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A Kept Culture

Cognitive Dissonance's picture




 

A Kept Culture

By

Cognitive Dissonance

 

 

You will always find original articles by Cognitive Dissonance and other authors first on www.TwoIceFloes.com before they are posted here on ZH. Please stop by and take a look. If you wish to subscribe to ‘Dispatches’, a periodic newsletter from Cognitive Dissonance and TwoIceFloes Creations, please click here.

 

My thinking on a variety of subjects has changed over time and I expect my understanding will continue to evolve as new information, knowledge and propaganda enters my orbit. Contrary to popular belief this is a good thing because it means my mindset is not as static and rigid as some, though it is most certainly worse than others.

One of the great questions of the ages is why we, and by ‘we’ I mean anyone other than ‘they/them’, tolerate the abuse we receive from the hand of our masters. While the mistreatment is most often handed down on an individual basis, “We the Abused” outnumber the abusers by at least 10 to 1. And I count among that ‘1’ all those who enable, support and carry out the abuse. So why do we tolerate something we can clearly stop if we so wish?

Earlier on in my ongoing awakening, a never ending process of self reflection and discovery, I would sometimes use the derogatory term ‘sheeple’ to describe both a people and a condition. I was grasping for a simple all encompassing answer to a complex problem, and believing that the vast masses were blissfully ignorant while passively grazing upon an array of consumer goods satisfied my need to understand what to me at the time was incomprehensible.

This is not to say some are not exactly as described. In fact at one point in my life I fit the bill perfectly, totally consumed in my naval gazing and mostly oblivious to not only my own lot in life, but those around me. As a single parent raising my boy alone for seventeen years, I was righteously indignant if anyone dared to question my focus. After all, I was doing it for the child(ren).

But deep down I knew that at best my explanation was inadequate and at worse deeply flawed. While at several points in my life I was a ‘sheeple’, the description did not fit all my situations all the time. I lived in, and existed within, a far more complex world than could be described using simple concepts and ideas. Like a broken clock I was on the rare occasion quite accurate, but for the vast majority of the time I was dead wrong. I suspect my view was biased by familiarity both with myself and others who fit the description. But more importantly, it was comforting to believe I understood the problem and that I wasn’t ‘it’.

So I continued to search for an answer to THE question, though this time I was more thoroughly grounded after recognizing my desire for a simplistic answer and my need to absolve myself from blame or culpability. This self examination and understanding led directly to my explorations into denial, both of the self and of the collective.

This seemed to make more sense to me and quite frankly still does as a significant contributor to this issue. Denial is infinitely customizable, scalable and adaptable. One can be in total, partial and minimal denial about a subject or subjects and our denial can ebb and flow as circumstances and conditions, including our anxiety and fear, dictate.

We are never completely denial free unless we can claim to have cleared all the Cognitive Dissonance cobwebs from the mind, an assertion I would not make since I stumble across, and become entangled within, new ones on a reoccurring basis. If anything as I continue to grow I find more, not less, though they are increasingly more subtle and nuanced.

But while denial more completely describes the present state of the human condition, it still falls short of encompassing the infinite variety of daily life within the Insane Asylum. How does one cope with being in a near constant state of loss and grief, of borderline depression, while still ‘functioning’ on a day to day basis? In many respects we are endlessly circling the five stages of loss and grief so nicely described in the Kubler-Ross model, yet clearly on a higher, more complex, level of existence because it encompasses both the individual and the collective.

 

JFK Funeral

The JFK Funeral - Collective loss and grief

 

An example of the individual/collective loss and grief dynamic in play was the days and weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Words fail to adequately explain what the nation on all levels experienced at that time. There were few, other than the very young, who were not emotionally moved either directly by the loss or by the collective pall the country entered immediately afterward. As a child of seven years, while I did not understand what was going on, I was definitely moved by the emotional trauma others were dealing with at the time.

However, Kubler-Ross describes a onetime devastating loss or the recognition of an impending loss and the process of navigating that loss and grief, while I am seeking an explanation of a never ending existence within the loss and grief process because the ‘loss’ relates to, and is an integral part of, our daily living. I am speaking directly to the psychological and emotional consequences of the overall condition of our existence rather than onetime events that disturb our existence.

I suspect using the term ‘loss’ is inaccurate or incomplete, at least in the literal sense of the word. While a Lion captured in the wild and then confined to a cage at the zoo ‘knows’ what it has lost, a lion born into captivity never really is aware of a ‘loss’. But both lions may still suffer from the same neurosis which springs from the sense, the knowing, that something not quite definable (and more importantly unchangeable) is wrong.   

It is my supposition that “We the People” also suffer from the same loss, the same trauma, as the captive born lion does, an inner ache and a growing awareness that something is very wrong with the world and our life within it. Because the reality we live within is the only reality we know, most of what is wrong is not readily apparent to the majority of us since this is just the way things are and everyone else lives more or less the same life as we do. A failure of our imagination is partially to blame for the sense we all have of being trapped with nowhere to go and no way to change.

