n a t b s » Mass Delusions

deux

Andrew — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:40:58 +0000

Andrew now has a women in his life that he cares deeply for. This does not jive well with hating society. Oh sure, she hates society too. And it helps. It’s part of the reason he loves her. But for a slave, falling in love can be a liability. It is a weakness to be exploited. If he has children with her, they too are weaknesses. Society has perverted these things into chains to make you further enslaved. So Andrew was torn, he was afraid to be with her. But she also provided him with real happiness, and joy. No, he won’t leave her, but he is terrified he’s going to lose her in some horrible way. Andrew was in a tough spot. Beyond that, his depression was catching up to him, mood swings and panic attacks were becoming the norm. Something needs to change. Perhaps he’d get more involved with the Occupy Wall St. movement. They seem to be fertile ground for change. It was, as always, a very interesting time to be alive. At least he had that. But what’s going to happen at the end of this year?

One Year Later

Andrew — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:19:41 +0000

Just happened to check on this thing exactly one year since my last post. Andrew is still going crazy. A lot of things are good in his life but all the fundamental problems still exist. Of course they do. They’re too deeply ingrained into all of history to simply disappear. And if they did, this blog would no longer exist. As long as I’m able to write this virtual thing in this virtual world on plastic keys, the problem persists. Did I just switch from 3rd to first person?

Yes.

The problem still persists. I’m more sure than ever that there is a problem and I’m not just crazy. But still, it persists.

I feel tingly right now.

The problem persists.

When things have been wrong your entire life, and your parents’ entire life, and their parents’ entire life, and their parent’s entire life etc. What do you do? It’s a monumental accomplishment just to realize things are wrong. And once you do, it’s even more monumental to convince others. And it’s even more difficult to change it.

It’ll probably just have to collapse on it’s own, and when it does, I’ll be ready.

The Secret

Andrew — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:00:29 +0000

Andrew was depressed. He knew something that few others did. Certainly he wasn’t arrogant enough to think he was the only one who had figured it out, but he was part of a select group that had. Oh sure, most people knew it on some level, hence the proliferation of anti-depressents and all forms of self-medication. Hence centuries of art and metaphor, hence the obviousness of it in the bible, and the book ishmael, and the show Battlestar Galactica, and the book land of the spotted eagle, and the book 1984, and etc etc etc. Most high art makes some allusion to it. People knew, but it was too big to admit. Perhaps he was just brave enough to admit it to himself, or stupid enough. What good was this knowledge? There’s very little you can do with it except be sad. Indeed, he was sad and he knew that there was no remedy, for the cause of his sadness was far too massive, far to unchangeable for one mere man to do anything about it. It would take an act of God to relieve his pain. And unfortunately for Andrew, God sure likes to take his sweet time.
The secret that was driving Andrew, and all of humanity, slowly mad was that he was a slave. That we are all slaves. Slaves to our own hubris, slaves to the idea that we know what to do and how to live and how to run things. Slaves to this great responsibility that we were never given but took for ourselves. Forced to work as hard as possible at destroying our own home, a precious gift from the universe that took billions of years to form, and we are wiping it out very quickly. So quickly in fact that Andrew wonders if it’s not already damaged beyond repair. Even if it isn’t it’s damaged far to much for him to enjoy it in his fleeting lifetime and this is what was depressing him. Yes, he was a slave, and so was everyone else. The master? Our hubris and greed and nothing more. Oh the irony, the painful, gut-wrenching irony. If it weren’t so sad it would be funny. Hell, it’s kinda funny anyway. Look at the fools, all convinced to death of their freedom yet all suffering from psychological problems that we cannot pinpoint, because a doctor will never tell you that you’re depressed because society is flawed. Why are we so self-destrutive and impudent and stupid? Andrew could thing of no good way to change the world so he thought he’d at least try to find out the answer to that question, perhaps that would help him determine a course of action…or at least understand the situation, just for understanding’s sake. If he could just undermine it even in the littlest way possible, that would ease the pain. Yes, had to find a way to undermine it, or risk losing his mind entirely.

Got A Job

Andrew — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:25:17 +0000

Got a job, the stress makes me sick. Want to get hit by a car, at least then I’ll enter a situation where people will help me just for being a human being in distress. But no not really! I need insurance. This is insanity, how did we get here?

I Don’t Know

Andrew — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:05:20 +0000

What to do when the whole world is crazy?

When “sanity” is anything but sane?

When you realize you’re hopelessly trapped?

When your mother is dying and your soul has been stolen?

What to do?

