Tradition and Culture is not a substitute for Morality

Nazis were ultra-traditionalists, defending the ‘original’ Germanic folk-lore from external influences and from the influence of modernity. The fact that they were traditionalists evidently did not endow them with the kind of moral conscience that would preclude their crimes against humanity. Their excessive attachment to culture/tradition created an extreme psychological dependency and anxiety, which was in turn assimilated by the majority of Germans. Each felt they would literally cease to exist without their traditional culture, their folk-lore being perceived as the sole substance of their existence. When this level of dependency is established, one feels justified in attacking every challenge to the ‘purity’ of cultural convictions, and every new-comer, every resident professing a different culture is perceived as an existential threat, a cultural enemy that must be eliminated. The key point here is that tradition is not necessarily moral or rational, and when uncritically internalised as the basis of one’s identity that supersedes our common identity as humans (conscious rational beings) it is a straight path to genocide. The only middle ground between traditionalism and cultural change is rational discernment, the ability to evaluate ideas on their logical merits, instead of habit and attachment.

This story reminds of Bion giving up his authority as an expert in order to stop others idolising him, and only then genuine human interaction, based on rational agency rather than appearances, was possible. https://www.kidspot.com.au/news/toxic-message-teachers-and-parents-are-cancelling-90s-classic-the-rainbow-fish/news-story/b98f0a1959a90917abde0cd57c2760d3

Theodore Adorno argued that concepts are deficient because they are not identical with the objects of experience. It is not clear why this renders them deficient, but rather implies deficiency of the expectation that Concepts and Objects ‘ought to be’ identical. My answer to the question of this non-identity is that Objects are not singular concepts but a synthesis of multiple concepts, including the abstract concepts of change and difference that renders every object of experience both spatially and temporally unique. The object is nothing in excess of the concepts (meanings) in terms of which we experience them as meaningful appearances. On this view, Adorno’s idea that there is a ‘gap’ between concepts and objects is false.

It is logically impossible for consciousness to arise without meaningful socialisation, without being a part of a communication community where meanings are mirrored by beings of the same kind. Consciousness cannot be ‘discovered’, it can only be collectively evolved (https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWODO). Crucially, a lower degree (inferior) reflexive consciousness could not possibly recognise a higher degree (superior) reflexive consciousness; the less cannot contain the more, it can only mirror itself. Projective anthropomorphism is quite common, because humans are naturally predisposed to respond to any features that mirror human features as if they were also associated with reflexive consciousness. Our need to connect is so strong that we may invent ‘conscious’ entities to connect to. When this happens, we should consider the possibility that we are lacking sufficiently reflexive/meaningful human connections to satisfy this fundamental need.

Emotions are not intentional actions, not something we do to communicate or express ourselves; they happen to us and we witness them happening to us, and others may witness us experiencing them. In that sense emotions are not ‘ours’, because it is not ‘us’ communicating or expressing ourselves.

This should be the end of his political career, but it won’t. It shows how selective and perverse is the establishment’s use of the charge of ‘antisemitism’. The same establishment celebrates the core elements of Nazi ideology professed by the Indigenous sovereignty movement, in particular, nativist supremacism. https://t.iss.one/NormalParty/2388

Let us analyse the symbolism of Perrottet wearing a Nazi uniform to a 21st birthday party.

Birthday is a celebration of birth, breading, bloodline, therefore of eugenics.

Party in his context is obviously the Nazi Party.

Number 21 is evidently the sum of the day, month and year of the terrorist attack on the WTC: 11+9+1=21

Therefore, Perrottet celebrated eugenics through acts of terrorism aimed at destroying the world trade, on behalf of the Nazi party.

This is clearly an impeachable offence;)

When the State uses propaganda, ambiguity, disinformation, secrecy or emotional nudging to gain acquiescence to specific political outcomes (instead of relying on logical argumentation supported by full disclosure of the relevant information), it automatically contradicts the purpose of democracy and negates its democratic mandate. A secretive state, a deceptive state, a manipulative state, is not a democratic state but a totalitarian one operating under the guise of democracy.

Males mocking womanhood by cross-dressing is the worst yet assault on female dignity.

There is so much hypocrisy in the response to this event. Mass media celebrate Hollywood actors who wear Nazi uniform to entertain us. They promote core elements of Nazi ideology when it suits their strategic objectives: people & place (formerly Blood & Soil), nativist supremacism, Holy mandate tribal nationalism, ‘original’ people. They send weapons to Nazi units in Ukraine, endorse the racial/genetic purity clause in the Constitution of Ukraine, then gaslight the public and assert that it is YOU who must be re-educated.