The other day Mrs. Cog used a term to describe a fictional character from an old movie. She said the character was a ‘kept man’ and I instantly understood what she meant, though it would not have mattered if she had said ‘kept woman’. In so many ways the relationship between the ‘keeper’ and the ‘kept’ is remarkably similar to our ‘kept culture’ and the basis for our dour outlook and sense of impending doom and depression, even if it only lingers under the surface of our awareness. Let me attempt to further explain.

There is always an implicit, and often an explicit, agreement of understanding between the keeper and the kept that pretty much spells out the duties of each party as well as the rewards and benefits of the arrangement. With regard to our kept culture, on a broader scale the general terms and conditions of the agreement are spelled out in grade school, then further defined and refined in college, while the specifics of each situation are expressed by each employer/benefactor. Here is what you ‘do’ and this is your ‘compensation’ for doing so.

While most, if not all, of the power remains in the hands of the keeper, it is to the benefit of both parties that an illusion of equality is inferred between the keeper and the kept in order for the kept to feel they have ‘agreed’ to, and are ‘willing’ to, fully cooperate with the keeper to fulfill the terms of the agreement. You catch more flies (and keep more kept) with honey than vinegar. But make no mistake about it, this agreement can only be abridged or fundamentally altered with the consent of the keeper and not by the kept, thus demonstrating where the real power resides.

On those occasions when the kept strays beyond the boundaries laid out in the agreement or angers the keeper, it is then that the power carefully hidden from view and veiled behind propaganda, public protocols and cultural ritual is exhibited in a manner that leaves no doubt who is in charge. Just as the keeper may afford the kept a credit card or regular cash disbursements in order to further the illusion the kept is free and independent, those liberties can and will be quickly rescinded if for no other reason than as a reminder of who holds the power in the relationship.

 

To Protect and Serve.......Whom?

To Protect and Serve......Whom?

 

So too the power of the state, its sharp edges deliberately smoothed by propagandized historical storytelling and mass media assurances, is obvious to anyone looking down the barrel of a gun or being summoned to court. There is no doubt which party is expected to submit when the keepers of the peace and the purse pull you over or summon you for an audit. Ultimately the authority of the keepers is derived from the threat of force, though it is in the best interest of all parties involved to keep this fact carefully obscured behind a thousand sheer veils.

On the surface it would appear the participants never change in these agreements until death do they part. And for some this is the case. But what helps cement the illusion of freedom for the kept, and magnificent benevolence of the keepers, is the seeming ability to change the conditions of the agreement, with each able to leave in order to form a more perfect union with another kept or keeper. But while individual conditions and connections may change, the overall framework remains the same.

This is similar to a formalized agreement between a players’ union (for example the NFL Players Association) and the sport’s organizing consortium (i.e. the National Football League) which outlines the rules that govern the overall relationship between players and league (the Collective Bargaining Agreement). This enables both parties to negotiate everything and anything so long as it follows the general rules and regulations of the governing agreement. So too, the kept and keeper may both change lovers at will so long as they do not switch roles or do anything else that violates the governing agreement parameters. In some ways the keeper is just as constrained as the kept.

Of course the keeper retains a greater degree of flexibility with regard to timing, selection and opportunity, whereas the kept may not overtly ‘select’ a new keeper, but must ultimately be selected by the keeper. The kept may burnish his/her resume (appearance, social and sexual skills, education and training, athletic ability) to increase desirability. But with the market flooded with available (read cheap) kept individuals, ultimately the market is controlled by the keepers. In practice a keeper keeps more than one and often dozens, though there may be a favorite the keeper returns to time and time again.

So while there is some degree of certainty for the kept so long as they remain productive and compliant, there is still a good deal of risk realized from being kept, and most of this risk is arbitrary and unspoken. Needless to say this creates a smoldering sense of anxiety within the kept and over the long term contributes greatly to their neurosis. Essentially being kept is simply another form of slavery, one driven mostly by the willing participation of the kept in service to the keeper. Thus we witness modern day plantation living in all its glory and profit.

 

Future Apple HQ

The future Apple headquarters - Modern plantation living

 

I could go on and on with further examples of how “We the People” are a kept culture, including an in-depth exploration of the psychology underlying it. But why take all the fun out of it by rubbing our noses in our own excrement. The fact remains we for the most part willingly participate in our own slavery because the perks are too good to reject and the pain is not great enough to compel us to shake off the chains that binds us to our own servitude.

While I certainly understand how powerless the kept believe we/they are, and by extension how powerful the keepers remain, this is all an illusion designed to keep the kept (and in many respects the keepers themselves) mesmerized, seduced and sated. The powerful impression of system rigidity and momentum serves to maintain the status quo.

We rarely consider casting off our own chains because we consider our binds tied to everyone else’s and the system itself, thus exponentially complicating the problem in our minds. We conflate our personal condition with the overall systemic condition and vice versa, thus perpetuating the illusion with very little energy introduced to actually change our lives. After all, you can’t fight city hall……right? The funny thing is you don’t need to fight city hall to reformulate your ‘self’, just the desire and courage to do so.

