't work for corporations, and who also participate in movements for social change." And I should have made that clear. What I was trying to say, and you just echoed, was that there were many who turned to the dark side.

Isn't it ironic that so many boomers were telling the older generation that it is all an illusion? Then the Boomers fall for the same illusion and they are the generation that has its illusion dissolved. The greater fools were and are we Boomers.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 02:40 | 1515905 dolly madison
dolly madison's picture

I am not a babyboomer.  I am a Gen Xer.  And my path seems quite opposite of the baby boomers.  After a life of shallowness and success.  I now live a life with not much cash, but at least some online activism.

With Alex P. Keeton as our role model, it was probably pretty common for us Gen Xers to achieve success.  Based on my friends, I don't think it's that common for the Gen Xers to want out of the corporate world, but I did.

As for why I am just spreading the news, and not overthrowing the government, I would say fear, intelligence and proximity.  Intelligence because I can see that at this point I would not be able to do it with the small amount of other people who are willing.  Fear because I cannot do anything that would make my kids lose their mother.  Proximity, because I live very far from civilization.  Here on Zero Hedge somebody wrote about how the city and suburb people would flee to the rural places with towns no bigger than 3000 people and counties no bigger than 10, 000 people, where the people are ahead of the curve on poorness, but you can't eat money.  Well, that's where I live.  It is a long commute to anywhere that I could overthrow anything.

I really enjoyed your article, and look forward to the 2nd half.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 04:18 | 1515986 falak pema
falak pema's picture

I hope your sex life is good on treasure island!

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 02:37 | 1515903 Hook Line and S...
Hook Line and Sphincter's picture

CogDis, thanks for blow torching your brain cells for our benefit. Have you been snoring at all lately? Either you have insomnia, or 'something' has energized your productivity into an overdrive status. 

Per your own revelations, I can say that I'm glad you are an older gent who has had a great life and enjoyed the beauty of raising a family, as the thought police WILL be knocking at your door in the next several years. But you know that. 

Don't stop, and get your works published elsewhere asap. Just retain the right to modify any editors scissors. They are very sharp!

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 06:20 | 1516053 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

I've snorted just about everything else over the decades. Now I'm trying a different stimulant.......life.  :)

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 01:34 | 1515841 Freddie
Freddie's picture

Baby boomers suck.  Their self importance was always bullshit- just like spoiled children.  Their 60 year + adolescence has become really fvkking tedious.  The Flower Power generation was a sham and a cheezy marketing slogan.  F them.

They have been helped by younger generations who have assisted this evil that controls our land.  

As far as Comfortably Numb - Gilmour cataloged how Waters became a dictatorial thug who mentally tore down Wright and Mason to the point they had to hire backup a keyboardist and drummer after Rog left. 

Waters finally realized his mistake or saw his mortality just before Wright died and talked about a reunion post Live 8.  Gilmour said no ****ing way.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 01:10 | 1515798 zorba THE GREEK
zorba THE GREEK's picture

Living is the most perilous activity as it always ends in death. Most of us waste our lives living much of it in the past or

dwelling on the future. Living in the eternal moment is a challenge, but not doing so is the same as death. The rush we

get when we are able to look into each others souls for a moment by being totally honest with each other is well worth

the risk of baring one's soul to another. There are so many forces pitting us against each other. We must constantly fight

the force that tries to divide us. All humanity shares the same emotions and aspirations and understanding this and truely

being honest with each other is the only way to live life to its fullest. 

 

 

 

 

 

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 01:40 | 1515781 oldman
oldman's picture

I just finished your article, Cog, though I posted earlier that I did not think I would finish it and so made a complete fool of myself which I am much of the time anyway.

In the earlier post I identified the pyramid as yours though it seemed very familiar, so I doubled down on foolish and lost again; sorry for being who I am. But Maslow is no longer with us and you are using his pyramid so, with this acknowledgement and my apology would you pretend to be he and take a stab at a response, please?

The article shifted dramatically when I returned to it and enjoyed it. Thank you.

Cog,

This is such an old conversation that I'm not sure I can finish your article.

"I’m often told they don’t make the rules, they just play the game. Nearly every single one feels they are (relatively) pure of heart and mind and they can prove it with their cancelled checks to charity. When I ask if their business and political activities are creating the very social problems they are donating money to fix, they quickly change the subject or find someone else to talk to."

