The egoic monomind inevitably results in the same, functionally uniform ideology or religion, the homogenous mono-nature of which is obscured by the fact that it is made up of multiple, superficially antagonistic, formally diverse sects or cults. These egoic groups (and their groupmind members) everywhere tend to massively over-emphasise their differences and efface or play down foundational similarities. When the cult losers of yesteryear gain power they do everything they can to emphasise how different they are from the cult winners they vanquished, while milking their moral indignation at being oppressed. Each wave of bland, puppyish, repressed, utterly characterless middle-class graduates emerge from their education with a more potent armoury of arguments to advertise and defend their individuality and specialness. And of course, although precisely the same attitude to war, inequality, professionalism, institutionalism, love, nature and truth prevails everywhere on earth the picture painted by institutionalised ideologues of our side is radically different from the one we get of theirs.
The names of ego’s cults are legion, a constantly shifting screen of organisations, movements, societies, institutions, teams and companies. Unnecessary to list, of course. The important thing is to be aware of the ‘trunk’ ideologies they feed from. Here is a brief list of the most prominent today, and some of their core beliefs (often unstated);
Some cults describe quality or consciousness as ‘a thing’ — which is to say as an objective mind-knowable phenomenon which machinery can detect. Others describe quality or consciousness as ‘nothing’ — i.e. as a subjective illusion. Some cults describe humans as ahh, fallen angels, others say we are nothing nobler than fleshy robots. Some cults say nature is to be worshipped and community is the source of truth, others say that nature is a pretty spittoon and community collective madness (‘the mob’). Mind considers not-mind as ‘mysticism’, ‘emotion’ and untrustworthy ‘subjectivity’ while selfish emotion regards good sense as cold abstraction and reason as mere rationality. The private-capitalist ‘right’ (aka ‘democracy’) considers the state-capitalist ‘left’ (aka ‘communism’) as the opposite end of the political spectrum. The devout priest sees the devout scientist as inhabiting a different universe… and so on. It would seem, on the face of it, that there couldn’t possibly be a greater difference between such ideas — while we remain in the frame of ego. Step outside this frame (i.e. actually experience consciousness) and the fundamental similarity of mind-created phenomena and mere illusion, or of sentimental exaltation and cynical dismissal, or of moral superiority and immoral selfishness becomes crystal clear.
The prominent contentions within the fields of psychotherapy, gender-politics, philosophy, work-life, professionalism and religion are as superficial and illusory as the playground arguments of children. A sexist, hard-right, white, Christian male and a feminist, ‘socialist’, black, atheist woman will react in precisely the same way to ego-threat and existential uncertainty. There may be talk of ‘tolerance’, ‘charity’ and ‘diversity’, or criticism of ‘uniformity’, ‘selfishness’ and ‘conformity’, yet every institutionalised mind reacts in the exactly same way to radical otherness and genuine independence. Consciously step into any religious institution — such as a church, a parliament, an elite university, a newsroom or a boardroom — and watch with wonder how ‘opposing’ sides instantly and miraculously unite against you. The goodies and the baddies only ever stop fighting to crush the paradoxies, which is the only meaningful dispute in institutions, but can never be recognised as such. The conflict being fought everywhere between truth and falsehood, or freedom and subjugation, must be repositioned along ideological (cultic) lines, as left vs right, believer vs infidel, feminist vs sexist and so on. Truth, in fact, is taboo.
Let’s have a look at some of the main religious institutions of the modern groupmind…
Strip away the PR, the politics, the beliefs and the ideologies that ping around inside these microscopic thought-silos and the monoexperience within is exposed as practically, functionally and essentially identical. All institutions demand ideological conformity and complete submission, all promote and encourage the worst aspects of human nature (which are then assumed to be innate) and all produce nothing of value, beauty or truth — words which are assumed to be meaningless or silly. If any of the principle institutions of modern [Western] life come out on top as a place to actually live, it’s probably prison, although most people prefer the office (or factory or farm or whatever) to old chokey as prison wages are poor and opportunities to get laid few.