If ever there was a perpetual motion machine invented, it is the social ‘agreement’ I just described. The small amount of energy introduced from outside the closed loop system to keep it churning is minor compared to the amount self produced by the active participation of both the kept and keeper as well as that generated by the ever evolving parameters within the much larger collective governing agreement. This energy, whether internal or external, is expressed primarily as emotion and when multiplied by 325 million, or 7 billion, is quite frankly the most powerful man made force in the universe.

While we blame the keepers for our kept condition, it is we who are ultimately to blame for our slavery primarily because we expect that we must change the world when all we need do is change ourselves. I often ask those around me, “How do you eat an elephant”, a seemingly impossible task. The answer is, of course, one bite at a time. But in order to do so we must be brutally honest with ourselves and recognize our contributing role in the collective farce and the personal conditions we must change if we are to slip the binds that tie.

The perks that come with being kept will not survive the breaking of the keep. And it is our denial of this fact that greatly contributes to the power of the keepers and of our being continuously kept. Pain must be endured and several steps back must be tolerated, even encouraged, if we are to eventually move forward. Centuries of prior collective experience and memory cannot be erased in days, weeks, even months. Nor can we expect others to blaze the trail if we are unwilling to walk the path, alone if necessary. Stop waiting for others to start the process and take your first bite of true freedom.

 

11-02-2014

Cognitive Dissonance

 

As the kept, there is no possibility of an exit. Only a promotion to house slave.

No Exit

 

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Tue, 11/04/2014 - 13:03 | 5410899 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Force is not the only way. Integrity is a much better way. If they really knew what was best they would be able to explain the truth of things. The list of unaccounted things is the same as the list of things wrong with our world. Its a very long list.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 17:52 | 5408394 blindman
blindman's picture

moving into the musical portion of the program ...
Joe Pug - Hymn 101
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrbzmzuNkiE

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 20:09 | 5408780 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Nice.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 17:38 | 5408339 blindman
blindman's picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S9_VBRzhok
Harry Nilsson-"Life Line" (1971) (4/7)
.
wow, that is the way it is.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 17:07 | 5408204 blindman
blindman's picture

it is not about keeping and being kept,
(that is life)
it is about stealing in broad daylight,
and then keeping that from those it was
taken from. no?
STEVIE WONDER - Big Brother (Lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3cAsASTTdw

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 16:50 | 5407938 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

I pick out this quote from that article:

"If ever there was a perpetual motion machine invented, it is the social ‘agreement’ I just described. The small amount of energy introduced from outside the closed loop system to keep it churning is minor compared to the amount self produced by the active participation of both the kept and keeper as well as that generated by the ever evolving parameters within the much larger collective governing agreement."

And, I repeat this quote from a comment:

"Social order, just like water, flows the path of least resistance."

There IS energy in the system as a whole,

beyond that energy which is in its parts ...

In that context,

I liked the later comment by ebear,

where he wrote that "I prefer this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis

and in particular, this:

Symbiogenesis The biologist Lynn Margulis, famous for her work on endosymbiosis, contends that symbiosis is a major driving force behind evolution."

The flow of water is the simplest metaphor for how energy systems behave. However, it simultaneously suffers from being over-simplified, as any attempt to explain must end up being, in one way or another. My view is that natural selection always existed, and developed, within the relatively constant environment on Earth, a wide range of possible general energy systems.

I indeed think that Darwin had a relative blind spot, which Lynn Margulis was one of those who successfully revealed, (in ways which she was very fortunately were able to be proven were correct within her life time. There is a book called Darwin's Blind Spot, which reviews the history of that aspect of the history of science.)

One of Darwin's blind spots was that he only saw how nature radiates out into different species. He was not aware of how sometimes there are revolutionary convergences of previously diverging adaptive radiants, that then became the basis for a new source from which to diverge. Lynn Margulis' discovery of how the eukaryotic cell was the symbiosis of previously separate, simpler cells, I believe is one of the most important metaphors for how we might adapt to science and technologies becoming trillions of times more powerful (within the life time of those still alive today), which developments have nothing to compare to in known human history, but which may only be compared to the development of photosynthesis, which became the driving force behind eukaryotic cells, which enabled multicellular life forms.

As Cognitive Dissonance stated, "if anything as I continue to grow I find more, not less, though they are increasingly more subtle and nuanced," and also agreed in another reply below, "the words kept, keep and keepers can be combined in all kinds of interesting and nuanced ways."

