Stuck in the middle

Credit: Nyx Ning

Some stray reflections on Buddhism.

"Everything is suffering" might be a bad translation or interpretation of the concept of dukkha, which has a much broader meaning in Pali or Sanskrit. Dukkha means that the world is fundamentally imperfect, not that literally everything in samsara is "suffering" in the strong sense often conveyed by that English word. We tend to think of cancer patients in constant pain, or Jesus being tortured on the cross, or genocide. But this obviously cannot be what dukkha means, since samsara also include heavenly realms where humans reborn as "devas" can spend thousands of years before they have to start all over again on Earth (where a human only spends at most 100 years each time). But this, too, is dukkha. Most ordinary mortals (pun intended) would consider it a pretty neat deal!

Also, what exactly is nirvana? The standard take is that you have to empty your mind completely in order to "reach" nirvana. Essentially, you will cease to exist. Which admittedly would solve all dukkha-related problems once and for all, LOL. But what if it means something else? Apparently, there are meditative states known as dhyanas, which are said to be bad or unnecessary according to "orthodox" Theravada, but which may have been part of Buddha´s original teachings according to others. The dhyanas are sometimes described as blissful, and hence not completely "empty". The idea of permanent bliss being the solution to the world´s imperfections doesn´t sound completely weird or nihilistic...

Note also that the Buddha taught "The Middle Way". On the one hand, he opposed the Jains and other extreme ascetics. On the other hand, the "Vedic" or Brahmanical religion, with its this-worldliness, and Very Important Rituals connected to a strict caste system. Buddhism combines a kind of this-worldly orientation among the lay people (it was a merchant caste religion in ancient times) with an other-worldly ascetisism among the monastics (compare Manicheanism and Catholic or Orthodox Christianity). Jains and certain Hindu sects are the crazy ones.

Or maybe not, since Buddhism does contain some extreme practices, such as meditation while sitting next to a corpse, skeleton or perhaps plastic skeleton to remind oneself of the transient nature of existence...

Perhaps Buddhism, like all other religions, contain different layers and hence contradictions.  

Into darkness

I linked to this blog post before. I have some objections, from the top of my head...

Philosophy and scientific thinking emerged in Greece, and was later taken over by the Roman Empire. Greece may have been peripheral, but the Empire obviously wasn´t. Neither was Alexander the Great´s empire. 

That the Europeans innovated simply because of their peripheral position isn´t likely. The nomads of the Eurasian steppes were peripheral, but didn´t innovate anything for millennia. Sub-Saharan Africa or Australia weren´t particularly innovative either (in the author´s sense). Some "barbarian" peoples invaded and succesfully took over more ancient high cultures (for instance, the Arabs and the Mongols), but that´s a different proposition.

Modernity only arose in Europe. Modernity is unique.

While it´s true that modernity was originally based on plunder, and still is to a great extent based on exploitation, it has also raised the living standards of billions of people, in recent decades most notably in China. No other mode of production has done this. This is a fundamental contradiction or "dialectic" within modernity. It makes it (potentially) more "progressive". Note also: democracy, human rights, labor movements, gender equality, the collapse of fascism and Stalinism, etc.

Modernity might still collapse, however. While it can potentially overcome its social contradictions, it has proven much more difficult to transcend the contradiction between modernity and the physical living environment. This could lead to decline or even collapse due to resource depletion, overpopulation and/or climate change. While technological solutions to these problems may exist, human rationality doesn´t progress in the same way as technology (Hegel´s "cunning of Reason" is challenged by the Devil´s "cunning of unreason", so to speak).

The author hasn´t factored in climate change in his scenario. In the discussion, he claims that Canada and Siberia will become agricultural breadbaskets in the event of global warming?!

The collapse of modernity will be a tragedy for most people. The scenario in the article isn´t just the messy and chaotic close of another cycle, but a more fundamental regression of world civilization.

The claim that West Africa had towns before Europe seems to be a factual error. 

The End of the European Age

THEY CAN TALK LIKE HUMANS

Credit: Onderwijsgek

Not entirely confirmed yet, but personally, I wouldn´t be too surprised if fungi can communicate in quasi-human speech, just confirms how spooky and eerie these "mycological organisms" are, not animals but not quite plants either, some kind of liminal shit right there! Gives new meaning to the term "magical mushrooms".  

Mushrooms communicate with each other using 50 "words", scientist claims

Free beans for the masses, the notochord be damned!

 

"I´m tired of your bullshit. There´s nothing wrong with beans!!!"

Cylon did nothing wrong

 

When the citizens of Croton demanded a democratic constitution, the Pythagoreans (who dominated the city) refused. Cylon of Croton therefore led a rebellion against Pythagoras, burned the cult´s meeting hall, and killed many Pythagoreans. The rest were expelled. (It´s possible that Pythagoras himself perished during the revolution.)