I chose to be one of what your uncle termed 'losers', and I've never regretted my choice. The dudes refer to above always say something to the effect that nothing has changed for them, they still want peace, equality----you've heard their story more than I. I don't often bother with them again after our first conversation, because my question is always the same to each.

'If you love peace so much, why are you so aggressive? Why are you supporting the lords of the manor when you know, firsthand who and what they are and where they are headed with this broken machine?"

You know the rap that follows loaded with denial, projection, and underlain with defensiveness as deep as the ocean. They are not coming back, but they do give money from time to time, and maybe this is the only capacity that they have left. Those are the 'winners'.

We losers are not much better because we don't have much to give, but I know a lot of us here and there, and they are doing something by doing nothing: they are no longer contributing support to the 'winners', they will always listen to another way of doing whatever it is they don't do, and most importantly, the dudes I have met are living simply, loving their friends and family rather than consuming that which exceeds their simple needs and they are not destroying our mutual habitat.

I'll take that, for now, with the knowledge that we are very close to a great shift in our consciousness, we humans. At  the top of your pyramid, I see 'morality' in place of ethics. That is an important distinction, for me, the use of that word. Morality is contextually, imo, used only in the realm of a single species. I work outside of the human context, though not divorced from it; and ethics seems more appropriate since it eliminates quite a bit of the self in self-realization, leaving simple realization.

A long way to ask a simple question: why do you place 'morality' at the triangle's apex?

thanks for your great patience with this oldman                  om

 

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 06:17 | 1516049 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

If you look closely you will find 'morality' on two steps of the pyramid. At the top as you pointed out, but also on the second step, though used in the context of "Safety - Security of morality". This is interesting because that step is devoted to the physical things of survival: implying morality is needed to survive. It is only when we arrive at the top that we are able to create a moral environment for ourselves and others. While at the bottom, we are more concerned with preserving what we have or that already exists around us.

On the other hand I have seen acts of morality and charity by poor people as a percentage of their total worth, which might just be some food and clothes, that blows my mind. To be honest I need to think about this more deeply.

I don't know if I completely agree with the pyramid's ordering, but it does a decent job of explaining priorities.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 14:45 | 1517726 oldman
oldman's picture

I remember studying Maslow about twenty years ago; read everything I could get my hands on. I loved the thoughts, but still there was something slightly ajar about them. Now, that I understand ethics as it applies to my existence and am in this discussion, it seems like this was the core of my resistence to Maslow. I will have to consider this some more before saying another word. Anyway---off to day for 10 days in the wild---the place where I learned ethics.

Muchas gracias, Cog----om

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 00:56 | 1515777 hidingfromhelis
hidingfromhelis's picture

Why? IMHO, the golden shackles bind, and to renounce one's course in life would require them to look within and ask the difficult questions you refer to in your writing. Most people just aren't capable or willing.

"At this point in the collective farce the only difference between the USSR of the 1970’s and 80’s and America of 2011 is that the Russian people knew they were being lied to, used and abused." Great point! This shows just how successful the measured application of the boiling frog regimen has been in the US.

CD, I always enjoy and appreciate your ramblings, musings, disjointed thoughts, rhetorical questions, and self-discovery process through writing, and whatever else you may call your posts.

"Peace, love and BTFD" was the perfect compliment to this post. Thanks, WB7!

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 00:53 | 1515771 Kassandra
Kassandra's picture

Something happened in the '80's. It came on quick and was like a mass induced, consumer driven hysteria.  I knew we'd lost our way completely when I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a BMW that said "He who dies with the most toys wins".

Can't wait for part two.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 00:52 | 1515770 hidingfromhelis
hidingfromhelis's picture

Why? IMHO, the golden shackles bind, and to renounce one's course in life would require them to look within and ask the difficult questions you refer to in your writing. Most people just aren't capable or willing.

"At this point in the collective farce the only difference between the USSR of the 1970’s and 80’s and America of 2011 is that the Russian people knew they were being lied to, used and abused." Great point! This shows just how successful the measured application of the boiling frog regimen has been in the US.

CD, I always enjoy and appreciate your ramblings, musings, disjointed thoughts, rhetorical questions, and self-discovery process through writing, and whatever else you may call your posts.

"Peace, love and BTFD" was the perfect compliment to this post. Thanks, WB7!

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 00:31 | 1515739 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

Someone's not taking their SOMA.....    What percentage of the US population is on anti-depressants?  