My basic view is that the basic reasons why human ecology, and the political economy within that, have become so extremely unbalanced and dysfuctional, to the point of runaway criminal insanities, were that the Art of War was based warfare in which "success was based on deceits," and "spies were the most important soldiers." That was the foundation of the current sets of relationships between the kept and the keepers, or groups that roughly can be grouped into the productive/prey people and the parasite/predator people. Neolithic civilization was based on "human farming," where the domestication of human beings was central to the domestication of other animals and plants. Those basic human realities were mostly slavery through organized lies operating robberies. The primary tests of survivability were military ones, where the military was organized crime on a larger scale. Governments became basically military organizations, which prevailed depending upon their abilities to make and maintain the social organizations and weapons systems that survived through the long history of human conflicts. The real development of Neolithic civilizations were as more sophisticated slavery systems, NOT as the end of slavery, since debt slavery for the entire population became the main means to control almost everyone.

The deeper problems are that human forms of artificial selection emerged out of natural selection pressures which always existed, and which developed various sorts of evolutionary ecologies. Human beings, and human civilizations, emerged out of that. However, the relative successes of human civilizations were based on their successfully operating through deceits and spies, which is still the basis of the current relationships between the keepers and the kept. That has made those socio/political relationships extremely problematic, because the degree to which that sort of social pyramid system is dominated by its biggest bullies' bullshit social stories is so total that more basic truths about natural selection are buried so deep beneath that bullshit, that more rational public debates about those issues is practically impossible. Instead, the social world has become based on successfully backing up deceits with destruction, in order to operate enforced frauds, to the degree that most of the real physical, biological and social facts are practically only discussed through bullshit fighting bullshit.

Furthermore, the triumphs of the biggest bullies' bullshit also resulted in that dominating the philosophy of science, just as much as any other social enterprise. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the degree to which we understand everything BACKWARDS because an ARBITRARY MINUS SIGN was inserted in the entropy equations in thermodynamics and information theory. Post-modernizing science understands everything through the concepts of general energy systems, which should include the human evolutionary ecologies. HOWEVER, we currently understand human ecology, and the political economy within that, in as BACKWARDS we possibly could! The kept culture is based upon systems of organized lies operating robberies, where the facts that ALL HUMAN REALITIES MUST NECESSARILY BE ORGANIZED LIES OPERATING ROBBERIES is generally understood in such utterly inverted and perverted ways, that we end up living in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything appears proportionately backwards and distorted!

Politics should be applied human ecology, and that should be understood as manifesting general energy systems, as the human forms of emerging evolutionary ecologies. HOWEVER, the great paradoxes have been that the oldest social science and engineering was done through the history of warfare, wherein its success was based on deceits and treacheries, as the ways that the rulers controlled those they ruled over, as tested by the conflicts between those different gangs of organized criminals on the battlefields.

What has been happening within our life times has been the emergence of weapons of mass destruction which are trillions of times more powerful than anything available in previously known human history. The established social pyramid systems can not adapt to that, without going through profound revolutions, which I would say must primarily be intellectual scientific revolutions, which enable creative convergence of post-modernizing science with ancient mysticism. ENERGY IS SPIRIT. Entropy does not "exist" the way that energy exists, because time and space do not exist as independent absolutes, but only relatively "exist." Thousands of years of social successes based on deceits and treacheries has made the systems we live within, where our political economy is based on the enforced frauds of a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, in which money is measurement backed by murder, that appears to be able to be created out of nothing and disappear back to nothing, which seems to violate the basic laws of nature, but which is actually consistent with the laws of natural as manifestations of enforced frauds, because that was most successfully done through the maximum possible bullshit about it!

That is the context in which I respond to the article above by CD, as well as how I have similarly responded to several previous articles, where I perceive that he is correct, on the levels that he is discussing these issues, but is still only barely scratching the surface. The actual systems of death controls, done through the military murder systems, have achieved inverting and perverting our social understanding of the natural selection forces to the maximum possible degree. Therefore, instead of being able to develop better death controls, we are spiraling down through criminally insane systems, where the debt slavery is driving debt insanities, which threaten to provoke death insanities.

It seems almost impossible for our civilization to pull out of that death spiral, due to the degree to which our actual death controls operate through the maximum possible deceits, which includes the ways that the controlled opposition groups to those established systems stay within the same deceitful frame of reference. The keepers have their covert ways of thinking as the parasite/predators, while the kept have their overt ways of thinking as the productive/prey. NEITHER ways of thinking can provide better resolutions for the problems that they both face!

We are witnessing a Grand Canyon CHASM opening up in our social and political systems, where progress in physics and biology has nothing comparable happening in human sciences and social engineering, because of the historical ways that the best developed social sciences were warfare whose success was based on deceits, and economics built on top of that, whose financial success became based on enforced frauds. The progress in basic sciences required profound paradigm shifts, which were proven to have been useful, because of the degree to which their technologies worked. Therefore, we were able to develop globalized electronic fiat money frauds, backed up by the threat of the force of atomic bombs. However, NONE of the basic science behind those technologies has been able to manifest through political science, because that would require recognizing the degree to which the philosophy of science was dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, the same as that did all other social enterprises.