New York City

Andrew — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:39:27 +0000

A woman and her poodle-with-a-coat walk past a freezing homeless person. An intellectual blogs about it from his iPhone.

Society

Andrew — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:14:25 +0000

When you think about it, society is really a machine that uses us. I’m not sure who invented it or who controls it (no one?), but we are mere cogs in this giant machine. And the reason we don’t respect human rights is because all we care about is the machine. If it says that these 300 people need to be fired, they get fired. It doesn’t matter what it does to their lives because the interest of the machine is what’s most important.

I guess it is run by people. Let me clarify that, it’s run by a few people. Several thousand at most. And I think the point of the machine is to make their lives better. The lives of the few that run it. As for everyone else, it’s purpose is to provide us with just enough that we don’t revolt. That’s right, it gives the people the absolute minimum that it takes to keep us pacified and never an inch more. The selfish bastards who run the show have no interest in us other than as instruments of cheap labor. All they really care about is themselves and their families. We’re so hopelessly oppressed we’ve forgotten that we are oppressed. But we are, and we’ll never be free as long as we buy into their crap. All this consumerism, and nationalism, and religion, it’s all bullshit. All are modes of oppression. We are not free people, for ”slavery is determined neither by obedience nor by hardness of labor but by the status of being a mere instrument, and the reduction of man to the state of a thing.”

I’m a human being, not a cog in your goddamn machine.

My life has value. My autonomy matters. I’ll never find what I need in a store.

the reduction of man to the state of a thing

Andrew — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:43:13 +0000

The capitalist bosses and owners are losing their identity as responsible agents; they are assuming the function of bureaucrats in a corporate machine. Within the vast hierarchy of executive and managerial boards extending far beyond the individual establishment into the scientific laboratory and research institute, the national government and national purpose, the tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the facade of objective rationality. Hatred and frustration are deprived of their specific target, and the technological veil conceals the reproduction of inequality and enslavement. With technical progress as its instrument, unfreedom-in the sense of man’s subjection to his productive apparatus-is perpetuated and intensified in the form of many liberties and comforts. The novel feature is the overwhelming rationality in this irrational enterprise, and the depth of the preconditioning which shapes the instinctual drives and aspirations of the individuals and obscures the difference between false and true consciousness. For in reality, neither the utilization of administrative rather than physical controls (hunger, personal dependence, force), nor the change in the character of heavy work, nor the assimilation of occupational classes, nor the equalization in the sphere of consumption compensate for the fact that the decisions over life and death, over personal and national security are made at places over which the individuals have no control. The slaves of developed industrial civilization are sublimated slaves, but they are slaves, for slavery is determined

“Neither by obedience nor by hardness of labor but by the status of being a mere instrument, and the reduction of man to the state of a thing.”

-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (emphasis mine)

Life as a Means

Andrew — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:34:24 +0000

Here is the internal contradiction of this civilization: the irrational element in its rationality. It is the token of its achievements. The industrial society which makes technology and science its own is organized for the ever-more-effective domination of man and nature, for the ever-more-effective utilization of its resources. It becomes irrational when the success of these efforts opens new dimensions of human realization. Organization for peace is different from organization for war; the institutions which served the struggle for existence cannot serve the pacification of existence. Life as an end is qualitatively different from life as a means.

-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man

It’s Society’s Fault

Andrew — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:03:16 +0000

I actually think living in this society makes you dumb. Not permanently so, but it numbs the mind. Day after day of mindless drone work, followed by television, drinking, as well as the general bombardment of advertising and useless pop culture gossip that you can’t avoid even if you try. It’s mind numbing. And I have a case study: my own life! I sort of swore off psychedelic drugs since college. Haven’t tripped in 3 years, until this weekend. When I was tripping, all that society-stuff that clutters the mind washed away. I experienced what it feels like to have a mind at peace, a mind that’s not constantly prodded. And I felt like a motherfucking genius. And that clarity of thought has lingered into the week. Still, I can feel the fog of society creeping back in, bringing me down. I need to stay on top of it this time, try to drown out the distractions if possible and keep my mind limber with reading and writing. And I think I need to trip more often than I have been. A least once a year, if not more. Clarity lies there. I know, clarity is not what one traditionally thinks of when one thinks of tripping, but I tell you my friends, I had clarity like you wouldn’t believe that day. Pure, simple, beautiful clarity. And it’s so simple. You just need to avoid distractions, and not get wrapped up in them. I thought pot was my problem, I can now firmly say that it’s not. Cliché as it is, it’s society’s fault.