Who is ready to start discussing Kissinger/Bion, as per the pinned post?

Do not teach Critical Thinking, but rational thinking.

The term “critical thinking”, which is used liberally in education, is distinct from rational or logical thinking, which are rarely if ever mentioned in the curricula. Critical thinking is an instrument of propaganda, geared to indoctrinate students with critical attitude towards anything deemed non-reputable; to reject any argument or information arising from anywhere apart from trusted/official sources. Conflating the validity of the source with the validity of the information is of course a logical error, a category mistake. Similarly, finding a fault with a person or institution does not automatically invalidate their argument. I watched a video by an emeritus professor of psychology trying to explain what “critical thinking” is and why it is “good”, which amounted mostly to clumsy circular reasoning that “critical thinking” is “good thinking” and helps you being “effective”. It was almost comedic how she was struggling to justify this term without using either “rational” or “logic” in her explanation. There are over 100 recognised logical fallacies (look them up), but all are reducible to just three laws, which are in fact just different articulations of the same law (you could use non-contradiction as the one law with no detriment to your reasoning): the law of non-contraction, excluded-middle and the law of identity (I wrote several essays on these on my Substack). You do not need to understand formal notation to make sense of this, as you are already applying all these laws intuitively; you were born with the capacity to apply them, but bad choices, bad habits can progressively degrade the clarity of your discernment. Irrationality is not innate but a cumulative effect of irrational choices without facing their consequences.

https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/is-it-rational-to-trust-the-experts

https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/derivation-of-the-principle-of-sufficient-reason-from-the-law-of-non-contradiction

https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/the-law-of-identity

https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/the-law-of-excluded-middle

One of the key discoveries of W.R.Bion was that no matter how divided and irreconcilable people are, everyone can find something they hate in common. If what everyone hates is signified by a person, people can still cooperate against that person. In a sense, the commonly hated person becomes a mediator of human unity and a basis for improved understanding, a kind of therapist.

NOTES ON BION/KISSINGER (PART 1)
Ref: https://t.iss.one/NormalParty/2362

Task: Identify commonalities between Kissinger’s speech and Bion’s text.

1. Bion uses the term ‘neurosis’ for any compulsively irrational behaviour.

2. Bion observed that “Neurosis needs to be displayed as a danger to the group; and its display must somehow be made the common aim of the group. But how was the group to be persuaded to tackle neurotic disability as a communal problem?” Bion p13-14

3. “Society has not yet been driven to seek treatment of its psychological disorders by psychological means because it has not achieved sufficient insight to appreciate the nature of its distress. The organization of the training wing had to be such that the growth of insight should at least not be hindered. Better still if it could be designed to throw into prominence the way in which neurotic behaviour adds to the difficulties of the community, destroying happiness and efficiency. If communal distress were to become demonstrable as a neurotic by-product, then neurosis itself would be seen to be worthy of communal study and attack. And a step would have been taken on the way to overcoming resistance in the society.” Bion p14

4. Bions therapeutic model: “I found it helpful to visualize the projected organization of the training wing as if it were a framework enclosed within transparent walls. Into this space the patient would be admitted at one point, and the activities within that space would be so organized that he could move freely in any direction according to the resultant of his conflicting impulses. His movements, as far as possible, were not to be distorted by outside interference. As a result, his behaviour could be trusted to give a fair indication of his effective will and aims, as opposed to the aims he himself proclaimed or the psychiatrist wished him to have. It was expected that some of the activities organized within the ‘space’ would be clearly warlike, others equally clearly civilian, others again merely expressions of neurotic powerlessness. (…) As his progress appeared to be towards one or other of the possible exits from this imaginary space, so his true aim could be judged.” Bion p15

5. “With surprising rapidity the training wing became selfcritical. The freedom of movement permitted by the original set-up allowed the characteristics of a neurotic community to show with painful clarity…“ (Bion, p18)

Compare the revolutionising effect of ‘the freedom of movement’ (as discussed at point 4) with ‘the Freedom Movement’ and the ‘Spiritual Revolution’. Compare this to Kissinger: we must “go on a spiritual offensive” to “liberate freedom”, because “freedom itself is revolutionary”. If our society is neurotic (as a group), can freedom be liberated only through group therapy, allowing the freedom of movement (under the guise of the Freedom Movement) by withdrawal of constructive authority and its replacement by an anxiety-promoting (pathological) leadership? Would this reveal our neuroses to ourselves and help us realise the destructive effect of our dependency on political and community leaders? Where does legitimate authority originate when leaders cannot be depended on?

