Michael Tsarion on Race, Jordan Peterson, and Why Conspiracy Work is Spiritual Work |372|

If you think hearing about it is bad, try living in it.

I grew weary of hearing how White People are responsible for every ill in the world 20 years ago.

I've paid enough. Done. Over. I'm not putting up with it anymore.

Yes I was talking to you. Call it virtue signaling or call it being open to discussion, or even maybe having an opinion. I definitely made myself clear unlike you.
 
I'd really like to mention that conversations would be much more valuable if everyone took the time to write out their opinions on these topics and avoided unclear wordings. Lets all try to remain open minded and argue in good faith for our positions.
 
What!!?!?! This thread has just reached a new low.

I think the kids these days say, topkek?

Thing is, I don't really feel connected to South Africa as a whole, but to a rather small region of it. When I travel to other parts of the country, I feel a tiny degree of being culturally and environmentally out of step. So I assume my sense of a home place is based on where my upbringing took place. I'm also sure these kinds of cultural and topological eccentricities must have a developmental role on who we are as people, at least in nuance.

That being said, a family member of mine visited Ireland some years ago and was plagued by militaristic and violent dreams.... at the time I wondered if this could be related to a hardcore unionist ancestor we have (about four generations back - a marcher and all that crap). So I don't rule out ancestral memory as a phenomena, but I also think it could be physiological in some way (genetic/epigenetic/who knows) and I'm not sure if it has any transmigrational dimension.

Anyway, immigration IS a part of my ancestral experience.

As for tribal spirituality, I wouldn't denigrate it at all, there's true timeless wisdom and practice there.... but since the universe/life/sentience/society seems to have an evolutionary bent... I reckon contemporary spiritual perception should too (or at least adapt to its time). Hey, maybe even reincarnation as a phenomena is evolving in some way. At the moment I'm trying to building-block my way into a kind of 21st century animism.

The whole conversation brings to my mind James Baldwin, the American author. He travelled to Africa expecting the experience to be a home coming.... in reality, it made him realise that he's far more American than he is African.

As an aside, some Afrikaner cultural organisations have tried in the past to have themselves registered with the UN as an indigenous African tribe.

But, as you say, who knows?

All the best.

Edit: Just wondering.... is the cultural/environmental setting that lead to the 'pagan' way of relating to life even in existence anymore? I'm not well informed on the subject, so I ask this humbly: is ancient paganism still appropriate to 21st century Europe? Has it evolved over the last few thousand years (apart from Christianised Folk magic and Saint worship)?

Please understand, I'm genuinely curious..... not trying to jump on anyone's beliefs.

First off, I understand the need to clarify your approach as we are communicating with text and most people online are dickheads, but no need for that with me in the future.

I draw heavily on the very roots Indo-European religion for my practices and theories, but like you suggested: reincarnation may be subject to evolution. Thing is, the materialists will have us believe that evolution is a haphazard process. It's clear that evolution tries something, then throws it out or keeps it as a vestige with no particular purpose (i.e. the "Adam's Apple" or the Human earlobe), but in the grander scheme of things it is very precise and purposeful. The degree and rate of racial mixing which we Humans have enacted is, in my opinion, out of balance with that natural progression. I could see a collective Human "story" evolving out of all our collective stories, but it's happening too fast. There are many examples of this, one of them being your feeling out-of-place anywhere outside of your home town in South Africa. However, I bet you a million Euro that if you were to return to [wherever your pre-Afrikaner ancestors traveled from] and visited the pre-Christian sites, you would experience what we call "Ancestral Activation" - a feeling of timelessness and belonging which you have only felt before in brief moments of mystical revelation. If we're to accept the idea that we're "all one race in the end", then why do you not feel at home everywhere in Africa, given that we all supposedly originated from there? If you haven't been to North-Europe, you don't know - simply put.

When it comes to Paganism and the environment, I'm pretty sure we speak with one voice when we acknowledge that the whole world (and perhaps the universe) is the one environment which has shifted. We're evolving together. No race or class before another. The question is, what are we evolving TOWARDS? I've found myself gravitate towards the Catholic teachings. Partially because they've cannibalized the Pagan traditions they've conquered, but mostly because they talk about the Logos. More honest Catholics, such as my friends, would admit that the "Paganism" of their people is part an evolution towards a recognition of a singularity - the Christ in their words - and that Christianity is an expression of it. That each individual is to become Christ - a perfected form of Human Being. Mystically speaking, humanity isn't ready for this. Christians today are either ignorant, liars, or schizophrenic. The intensity of that archetype is too strong for an individual person. We as a species aren't ready for that level of unity, but according to the prediction of Alistair Crowley we're in the age just before it (The Aeon of Horus - the Age of the Individual). We need to cool it with the racial integration, simply because we don't understand our own racial stories. How can two or more misunderstood stories come together to create one whole story? By whole, I literally mean "whole" as in holistic.

