
I am going to be writing more along this vein of thought. for me, it’s the “Mother Load” regarding the modern world and its problems. It’s been my good luck/bad luck to have to deal with modern world’s lack of development of reason and, especially, conscience.
Meanwhile, we begin to get at all that by dealing with the most persistent expression of this problem in day-to-day modern life.
The symbiotic group is always based on egocentrism, on the neurotic override of the Self. Leads to being “co-dependent”, ie, the worship of some exterior entity that represents the higher power aspect of the psyche within one’s self, but, not available or walled off and difficult to appreciate in more direct terms.
I have no good term for those of us who have picked up enough to have established a connection to the center of the psyche outside the ego and who, as a result, have some kind of balance. I have invented the term, “psychocentric”. (Psyche-centric?)
The others are essentially bound to some overwrought single principle without a relationship to the opposite.
They talk about “self-sacrifice” but it really means the loss of one’s own identity. You become a “pass-through” incapable of objection or interpretation. You are officially “asleep”.
Such a person cannot be anything other than “Satan” in the story from the Talmud, incapable of bowing to the breath of God within the individual in front of him.
The necessary symbiosis results as well. The actual nihilism of their value structure, incapable of keeping the person buoyant, leads to energy theft from the other members of the group.
The “paranoia” of the group re “loss of democracy” is an expression of the fear brought about by contact with the paradigm, the character structure and the very spirit of the individuals of “We, the People” because the necessary support and sense of validation is not just missing, but is threatened.
“Democracy” for them is what keeps their symbiotic group with its necessary compulsions going. Anyone threatening the structure is “anti-democratic”.
And, for most intents and purposes, they are correct. “We, the People” are a threat.
Why is “Meathead” so threatened by “Archie Bunker”?
The neurosis involves a reaction formation of apparent lack of selfishness. Racism and prejudice are covered up in the sense that the very people who were viewed in a stereotypical negative way are now viewed in quite the opposite.
Best example. Gloria Steinem’s comment that “women are good. If a woman is bad, it’s because she was hurt by a man”. LOL.
The “We, the People” group is derived from actual correct application of Christ’s statements such as “I bring not peace but a sword”.
Also derived from the opportunity presented by the Magna Carta. The king does not own us. We have a divine element within us of reason and conscience. Anything truly opposed to reason and conscience cannot be imposed on us from without by an exterior authority.
Our “authority” is within.
It’s also impossible to recognize and treat other individuals as if they have a “divine within” of the “breath of God” if you are unable to do this for yourself. And, it’s extremely difficult to do this if your parents have caused you to override your “divine within” aspect to the point where you are, in effect, very much possessed by “false personality”.
That is more Gurdjieff’s territory. This is at the heart of our Civil War, this international Armageddon. More to come.