The special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics have PROVEN that our common sense ideas about time and space were profoundly wrong. However, those basic mistakes in our understanding of entropy, and therefore our understanding of all energy systems, as expressed by an arbitrary minus sign inserted into the entropy equations, then runs throughout everything else that we do, such as how private property is based on backing up claims with coercions, with money as the most abstract form of that, since money is measurement backed by murder, all of which facts are presented in as backwards as possible ways by the biggest bullies, which are currently the biggest gangsters, the banksters, and the related systems of legal fictions through which they operate their government enforced frauds.

Human beings and human civilizations necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy. HOWEVER, we currently understand entropy BACKWARDS, and therefore, we are understanding everything in as backwards of ways as possible, which, of course, includes the ways that we are understanding the relationships between the kept and their keepers, or metaphorically, the relationships between the Zombie Sheeple, the Black Sheeple, versus the Domesticated Dogs and the Vicious Wolves, as different basic groups of people who act like productive/prey versus parasite/predators.

We can not achieve better overall human evolutionary ecologies (which must include better understanding of both the natural ecologies and the emerging industrial ecologies) unless we radically revolutionize our ways of thinking about THE ENERGY OF THE WHOLE ... However, at the present time the prospects for doing that seem extremely slim, since the actual social situation is that the established systems are spinning out of control, due to the ways that they are primarily based on legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which deliberately deny those facts as much as possible, while the contradictions that enforced frauds still continue to be false build and BUILD!

I REPEAT my basic views that the reasons why we can not develop better relationships between the kept and their keepers are that we cannot have any rational public debates about the basic facts regarding natural selection, due to the paradoxical ways that human artificial selection systems were developed to become the most socially successful by being the most deceitful and treacherous, which problems include the controlled opposition groups just as much, if not more so, than it includes those established systems.

Sufficient solutions should have a spiritual source, which I assert comes from recognizing that Energy IS Spirit, which simultaneously radically revolutionizes our conceptualization of entropy, all in ways which are consistent with post-modernizing science, that then enables reconciliation with ancient mysticism. Upon that basis, the issues such as that money is measurement backed by murder become better understood, and thus, it becomes theoretically possible for better negotiations of the dynamic equilibria between the different human systems of organized lies operating robberies, such as manifested in the relationships between the keepers and the kept, or between the previously existing groups of the productive and their predators. Any such improvements MUST go beyond the frame of reference of both the productive and predatory people, because there IS energy in their whole system.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 14:50 | 5407505 Stay Frosty
Stay Frosty's picture

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

H.L. Mencken

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 13:55 | 5407293 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Accountability brings with it leaders that dont need to lie every time they open thier trap. That kind of leadership is very tough to beat.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 14:27 | 5407414 Mrs. Cog
Mrs. Cog's picture

Agree but leadership with accountability is hard if not impossible to sustain. Who watches the watchers?

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 14:33 | 5407437 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Someone or group of people outside of thier control. I like the idea of a civil grand jury made up of the ten best spelling bee champs and thier grandparents. One year and out they go.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 14:54 | 5407532 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Think about it. Ten good kids sitting in the laps of thier very proud grandparents. Good luck sneaking around them.

 Its human nature at its very best.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 13:34 | 5407209 ThroxxOfVron
ThroxxOfVron's picture

"As the kept, there is no possibility of an exit. Only a promotion to house slave."

DEAD FUCKING WRONG.

Many a plantation foreman has been slain and many a plantation owner burned to death within the big house.

Terminal violence is a valid response.

Death to the slave masters and their praetorian chumps.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 14:01 | 5407309 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

There is no doubt that your immediate status and situation can be changed by killing the foreman or plantation owner keepers. Then what? Have you changed your situation for the better? You are still dependent upon the same system, even more so now that you have killed your keeper.

I follow with interest stories of revolt in (South) Africa, followed by the distribution of land and assets formerly controlled by the keepers. I have yet to read a success story there. This is because the 'kept' mindset and dependency has not change. These people are still 'kept', only now they are mostly helpless without their keeper.

If you raise 'wild' animals born into captivity, they rarely have the ability to fend for themselves if freed. They must be re-conditioned to hunt and live in the wild. So too must humans be re-trained to live free.

This is not to say we must cooperate and enable our masters. But blind rage and killing of those we hate is not the long term solution. All it does is sate our blood lust and righteous indignation.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 14:06 | 5407333 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

I upvoted both of you. We do have options. Deciding what the best one is is the hard part.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 13:31 | 5407193 duffelpud
duffelpud's picture

It will only get worse...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRZZpk_9k8E

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 13:38 | 5407227 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

so you go to school to learn. (this is the demographic section of america which carried obama into the white house) is george bush guilty of war crimes, who is george bush?

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 13:21 | 5407169 basho
basho's picture

Life is Dukkha. -Buddha

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 13:08 | 5407116 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

The problem isn't authority, it is obedience to authority.