In the video I posted with my opinion, 3 aspects of a person is mentioned which has been understood since time in memoriam. We live three separate lives in one, three separate lives. One, interested in base desires (influenced by biology and social pressures), another interested in the wellbeing and glory of our family/race, and the other (considered by many to be the most-high) the part of ourselves interested in universal Truth (with a capital T). Your example of James Baldwin may have been more focused on the base aspect of the three, while you may be focused on the familial aspect of the three.

I hope that what I've wrote above wasn't a waste of your time. To me, these questions are of great importance and I should be challenged on all of my thoughts, so thank you for playing with me. Life is good, and I hope that it's good to you.
 
Wait, we're talking about groups and how the "White" group has been victimized? Did I read that correctly?
Rather like Charlie, I feel that if the media endlessly treat white people as second class, they will not produce a 'rainbow nation', but quite the opposite. I wish Nelson Mandela were still around, he might be able to offer a bit of common sense.

The same goes for positive discrimination. If white people know that they weren't hired, or offered a university place, because a less well qualified person of another race turned up, that will stoke intense resentment.

Sometimes I think the 'Left' aren't interested in everyone getting on together, because that would destroy their political platform!

David
 
In the US there is massive discrimination against Asian students in college admissions. The Justice Department is investigating the matter. The article below is misleading because the discrimination is not just to allow in disadvantaged or underrepresented minorities, white students are also given preference over Asians with higher qualifications.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/...ed-justice-inquiry-of-college-admissions.html

Asian-Americans’ Complaint Prompted Justice Inquiry of College Admissions

By CHARLIE SAVAGEAUG. 2, 2017

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Wednesday said it was searching for Civil Rights Division lawyers to investigate a single complaint involving Asian-American students in a college admissions affirmative-action case.

In a statement, the department sought to play down its recruitment of Civil Rights Division lawyers for what it had billed in an internal announcement as work on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”

The Justice statement was responding to news articles on Tuesday about the project to scrutinize affirmative-action admissions policies that seek to maintain diverse student bodies by giving an edge to members of disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, like black or Latino students, over other applicants with comparable or better test scores.​
 
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Rather like Charlie, I feel that if the media endlessly treat white people as second class, they will not produce a 'rainbow nation', but quite the opposite. I wish Nelson Mandela were still around, he might be able to offer a bit of common sense.

The same goes for positive discrimination. If white people know that they weren't hired, or offered a university place, because a less well qualified person of another race turned up, that will stoke intense resentment.

Sometimes I think the 'Left' aren't interested in everyone getting on together, because that would destroy their political platform!

David

I don't think you're really pushing yourself here with this explanation. The reality is that unless you've got $$$, you ARE a second class citizen. While your totally right that it's BS to give a job or university place to a less qualified person based on race/family/creed etc- you're conveniently missing the fact that this situation occurs everywhere, black to white, white to black, latino to black etc etc on forever. In a sense it's the way of the power structure. The person with power, competent or not, gets to decide.

Cherry-picking data is not good science, and I believe that this affirmative action argument is very much cherry-picked data. I think for every instance you can find of whites being treated as second class, you will find exponentially higher amounts of discrimination in regards to almost every other race.
 
you're conveniently missing the fact that this situation occurs everywhere

You conveniently ignore that fact that racial discrimination against White People is official U.S. Government policy.

The United States was designed and built for White People, the same way Israel is for Jewish people and Japan is for Japanese people.

This was common knowledge until just a few short decades ago. Today people are so brain-washed they think there is something wrong with the people who founded a country running it.
 
I don't think you're really pushing yourself here with this explanation. The reality is that unless you've got $$$, you ARE a second class citizen. While your totally right that it's BS to give a job or university place to a less qualified person based on race/family/creed etc- you're conveniently missing the fact that this situation occurs everywhere, black to white, white to black, latino to black etc etc on forever. In a sense it's the way of the power structure. The person with power, competent or not, gets to decide.

Cherry-picking data is not good science, and I believe that this affirmative action argument is very much cherry-picked data. I think for every instance you can find of whites being treated as second class, you will find exponentially higher amounts of discrimination in regards to almost every other race.
The point is that you don't fix one problem by heaping on additional arbitrary injustice. You are also gradually moving white people from the group that feel non-whites need a better deal, to the group where they feel put upon.