The number of teens on them is staggering..... but then if my life were just starting and I realized I was inheriting a bankrupt (financially and morally) world on the verge of ecological collapse, it's understandable.......

For a time we thought you COULD change things... but Nixon got pardoned - as did all of Ronnie's coke smugglers....  Carter was such a downer, we were told that all was well, Rambo really won Vietnam, conservation was a bummer and the future would be fine.  We all got new credit cards and got to spend like mad.  Now your house is in foreclosure, you're out of work and your daughters are looking for 'sugar daddies' to help cover the cost of college.

Most people now just wnt to be plugged back into the matrix.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 23:09 | 1515560 Setarcos
Setarcos's picture

I remained only on the fringe of "the 60s", though tilting towards "flower power" and all that.

My gut feeling was (and is) that the major proponents (and their legions of followers) were deranged and, therefore, unable to realize that their antics could never affect the real world of, at the time, nuclear proliferation, the Cold War and so on.

I did not use the term "cognitive dissonance" back then ... I did not have sufficient psychological knowledge ... but I can apply it in retrospect.

Applying gained knowledge - not least of myself - it does not surprize me that numbers of the "alternative generation" have flipped.

A case in point, in a political context, is former Trotsykists flitting from rabid 'communists' to rabid 'capitalists' in the form of the PNAC.

In my 20s I flipped from being a 'Marxist' to being - temporarily - a proponent of "free enterprize"; so I know how persons divorced from reality (which I was) can, almost overnight, become the apparent inverse of what they believed previously.

Another case in point (which I have also personally experienced):

A devout atheist somehow wanders into an evangelical rally, gets caught up in the mass emotionality and suddenly converts to a belief in Jesus, god and whatever ... rather like Germans got converted to Nazism ... and rather like most people got converted to "the War on Terror", in the wake of 911.

Goebbles had it off pat ... takes a psychopath (of evil genius) ... to know exactly how to make others at least sociopathic.

I will post a link which might help to explain where we are today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgGyvxqYSbE

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 23:08 | 1515558 gookempucky
gookempucky's picture

At this point in our devolution into collective madness we are more than willing to internalize as the truth any information we are conditioned to be in agreement with no matter how ridiculous or categorically inconsistent with common sense or established fact it might be.

So true CD..... mans weakness is brought about through making himself subject to that which in reality has no power.  Unfortunately man has assigned power to the external world via MSNs, Ghost's, chaos propaganda etc even when there was no power there to begin with and must separate himself from its perversion. The conditioning process has led many from the simplicity of things such as a single line may seemingly have two opposites and that joining these two opposites together they have become a circle. As Millikan says The Cosmic becomes the globe. I say KISS as I sleep without mesmeric influence.

You are complement to those who seek themselves.................. please continue

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 23:29 | 1515589 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

 

.......mans weakness is brought about through making himself subject to that which in reality has no power.

This is such a difficult concept for people to understand because they have been conditioned to reject this as "not real' or 'nonsensical' or 'this does not compute'.

We empower our masters. Period. But to fully recognize this means there are no more built in excuses left to do nothing. Freedom is something we all claim to want, but are deathly afraid of. Sovereignity is NOT what we want. Freedom to choose from a narrow range is what we really want. But our egos protect us from this ugly truth.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 00:41 | 1515759 Boxed Merlot
Boxed Merlot's picture

Sovereignty is NOT what we want...

This is the unapproachable light. Our emphasis of philosophy over theology has predictably left us with the navel gazing consumerism of which your disenchantment is rightfully placed.

"On a long enough time line, the survival rate..."

This was and is the bait / hook that caught and keeps me attached to ZH. There are other conceptual virtues that have continued well after previous throngs of humanity have had their survival rate drop to zero, well attested to by theologians, very similar to "sovereignty" and are worth contemplating and meditating on as well.

These are the attributes of power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and blessing. Theology holds these as being capable of experience but only tangentially as any will ultimately simultaneously consume if fully achieved.