An American, not US subject.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 12:18 | 5406916 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

i was in my first year of high school the day jfk was shot, the principal made the announcement over the speakers, and school was cancelled for the day. as we walked out of class, mostly somber, someone cheered that jfk was dead. i took that as a symptom of a sickness in our society and i always remember that moment, that someone would cheer. since i have known more presidents, and george w bush, i realize i could have been that person. after school was cancelled that day, and the next we all went home. we watched television, and that night a friend called and asked if i wanted to go the movie. i said i didnt think the moviehouse would be open, but it was, and that was a good thing, it helped take our mind off the matters to watch some abbott and costello, or francis the talking mule. just dumb stuff. i later watched hours of the coverage, and for years i watched the investigative programs into the conspriracy, so it is now my second nature to doubt that Oswald acted alone. we lived in the age of anxiety (which is why everyone was so thin) we worried about the bomb, (the same bombs exist today, more of them actually, but we don't worry -thanks to S.K.) we all feel like we part of something now, if the market crashes, we all crash together, so we all buy stocks together, if the world ends it ends for everyone. that may or may not be true of course, but in those days some neighbors had bomb shelters, and some did not. we all thought we could make a difference through our individual effort. the age of anxiety is done, and we have all put on a few pounds, even though we eat healthier and exercise. you could say were being fattened up for something. perhaps there is a race of aliens which has been farming us for our tender loins, and we are all about to go off to market. does the steer protest, no he just gets in line. that's where we are now, waiting in line.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 11:32 | 5406745 MarlasBack
MarlasBack's picture

Have you read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn?  

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 11:46 | 5406795 new game
new game's picture

i have and it is a good basis for clear thinking of the basic human delima-too many fucking people on barrowed tyme...(carbon fuel discovery=hockey stick of pop. growth). does not end peacefully!

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 11:25 | 5406721 limacon
limacon's picture

Being Keeper or Kept used to be the only Game in Town .

Also known as the Tragedy of the Commons .

 

Until Elinor Ostrum found a solution . She deservedly got the Nobel prize for Economics (first and only women to do so) .

See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2011/10/ostrum-game.html

This has been queitly taking over Casino Gaia .

 

See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-quiet-revolution.html

 

 

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:32 | 5406501 new game
new game's picture

thanks to all the comments above, this is already giving my day a great start! a meeting of like minds is a start to being unkept...

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:05 | 5406401 overmedicatedun...
overmedicatedundersexed's picture

if you worry, you will become ill. so I worry I will worry and become ill. so in my theater I play a happy person with no worries..underneath it all we see death like a speeding train rushing towards us, so I play a happy person with no worries..i have forgot what happy means tho, can someone here tell me what happy is?

it is a small word so I am sure with all the IQ's on ZH will give me good answers, but i know you do not know either. but just play a happy person in your own world of theater.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 11:45 | 5406786 blindman
blindman's picture

i'll take a crack at that.
.
happiness is the river on which a miserable
boat floats.
.....

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 12:03 | 5406861 overmedicatedun...
overmedicatedundersexed's picture

happiness in my theater: is fixing a miserable boat into one that smiles.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 17:28 | 5408309 blindman
blindman's picture

i see it a little differently. the theater is the
misery based on the happiness which supports the props
and designs of the production.
there can be no misery, longstanding, of its own,
that quickly terminates itself. there is always
a river of happiness flowing beneath a broken
and miserable boat till such time it sinks in the
river, to be carried off to the ocean.
.
Harry Nilsson "Think About Your Troubles"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guqFqcV4Po0
.
...

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:01 | 5406373 Notsobadwlad
Notsobadwlad's picture

I suppose those in power know how this ends and are preparing for it. They have after all been through it time and again through many millennia ... yawn.

Is this time really any different?

**********************
"As the kept, there is no possibility of an exit. Only a promotion to house slave."

Only from THIS world ... although I find the thought of living indefinitely frightening ... if there is such a thing as time. Once we escape this world, then there is hope.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:51 | 5406354 blindman
blindman's picture

June 10, 1963 - John F. Kennedy's Commencement Address at American University, Washington D.C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrspHo8uvmg

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:50 | 5406349 Reaper
Reaper's picture

Kept is an innate biological need for most people. It has been breed in by thousands of years of captivity in civilizations. It's the domesticated human or dog or cat. There are degrees of submission, wherein some maintain the illusion of freedom, like cats, while others are content as running dogs. The flaw of being kept is the trust placed in the keeper's continued power over resources which the keeper permits the kept to use.

But not all domestication succeeds with humans. Nature by sexual reproduction creates endless changes or possible de-domestications. The large unused capabilities of some human brains can allow escape and/or the use of the domestications of others for their own gain. A pyschopath is one example, but they only become the domesticators in the domestication system.

A first step is to move from dog to cat. The next step is to a "wild" man.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:00 | 5406365 Azannoth
Azannoth's picture

+1 for the Dog vs. Cat comparrison, now I begin to wonder if I my self am just a "cat" or a wild animal completely.

Joke I just thought about

Why do dogs and cats hate each other ?