Yes, if you are poor, you are a second class citizen. If OJ had not had not been absurdly rich, he would now be behind bars, or maybe dead (and that is true whether he murdered his girlfriend on not!). I'd be in favour of policies that paid a decent wage to people doing a decent job, and I am in favour of President Trump's stated aim of bringing more jobs back to the US. If we (and I include the UK in that to some extent) carry on favouring non-whites, that will increasingly be seen as state-sponsored prejudice, as practised in the old South Africa.

David
 
Today people are so brain-washed they think there is something wrong with the people who founded a country running it.

The end result of this logic is monarchy or totalitarianism. Only this group or that group should be permitted to run gov't because of ancestral claims etc.
The USA is the place where people came to get away from that culture if I'm not mistaken
 
The point is that you don't fix one problem by heaping on additional arbitrary injustice. You are also gradually moving white people from the group that feel non-whites need a better deal, to the group where they feel put upon.

Yes, if you are poor, you are a second class citizen. If OJ had not had not been absurdly rich, he would now be behind bars, or maybe dead (and that is true whether he murdered his girlfriend on not!). I'd be in favour of policies that paid a decent wage to people doing a decent job, and I am in favour of President Trump's stated aim of bringing more jobs back to the US. If we (and I include the UK in that to some extent) carry on favouring non-whites, that will increasingly be seen as state-sponsored prejudice, as practised in the old South Africa.

David

I agree with what you're saying in the sense that the actual policy in the us and uk in regards things like 'affirmative action' seems totally foolish, counteractive to what it states to accomplish etc.
But I can't go any further than that. I'm no victim of the culture wars and do not wish to see my struggle in that light. Especially in regards to so much of the info I've gleaned from Skeptiko
 
Thanks for the response, I appreciate it.

your feeling out-of-place anywhere outside of your home town in South Africa

Ok, I may have made my natural habitat sound smaller than intended..... I mean't 'region' in the sense of southern California or north England.

. I could see a collective Human "story" evolving out of all our collective stories, but it's happening too fast.

I don't see how we're qualified to judge this. When I look at the complexity of small systems, plotting the evolutionary direction of a world or universe seems an impossibility. So, perhaps our currently globalising culture has an evolutionary purpose?

Anyway, I think the weakening of local cultures (sometimes for the better, sometimes not, imo) has far more to do with multinational marketing and corporate culture (ie. Hollywood & McDonald's) than migration. I grew up in a very ethnically diverse city (Zulu/Anglo/Afrikaans/Greek/Indian/Muslim/Portuguese), and, to me, it generally feels like a meeting, rather than a dilution, of cultures..... I think some of the most interesting stuff comes about when different perspectives meet.... and again, I reckon it's American consumer culture that's the real globalizer.

if you were to return to [wherever your pre-Afrikaner ancestors traveled from] and visited the pre-Christian sites, you would experience what we call "Ancestral Activation" - a feeling of timelessness and belonging which you have only felt before in brief moments of mystical revelation.

I see how you got the impression..... but I'm not Afrikaans. About 2/3 of my ancestry is Scottish with the rest being a mix of English/Afrikaans..... and I have visited some sacred sites in Scotland..... they were powerful experiences, for sure.... but I've also felt this at certain locales in South Africa.... so, who knows, maybe everyone's different.

When it comes to Paganism

It seems I made some vastly oversimplified assumptions about your spiritual perspectives..... I thought most contemporary-pagan-ethnic-spiritual-types saw Christianity as a foreign or weakening influence and wanted to revive an ancient (ie. purer) spirituality. Now I know.

Peace to you and your own.
 
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I totally agree, David. I'm so tired of not being able to discuss certain topics because of the fear of hurting feelings.

I'm interested in truth. Whatever that truth may be. Truth can be ugly. It can often reveal things about ourselves, our society or the world at large that we'd rather not be true. But it is what it is. The better equipped we are to deal with reality as it truly is, which means being honest about things, the better chance we have of actually creating societies that truly are beneficial to all. But denying truth, realities, often means we don't discuss major issues, which means they either aren't being dealt with or they aren't being dealt with properly.

I've always said I'd rather someone tell me the truth and risk hurting my feelings than continue on a path that could be detrimental to myself or those around me. How can I improve myself if I'm never made aware that I'm making mistakes? I beg those around me to please tell me when I'm being stupid, so I can change that. Don't just let me go on acting like an idiot! This also means that I have to be honest with myself. I must acknowledge my own limitations, whether those be due to genetics (because genetics are real and have a real effect, even if they aren't the be all, end all to everything), socioeconomic forces or plain old ignorance.