I contend the greatest failure of this generation, and yes I'm in your 50 something category, has been the high jacking of theology by business, government and religion.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 22:55 | 1515511 oogs66
oogs66's picture

I have thought of those hierarch of needs a lot lately.  and the stages of grief as well.  I think we are pulling back to where people have to worry about basic needs.  First time in a long time.  We all hoped little "johnny" was going to be able to "enjoy" life.  Live off the the hard work we have done.  First of, billions of Chinese work harder than little johnny, and frankly, work hard than us.  Skip the participation awards which basically try and jump start kids past the first couple of levels, and let them enjoy the success of beating those first levels.  anyways, it's late, too much to drink, and i have to be up at 5 to prepare breakfast for my kids, make coffee for my wife, then go to work, only to come home and listen to how little involved i am with the family, since money to feed the family is a given and the job i go to is clearly just something i enjoy doing.

 

And your generation just always followed the "cool" kids.  The cool kids used to be pot smoking hippies who decided they were against the war, and now the cool kids are rich  lawyers and bankers who belong to country clubs and you follow them too. 

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 22:34 | 1515459 Subprime JD
Subprime JD's picture

I come from a community of immigrants where many opened their own small businesses. My dad came from Greece in 1974 and opened his first business in 81. He now sits on a nice chunk of wealth. The point being that I grew up with independence, was taught to challenge the system. Sadly, the majority of the offspring of said immigrants are following the path of the corporate ladder.

There is something to be said about the immigrant mentality that wants to be independent and work for themselves. But even they are slaves to the system and "believe"in the wisdom of our leaders, although not as much as the born and raised americans.

Wed, 08/03/2011 - 12:20 | 1520935 mahalopamala
mahalopamala's picture

A friend of mine has a similar story. She, however, became a rule follower and did not make any trouble.  As a child of immigrants, she kept her head down and excelled in school. She is not materialistic in the least.  In fact, she is a saver, a giver, and not in the coroprate web. Community makes a difference- whether it is like yours, or a carefully chosen community that folks consciously join.

I agree with you. The immigrant mentality is excellent.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 22:17 | 1515425 YC2
YC2's picture

one problem in challenging the status quo in such a revolutionary way is supplanting an entire system.  you dont like such and such aspect, fine, you dont like a series of connected symptoms and have identified a unifying cause, fine.  What is your alternative to an entire ingrained system, and how do you implement it (by force, ground up, top down, cleverly making it inevitible, etc, etc)?  You cannot show up empty handed, and anyone who will join your sentiment will eventually find a dead end in the story that they are uneasy with because it is totally unknown and potentially threatens the bottom of their pyramid. 

I appreciate your work CD,and this is not a criticism of your piece.  I think something I am interested in is the HOW of change.  Are individuals necessary?  How have they been effective?  Is the only significant actor the state imploding on itself while people who have constructed an "us vs them" mentality mistakenly take credit for their struggle effecting the change?  It seems like institution of a new system doesnt happen proactively on top of an existing system as much as a reaction to the status quo's failure.

I dont know, you've given me some food for thought. 

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 22:34 | 1515457 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

As I have said in so many of my articles unless we do some deep soul searching and make some internal changes, anything we replace the current system with will just be more of the same.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 01:41 | 1515848 Freddie
Freddie's picture

As long as we have this media and TV then we don't stand a chance. The military weapons complex is no better.  All who*res at the feeding trough.  

The populace at large wants free stuff and security. Most have no clue.  Even more educated and slightly more affulent say they wish both parties would stop fighting....and trail off back to American Idol or some ball game BS.

Go to your local grocery store - illegals, recent immigrants, obama voters with their food stamp credit cards.  Full shopping carts.

Watch the emerging poor Americans especially elderly whites.  Picking and choosing a few items they can afford as food inflation grows.

This confiscation of the middle class wealth has gone on for centuries in Europe, Latin America, Asia and has happened every 70 years or so in the USSAR.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 23:38 | 1515617 vamoose1
vamoose1's picture

Wow.

Comfortably numb is my favorite  song,  its to be played at my funeral. I retired 10  years ago  after 40  years of finance. Im  not hungry this aint Syria, ....  yet. Yet. Im not quite ready to march.

     But these are vald criticisms though,  it just makes me think, its very discomforting,   although the minute i was lucky enough to reach escape velocity, i  was gone,  my neighbours sold my house.  