I think Cylon was right. The picture above (from 1915 AD) shows him during the storming of the meeting-hall. Give me liberty or give me disharmony on Earth! 

Well, that´s good to hear

 

A bunch of Hare Krishna freaks with the stereotypically brainwashed looks. Apparently, Germans, Russians and Ukrainians live in peace in "Vrindavan", some shit hole in India where the ISKCON hangs out. (Vrindavan is also the name of the mysterious heavenly forest where Krishna plays with the gopis, but that´s probably not accesible at the present time, not even for ISKCON devotees!).

And so on. 

Progressive porn?

 

For some unknown (and bizarre) reason, this came up in my YouTube feed lately. I mean, wtf?! Yes, it´s the porn star Nina Hartley, who supports the Spartacist League... 

We would prefer to pass over this aspect of modern Trotskyism in silence.

Or maybe not! 

The End of the Dream

Many blackpills in this one. Note, however, that JMG doesn´t seem to be factoring in climate change in his equations... 

The End of the European Age

"Först kommer maten, sedan kommer moralen"

Credit:kspoddar

Lägg märke till det öppna klassföraktet i den här ledaren (sic) i Aftonbladet (sic igen). Men okej, det är väl bra att "vänster"liberalerna bekänner färg. Eller åtminstone storlek på plånboken... 

Le Pen har hittat Macrons ömma tå

Pirates of Hyperborea

 

"A Voyage to Hyperborea" is a recent (2020) novel by John Michael Greer. It forms part of the author´s "Haliverse", an alternate reality in which Lovecraft´s Eldritch horrors (and other unspeakable creatures) turn out to be, well, the good guys! Greer really brought the Haliverse stories to a close already in 2019 with "The Weird of Hali: Arkham", but for some reason, the Eldritch Muses didn´t leave him alone, so a number of similarly-themed novels appeared promptly. 

"A Voyage to Hyperborea" follows a struggling scholar, Toby Gilman (his last name is a pun - Toby really does have gills!), as he is forced to join a dangerous expedition to Greenland in order to obtain a stipend. In the story, the glaciers of Greenland has began to melt due to man-made climate change, revealing the remains of several ancient civilizations beneath the former ice sheet, the most splendid being Hyperborea (said to be ancestral to Atlantis). Gilman happens to be an expert in the rather narrow field of Hyperborean linguistics. 

Unfortunately for him and many others, the voyage to the Arctic island turns out to be a cover for something very different. The Hyperboreans were worshippers of the Great Old Ones, and guarded ancient stone tablets with potent magic that can destroy the entire world. A mysterious brotherhood known as the Radiance (an obvious reference to the Illuminati) want to find the stone tablets, supposedly still guarded by an Old One in the bowels of the Greenlandic earth. Several alien races of shape-shifters want to stop the Radiance, and Gilman soon realizes that nothing is what it seems at the Arctic research facility...

The strangest part of the story features an encounter between Gilman and an entire crew of pirates, who look and act exactly as you expect unhanged pirates to act and look like. Rum, sea shanties, old swords, weird accents, male bonding...it turns out that the old farmboy and landlubber Gilman fits right in! That the fish-man is immune to salt water due to his hybrid nature is, of course, an extra plus on a sea voyage. Even the (hardly surprising) revelation that the pirates are really ghosts who´ve been at sea for centuries somehow fits the format.

The ideological commitments of the author are the same as in previous Haliversian novels. Humans are relatively unimportant in the bigger scheme of things, the Earth being inhabited by other intelligent creatures, and our modern civilization is just the latest in a series of cycles that saw the rise and fall of Hyperborea, Atlantis and others. The Ancient Ones are "pagan gods", usually indifferent to human concerns, although some of them have entered covenants with smaller groups of human (or hybrid) devotees. The Radiance (modelled on NICE in "That Hideous Strength" by C S Lewis) pretends to be on the side of science and progress, while actually being evil magicians - the author´s way of saying that modernity is deeply problematic. It´s hardly a coincidence that the centuries-old pirate vessel "Miskatonic" manages to destroy a modern ship with its old cannons, or that the pirates are invisible to modern radar, since "Miskatonic" is all made of wood! Apart from Lovecraft and Lewis, there are also references to Clark Ashton Smith, Jules Verne and (perhaps) Tolkien. The descent into the Hyperborean underworld have obvious similarities with how the Fellowship of the Ring encountered orcs and balrogs in the Mines of Moria, although in Greer´s story, the deadly creatures are all on our side.

Much else is the same, too. One peculiarity with all the Haliverse novels is that Greer meticulously describes every meal eaten by the main characters (brace yourself for some really bad culinary experiences onboard the pirat vessel). Another are the constant stops at libraries and archives, also described in some detail. The main difference is that the sex is steamier. It seems every sexy woman in this story is both willing and able to bed the hero. Unless, of course, their well-endowed female bodies are just a cover for something more monstrous...

Could perhaps be of some interest to fantasy fans.