We live in a world that is inherently "unfair". Some are born smart, some are born dumb. Some are born rich, some are born poor. Some are beautiful, some are ugly. I don't know where this notion came from that we could somehow even the score. That we could take away all that makes humanity inherently different, one to another. Moreover, are we sure we would want to do that? I grew up very poor. I was also abused and had a pretty rough childhood. I've made my fair share of mistakes in adulthood and have suffered the consequences of those mistakes. But I blame no one other than myself for the choices I have made. I could have blamed my parents, the circumstances of my birth or the inherent unfairness of life and set myself on a path to self-destruction. But I chose differently. Without making a long post even longer, I'll just say that I'm at a place in life where I'm at peace with it all. IMO, there's a lot of "blame the other" going on right now. And that gets us absolutely nowhere.

My point is, if you believe in the idea that we are here for a reason. That the circumstances under which we were born may not be so random, or even if it is, that it serves some sort of purpose, then are we sure we should even strive to create some sort of Earthly utopia? Would we be missing the whole point of life? Not to say that we shouldn't try to improve ourselves or the situations we find ourselves in, but perhaps the old saying "that which does not kill us, makes us stronger" contains truth.

I think there is a distinct misunderstanding of concepts here, or perhaps the issue is being confused purposefully, it's hard to know these days. But that issue is the concept of differences vs. equality. There is this notion that pointing out differences, no matter how obvious, is somehow implying inferiority/superiority. It's not. I'm a woman. Obviously, not a man. There are many differences between my husband and I that go well beyond culture or personality. I have no problem with this. It blows my mind that some people do.

It seems to me that those that object so ardently to the notion of race are in effect implying inequality where there actually is none. Why object to the reality of race, unless you think it means one is inherently superior to another. Acknowledging the reality of different races does not in any way imply a superior/inferior dynamic. It just simply means there are differences. And in my opinion, different doesn't mean bad, it just means different. And I can appreciate that idea.

Thank God not everyone is like me!

I want to especially note: "I'm interested in truth. Whatever that truth may be. Truth can be ugly. It can often reveal things about ourselves, our society or the world at large that we'd rather not be true. But it is what it is."

It is immensely difficult to be true to the truth, and not decide an idea is 'wrong' because exposure to it causes us grief. But some ideas are wrong and do cause us grief. All we have is our own capacity to dare be moved from our comfort zones. It is not that we can know truth in any absolute sense - only in relation to ourselves. The mystical ideal has been for that sense of ourselves to be big enough to embrace as many others as we can. And that includes ideas as well as other beings.

I have been reading Frank DeMarco's latest book - Awakening from the 3D World. I esteem DeMarco sufficiently to read carefully. I am finding opinions and ideas being so challenged I have to shut the book and feel into my resistance. I am not agreeing with everything, but I am being tested as to whether I resist with integrity or self-indulgence. It would be easy to shut the book and walk away. But I am not going to do that. I am going to stare everything I have discomfort with in the face.

I don't doubt that everyone who participates in the forum will affirm "I'm interested in truth. Whatever that truth may be." It is useful to, now and then, consciously and deliberately remind oneself. I am a huge fan of the saying "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." But not in the sense of being armed and outward looking - rather gently being inwardly alert for the slow seduction of self-deceptions and conceits.

I listened to a recent interview with Patrick J. Deenen on his latest book Why Liberalism has Failed (Politics and Culture) [ABC Radio National's Late Night Live on 1/2/2018- as a podcast or from the website]. He observed that true freedom is the ability to live a good and healthy life, taking the logic of some philosophers who thought that properly free person would do only what was good for them. Apparently that idea was not very popular among some of his readers - especially those who would see freedom as being about 'choice' alone - regardless of any pathological factors that might predispose a person to a range of choices that could be exploited by predatory capitalists. They don't like that kind of freedom at all.

Is Deenen talking a kind of truth that is ugly? What does that say about our perceptions of our sense of freedom? How free am I really? I don't know. I've had to download the darned book to find out.
 
But I can't go any further than that. I'm no victim of the culture wars and do not wish to see my struggle in that light. Especially in regards to so much of the info I've gleaned from Skeptiko

I don't really know what you meant by that. Was there a part of what I wrote that you disagreed with?

One doesn't have to be a 'victim of the culture wars' to see that others may be.

David
 
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