    I dont know if i am marching at my age, self interest rules,   sellout or otherwise.  I will say this,  i viciously despise the people to whom  you  refer,  todays games nicely illustrating the point. I manoevred my way through them, very untidly.  Wild thoughts,  thanks.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 22:02 | 1515391 blindman
blindman's picture

" swell | August 1, 2011 at 6:09 am |

Durant writes of that Epicurean Rome (30B.C.-A.D. 96):

Once the Romans had been precipitated into parentage by the impetus of sex, and lured to
it by anxiety for the post-mortem care of their graves; now the upper and middle classes
had learned to separate sex from parentage, and were skeptical about the afterworld. Once
the rearing of children had been an obligation of honor to the state, enforced by public
opinion; now it seemed absurd to demand more births in a city crowded to the point of
redolence. On the contrary, wealthy bachelors and childless husbands continued to be
courted by sycophants longing for legacies. “Nothing,” said Juvenal, “will so endear you
to your friends as a barren wife.” x “Crotona,” says a character in Petronius, “has only
two classes of inhabitants— flatterers and flattered; and the sole crime there is to
bring up children to inherit your money. It is like a battlefield at rest: nothing but
corpses and the crows that pick them.” Seneca consoled a mother who had lost her only
child by reminding her how popular she would now be; for “with us childlessness gives
more power than it takes away.” The Gracchi had been a family of twelve children;
probably not five families of such abundance could be found in Nero’s age in patrician or
equestrian Rome. Marriage, which had once been a lifelong economic union, was now among a
hundred thousand Romans a passing adventure of no great spiritual significance, a loose
contract for the mutual provision of physiological conveniences or political aid.

To escape the testatory disabilities of the unmarried some women took eunuchs as
contraceptive husbands; some entered into sham wedlock with poor men on the understanding
that the wife need bear no children and might have as many lovers as she pleased. "
.

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 01:51 | 1515855 Freddie
Freddie's picture

+1

We are a combo of Rome and the USSR imploding.  At least The Romans created many great things like sanitation and clean water in cities. Our legacy will be the iPad and Viagra.  Well we also had the Ferrari 458 but that is the Romans again.

Wed, 08/03/2011 - 19:34 | 1522345 blindman
blindman's picture

.
.
the usa is the oligarchs playground where they
eat, shit and fuck as they please. no one is
the wiser as no one can see it all. a nation of peasants
blinded by combinations of ideology, religion, miseducation,
poverty, desperation and isolation, aka rock and roll or
lock and load, more cowbell and more oil to get you
through the night; one day at a time.
a culture based on the ceremony of shopping, now online.
but things is changin'.....

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 21:59 | 1515382 alien-IQ
alien-IQ's picture

It's exactly as Aldous Huxley predicted:

"There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it."

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 01:55 | 1515864 Freddie
Freddie's picture

+1

"..pharmacological method of making people love their servitude.."

Television and to a lesser extent movies.   They are both insidiously effective tools in brainwashing AND controlling the masses.  

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 22:06 | 1515400 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

This is what I devote most of Chapter Two too, though I talk about nearly all the 'drugs' including the pharmacological ones.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 23:51 | 1515647 vamoose1
vamoose1's picture

Respectfully,  CD reading between the lines I am  tempted to  ask,  do you love yourself?

Tue, 08/02/2011 - 05:56 | 1516045 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

No.

But I touch myself often. :>)

Seriously though you might wish to expand the question a bit if you want a serious answer.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 22:41 | 1515469 alien-IQ
alien-IQ's picture

I take the term "pharmacological" to be a metaphor not limited to traditional "drugs". Such as the drugs of consumerism, power, nationalism, etc. But I know you already understand that.

When Huxley's comment is viewed in that context, it becomes even more powerful and accurate to life today.

I always enjoy your writings CD. Always complete pleasure to read. Looking forward to part two.

Keep it comin:-)

peace.

Mon, 08/01/2011 - 21:51 | 1515357 Bitchin Bear
Bitchin Bear's picture

Great read no matter the word count.  I can remember at the tender age of six (1960) hearing my mother berate my father for being "just a salesman" and not in upper management like her brother. So much pressure to climb that corporate ladder. TPTB have done a fine brainwash on Americans, suckering them in with debt so they could be just a little more like "the rich"and feel better about themselves.  Go to any TJMaxx and see people buying name brand hideous products at reduced prices just so they can feel a little better because they wear the same brand of shoes as J Lo or something. 
As to your reference to the former USSR you are absolutely spot on!  Thanks to a recent poster here at ZH I became acquainted with the book "Reinventing Collapse" by Dimitry Orlov.  What a frightening read.  Everyone should read it. Americans definitely need to wake up and come up with a way to circumvent the system like the Soviet people did.  We will wake up one day to American Gulags.  Keep up the great work.

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