Dogs hate cats because they remind them about how much more subservient they are(have to be) in comparison to them

(they would like cats to be just as subservient, they hate them for their freedoms ;) )

Cats hate dogs because they remind them that despite their relative freedom they are still domesticated

(they hate being reminded that they are slaves too and that they even enjoy it a little bit)

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:46 | 5406341 OneTinTrooper
OneTinTrooper's picture

For many and in many places, it is a choice to not make use of readily available free recreation.  Parks, hiking trails, lakes, empty public land.  A "poor" immigrant famiy with a half dozen working age people might see a small 2 bedroom apartment in the right area as a ticket to great education and recreation.  They can make do with unusual sleeping schedules and share their "residence" to maximize the return for a lot of people.  They are squeezed but relative to where they came from --- I don't think they feel kept.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:04 | 5406396 Azannoth
Azannoth's picture

Because they are so low on the "Maslow's Pyramid" that it makes no difference to them, not having to shit into a gutter, clean water and good tasting food if all they care for in that period.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:22 | 5406473 OneTinTrooper
OneTinTrooper's picture

There is no reason that the pyramid model must be followed. Fulfillment of higher needs and lower needs can be achieved at the same time. Higher needs might be easier to find living among others that are sharing in a struggle for the lower.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:29 | 5406488 Azannoth
Azannoth's picture

As somebody who was hungry and homeless at one point or another I can tell you it does matter where on the pyramid you are, it's really hard to appreciate life on an empty stomach or while sleeping rough under a bridge.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 14:36 | 5407449 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Been there on several occasions, once sleeping outside a railroad station on the sidewalk for several nights. Where you stand on issues depends upon where you sit.....or sleep or eat etc.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:10 | 5406259 BouncyTheWonderbunni
BouncyTheWonderbunni's picture

Take the blue pill everythings fine.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:40 | 5406317 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Unfortunately one cannot forget what one knows, only deny or ignore it. But doing so creates a feedback loop of psychosis and addiction/dependency to that which enables the denial.

Self destruction run riot.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:03 | 5406242 Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus's picture

Release the Putschinator!

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:00 | 5406220 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

"So why do we tolerate something we can clearly stop if we so wish?"

The keepers are those benefiting on net from the forced redistribution of private sector wealth, leaving aside how wealth is earned and respecting property rights that follow the fruits of one's labor. The exploited are those that pay net taxes to the state. The exploiters or ruling class - the keepers - are those that receive income from the state's taking and redistributing in the form of social welfare programs, subsidies, or state salaries and employment benefits. This is a social utility model described in "Power and Market" by Rothbard, which explains how it is we accept a system that routinely offers the lesser of two evils come elections, and not a third choice for voters, such as why the current system at all. The keepers are a tag team: the takers and the state. And there won't be a third choice until the free spigot runs dry cause they like things the way they are just fine, thank you very much.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 10:37 | 5406523 OneTinTrooper
OneTinTrooper's picture

An overly simplistic model when you consider that a large portion of your private sector productivity is selling to those getting the hand out or on the payroll.  That also makes you part the scheme.

Tue, 11/04/2014 - 08:47 | 5409956 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

But those transactions are voluntary...unless the company is selling a product which the state compels buyers to purchase...heavily subsidized for many by many. The model sounds simplistic when explained in the space of a reader comment. It helps to read the book to better understand it. At risk of sounding over simple again, every interference by a third party (forced in the case of the state as third party) is a net destruction of social utility. In voluntary transactions between two parties, both walk away better off, else they'd not enter into such transactions to begin with. State interventions destroy freedom along with social utility resulting from wealth distribution that would occur absent state interference. Every intervention leaves us collectively worse off.

Tue, 11/04/2014 - 12:35 | 5410776 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Correct. This is a big part of how this shitshow is broken. Force most of the time leads to one sidded outcomes. If it was or is such a good deal force would not be needed.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 08:26 | 5406176 Azannoth
Azannoth's picture

I think most people do realize on some level even if only slightly subconcious that they are slaves to some masters, even if they cant exactly identify the masters or even the exact nature of their slave-master relationship, but they LIKE IT!(or at least accept it). Humans are a "collective species" (like ants or bees) they only function in collonies their survival wholy depends on the collective and rarely on individual decisions(even more so in the last few centuries). So Humans naturally accept Leadership and naturally accept their role as Subjects to a "Greater Collective" ofc. not all but most. The root of the Problem are not the "Masters" the root is Human Nature, any Revolution that has happened so far only replaced the Masters it never touched upon the Collective.

There is really no escaping this, if you like me are an Individualist the only thing you can realistically do is to Save Your Self, forget about waking anybody up, not gonna happen, or at the very best the effort will have not been worth the results. Yes it's OK to point out the Sheeple and Mock them and Laught at them, and if you do "wake" some up good, but Don't expect it and don't make it your goal to do so, it's a waste of energy you could be using to Fortify your own position against the Collective.

Only spend your energy on those who already "woken" them selves up and are of a similar mindset naturally and without outside force.