NOTES ON BION/KISSINGER (PART 2)
Ref: https://t.iss.one/NormalParty/2362

6. “Shortly after the new arrangement started, men began to complain to me that patients were taking advantage of the laxity of the organization. ‘Only 20 per cent,’ they said, ‘of the men are taking part and really working hard; the other 80 per cent are just a lot of shirkers.’ (…) I replied that no doubt the complainants themselves had neurotic symptoms, or they would not be in hospital; why should their disabilities be treated in one way and the disabilities of the 80 per cent be treated in another? After all, the problem of the ‘80 per cent’ was not new; in civil life magistrates, probation officers, social workers, the Church, and statesmen had all attempted to deal with it, some of them by discipline and punishment. The ‘80 per cent’, however, were still with us; was it not possible that the nature of the problem had not yet been fully elucidated and that they (the complainants) were attempting to rush in with a cure before the disease had been diagnosed? The problem, I said, appeared to be one that not only concerned the training wing, or even the Army alone, but had the widest possible implications for society at large. I suggested that they should study it and come forward with fresh proposals when they felt they were beginning to see daylight.” P18-19

Who do you think are the dysfunctional 80% in today’s society? Have they revealed themselves? Have they become aware of the danger of their dysfunctionality? And what is the appropriate therapy for the functional (but still ‘neurotic’) 20%? The problem of the 80% is also a problem of the 20%; a common problem.

7. “[A]ttention may be drawn again to the fact that society, like the individual, may not want to deal with its distresses by psychological means until driven to do so by a realization that some at least of these distresses are psychological in origin. The community represented by the training wing had to learn this fact before the full force of its energy could be released in self-cure. What applied to the small community of the training wing may well apply to the community at large…” p22

Is a therapeutic project on the global scale possible and manageable?

8. “A suspicion grows in my mind, until it becomes a certainty, that there is no hope whatever of expecting co-operation from this group […] No soon have I said this to myself than I realize that I am expressing my feeling, not of the group’s disharmony, but of its unity. Furthermore, I very soon become aware that […] every attempt I make to get a hearing shows that I have a united group against me. The idea that neurotics cannot co-operate has to be modified.” P52

Irrationality is manifested equally in those who have Covid/Antivaxxer oriented anxiety and those who have vaccine and NWO anxiety. If compulsive irrationality is a common property of both sides, then compulsive irrationality ‘unites’ both sides and is therefore a suitable basis for mutual understanding and cooperation, geared to resolving this common problem. Nevertheless, a group united merely by irrationality cannot cooperate rationally, but must first develop though a series of stressful failures.

NOTES ON BION/KISSINGER (PART 3)
Ref: https://t.iss.one/NormalParty/2362

9. The key insight of Bion was that people experience anxiety in the absence of leadership. When their inquiry “what should I do” finds no authoritative answer, or is given only a general direction to “do whatever is right”, they experience unbearable discomfort. The common reaction is to engage with the group/community solely for the purpose of selecting a substitute leader who is expected to satisfy the individual’s need for direction. It is only through a series or failures in satisfying this need that an individual gains the capacity to form sophisticated groups capable to constructive cooperation.

10. Bion also discovered that the individual has two aspects: he is conscious as an individual but also expresses the unconscious proclivities of the group of which he is a member. The lowest energy state is that of total immersion in the unconscious behaviour of the group, which is associated with the minimum of individual consciousness: a primitive state. This is what Bion calls a Basic Assumption group. To become more conscious as an individual requires more energy (“work”), and if a sufficient number of individuals commits to this development, the group becomes “sophisticated”: a Work Group.

It appears that we are facing a genuine group-problem that can be solved only by the group, and the problematic group of which we are members is humanity.

A hypothesis. I propose that humanity is put, unwittingly or intentionally, in a situation that resembles Bion’s group therapy, to free us from the shackles of voluntary and yet destructive dependency. This view resonates with Kissinger’s aspiration to “liberate freedom”. The only thing I can say with certainty is that I do feel as if I spent the last three years in group therapy, and despite the initial agitation, my mental integrity has discernibly improved, presumably because of it. Curiously, at the beginning of this ‘process’ I did not at all feel that my mental integrity required any improvement, so I am pleased that my ignorance of the capacity for improvement has been corrected. I anticipate, on the grounds of this insight, that a further improvement is still possible. Perhaps the main indicator of the said improvement is the disappearance of anxiety associated with not having much control over the irrational behaviour of others, and the notable absence of desire to be in the position of leadership beyond the scope of my own actions.

Do you feel that your mental integrity has improved over the last 2 years?