Alex's questions at the end of the interview:
Do you think there's a synergistic relationship between materialism and our economic system? how do you think it might come into being and what does it say about what might lie beyond the materialistic paradigm?
I would like to express my deep, deep, DEEP gratitude to both Alex and Bernardo for their time and effort putting on this particular podcast.
It feels exceptionally difficult to express just how life enriching it is for me to hear two sharp, piercing and intelligent minds grappling with the raw fundamentals of such a profoundly important and quite frankly urgent problem, and I thank you both profoundly for creating this podcast.
I say it is an "urgent" problem, because quite frankly, until listening to Bernardo today expertly and eloquently join up the dots, and present such a coherent and comprehensive overview of both the limitations and ramifications of the Materialist fantasy (nightmare), I hadn't really felt I had any insight into the crazy and illogical way the world seems so often to unfold. Bernardo's interview has forced a crack in the doorways of my mind just large enough for me to have somewhat of an epiphany. That is to say, that previously, when I have often attempted to understand the seemingly crazy notions, decisions and actions of ordinary individuals, groups of people, institutions (scientific, corporate, governmental), whole countries etc, I have always felt at a loss as to how to understand how time and again, humanity seems in its choices to be both crazy and dumb. From the lifestyles we lead, to the things we value in life, to the politicians we elect, to the wars they then conduct in the name of peace. It really can feel like a bad nightmare.
I really feel that what Bernardo is showing about materialism, that it is a metaphysical paradigm (a quite absurd one in fact) and not in any way a fundamental reality with any true explanatory power, is fundamental to understanding why the heck the world, and the people who inhabit it often seem so infuriatingly dumb, selfish and conniving (certainly true of the politicians and the financial and corporate folks; the movers and shakers). Seeing this through the lens of Bernardo's masterful overview and exposition of the Materialist mind-set has given me a way of truly understanding how all this madness, on a truly global scale, can and has come about naturally, and organically. That is to say, it seems so obvious in light of this interview, that the reason the world is shaping itself in this crazy fashion, is that the consciousness of the majority of the inhabitants of this planet are all hypnotised at a foundational level by the Materialist notion that life is a fluke, and ultimately futile, and so the "grab what you can, while you can, and sod everyone else" ("except maybe my kids, no wait, sod them too, because I am leaving them a poorer world to live in so I can grab more for me now") type attitude, is an entirely natural consequence.
I am in the UK, and we have just voted in the Conservatives, who really are about quite simply propping up and increasing the wealth and power of the few, and ensuring the great unwashed of society don't rise above their filthy, uneducated servile stations. I see them as PURE materialists, and I thank Bernardo for sharing this podcast, as I feel I can after this at least now see them as misguided and hypnotised fools rather than somehow being the evil selfish demons I once did (alright, some prejudices are hard to let go of, I still see them as slightly demonic).
Also, I feel a strange sense of hope in that perhaps on a deeper level, it may be possible to understand that the influence of materialism on the world, which although we are all forced to confront on a daily basis, does not have to shape our inner world. In fact, once seen for the incredibly weak, and frankly absurd metaphysical position that it is, it really very easily, and naturally recoils of it's own accord. Almost organically, a strange sense of purpose and hope, that life is not futile or meaningless, and that it has purpose and direction, naturally and organically seems to return. If not fully return, there feels at least once again space for it in life, and as long as there is a space, we can start to construct something much improved on the old and oppressive monstrosity which took up all the space. Bizarrely, while on the one hand it all feels so desperately depressing that nearly all the world is under the hypnosis of the Materialist fantasy, the clear notion that it really is nothing more than a fantasy (albeit one destroying much of our world) is utterly liberating, and profoundly full of hope and good prospects.
So, I know I have rambled on a bit, but hopefully some of you will have detected that my points run somewhat parallel to the question of the synergistic relationship between Materialism and our economic (and political, social, moral etc ad infinitum) system, and that I feel without doubt that yes, not only does materialism feed and fuel the economic system, I would go further and say our economic system is materialism incarnate. But I like very much something Alex alluded to when he more or less said (my gist of it) that perhaps we need to fully immerse ourselves as a planet in the materialist paradigm, before we can fully overcome it, and evolve consciously beyond it, and consign it to being just one more rung on the ladder of our evolutionary journey. Here's hoping !
Once again, a massive thank you to both of you !!!
Soulatman