 

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 09:02 | 5406186 MATA HAIRY
MATA HAIRY's picture

EO Wilson, sociobiologist, calls homo sapiens a species of ant-like primates. We are the primates who adapted the termite-ant-bee model.

 

We developed communication faculties to a high degree using the big brain, and we made our bones 200K years ago or so using our ability to conceive of complex plans (run the antelope herd into this canyon and then shut this brush gate on them!) and then spread the idea to the rest of the tribe and implement.

The bees and ants use similar communication strategies to tell other ants and bees where the flower nectar is, where the dead insect is, etc, using pheromones, the honey dance, etc.

 

This ability to ingest complex ideas from the tribal leadership, and then spread them to the other members of the tribe worked fine when the tribe as a small group on the savannah. But in this modern society of millions, the elite have morphed into what is essentially a predatory, parasitic subspecies that preys on us, that has domesticated us via propagnada, using that innate ability of homo sapiens to ingest ideas and spread them, the elite have used propaganda to domesticate the culture.

The elite in america created two distinct propaganda-based political tribes (conservative and liberal) and created two different sets of "beliefs" for each tribe. Both sets of beliefs include populist elements that are never implemented, and also include anti-populist, pro-corporate elements that are always implemented.

 

The conservative political tribe pretends to support the white majority, but never really does (gotta keep those millions of nonwhite 3rd worlders coming in to boost GDP!). But the conservative political tribe ALWAYS implements the business-friendly aspects of its dogma.

 

The liberal political tribe pretends to support universal healthcare and progressive taxation, but never really does implement it fully. Oh, but they really follow through on the multicultural aspect of their dogma. Gotta keep cramming more third world worker consumer cattle into the livestock ranch called america.

 

Game over, man...

 

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 08:11 | 5406145 MATA HAIRY
MATA HAIRY's picture

The culture has been DOMESTICATED by the corporate elite, via their tools--the government, the educational system, the entertainment industry and the media.

 

 

Culture is a set of operating rules.  The brain runs on cultural instructions.

 

The culture has been molded and shaped--domesticated--by the powers that be--those at the top--the corporations and the plutocrats. This took decades.

 

Formal education is perhaps the more powerful tool of cultural domestication.

 

Just as mankind domesticated cattle, livestock etc over centuries, so too have the corporations and plutocrats domesticated us by shaping and molding our culture.

 

10000 years ago or thereabouts the first cow was domesticated. It had a small udder and not too much meat. Dairy Cattle today have large udders. Meat cattle today have large chunks of muscle ready to be made into juicy steaks.

 

The corporations and plutocrats used their money to pay for grants to professors, activists and writers who were funneled money from corporations and plutocrats via  nonprofit foundations. That money went to professors, activists and writers who put out propaganda helpful to the rich and powerful and the corporations.

 

What sort of propaganda? Well, multicultural propaganda, for one. Multiculturalism, cultural marxism, political correctness, or whatever you want to call it, was the way that the corporations and plutocrats ensured growth, increased GDP and profits even as the white working class of the West had fewer and fewer children.

 

Growth. That is what they seek. We are their livestock, and they want more MOAR MOAR livestock. Mass immigration and racial integration and civil rights etc was what they wanted in order to boost growth in the labor supply, growth in consumers, growth in profits.

 

Propaganda. They changed america from a united, 85% white working class nation with a high standard of living to a rich, diverse, vibrant paradise for the corporate elite--a race-to-the-bottom hellhole.

 

Divided by race and nationality and language, shamed by propaganda-induced white guilt, we are now helpless  cattle stumbling across the killing floor of the race-to-the-bottom paradise of capitalism we call america.

 

And they did it via money funneled through nonprofit foundations that generated propaganda, propaganda that was funneled into young white minds, propaganda designed to induce white race guilt, to make impressionable white youngster feel that being racist was The Ultimate Sin. That white guilt induced into white youth was reaped years later and used to manufacture consent for growth in the labor supply via mass immigration from the third world.

 

They played the long game. They tamed us.

Can you say MOO? Can you say BAAA?

 

I knew you could...

 

For more details, see the books THE CULTURAL COLD WAR and FOUNDATIONS AND PUBLIC POLICY: THE MASK OF PLURALISM.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 08:29 | 5406181 Azannoth
Azannoth's picture

Yes and we are being "domesticated" the same way, away from Nature and into a Human Farm Animal, with bigger bellies, shorter limbs and Smaller Brains, all so we can be easier to "digest" by our "overlords".

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 08:35 | 5406191 MATA HAIRY
MATA HAIRY's picture

technology has made us sedentary, but it is the operating rules in our brains that have been modified by the elite for their benefit.

Mon, 11/03/2014 - 00:30 | 5405776 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture

Good stuff Cog, thanks.

The real threat to the kept that keeps us kept are two things:

  1. Being ostracized.
  2. Being killed.

That is enough to keep most people going along with things.

Sun, 11/02/2014 - 23:31 | 5405665 George Washington
George Washington's picture

Stunningly good piece, CD!

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