THE MONOMIND
The monomind, which deals only in comprehensible opposites, would have it that there is a radical difference between individualism and conformity. The common media view of the West is that we live in a good individualist society (yay!) as opposed to bad old totalitarian society of conformity (boo!), when the reality is that the modern capitalist west is fundamentally as totalitarian as North Korea or Soviet Russia; the only difference is the type of totalitaria, and the surface appearance; as the popular meme has it, they are crushed by a military jack-boot, while we are crushed by a clown’s shoe.
There is rigid conformity across all institutional thought, across the so-called ‘media spectrum’, across all workplaces and, in a slightly modified sense, across leisure spaces too. That this conformity is the result of structural pressures (an implicit system which only rewards system-serving attitudes) rather than authoritarian pressures (an explicit prince or party dictating approved thoughts from above) serves to obscure the reality of mono-thought that holds modern society together.
There are a massive range of taboo attitudes, ranging from the most superficial opinions about politics to the deepest expressions of consciousness, that are implicitly banned from all modern institutions, that prevent you from rising through the hierarchy of your company, that will get you the cold-shoulder in the coffee room, that will disrupt the dinner party, that will cause irremediable ructions in the nuclear family or that will cause friends to fall away from you like dead leaves.
A brief, incomplete, list of modern taboos:-
- That we (our government, our system) are not the good guys.
- That our wars are fought in order to gain control of resources.
- That masculinity and femininity exist, and are not social constructs.
- That the state is inherently iniquitous, coercive and authoritarian.
- That there is no such thing as an offensive word (only offensive tone).
- That humans are qualitatively different to animals.
- That quality exists, that there is such a thing as ‘great art’.
- That unhappiness is self-indulgent — that you have no right to be unhappy.
- That excess property is theft (founded on centuries of extortion) — that you have no right to what you don’t use.
- That money and law are unnecessary.
- That feelings are not emotions — that love is not an emotion.
- That you are being emotional (spiky, humourless, irritable, selfish, etc) right now.
- That consciousness is not thinking.
- That I am not my self.
- That education systems make us more stupid, medical systems make us sicker, transport systems slow us down, energy systems exhaust us, etc.
- That reality is love uncaused, and vice versa.
- That there is no such thing as mental ‘illness’.
- That ‘progress’ means little more than the creation of a global schizoid prison.
- That you and everyone else is going to die — that death is life.
- That imagination without reality, like sex without love, is the curse of man — that imagination is the consequence, not the cause of artistic truth.
- That it is possible to stop thinking.
- That the truth exists, and it cannot be known scientifically or emotionally.
- That democracy is mob-rule.
- That civilisation is collapsing.
- That culture is dying, that quality exists and that art is dead.
You might find one or two of those a bit annoying yerself? A bit ‘ooh, I don’t like that’? A bit wrong? If so, check whether an institution stands to benefit from your side of the story, because if it does — if your view just happens to go without saying, or to be expressible in the office, or is frequently heard in the paps, or is unobjectionable in the art gallery, or is part of the syllabus — then something is fishy here, wouldn’t you say?
Because, while some of the above will, of course, be permitted and even encouraged in some groups and while the nature of opprobrium will vary in each case (sometimes met with exclusion, sometimes ridicule, sometimes outright violence and sometimes sentimental appropriation), the truths above, on the whole, cannot ever be seriously, calmly considered by the institutionalised mind. They will be rejected without profound reflection, because, as a whole, they threaten society and its unspoken egoic foundation — existential anxiety and a sense of exclusion from a reality perceived as hostile, confusing and separate from ‘me’. Seriously investigate, begin to accept or persistently express any truth from the above list, and you will be punished or excluded; again not consciously — for consciousness is precisely what is being suppressed — or explicitly, but structurally (via the institutional pressures of ‘the market-system’) or implicitly (via childhood conditioning and schooling: explained in detail here).
Indeed meaningful exploration of such existential truths, being a question of existence, goes faaaaar deeper than abstract taboos, ideas and opinions. Although an enormous amount of institutional energy is expended on getting your mind right, it is your conscious experience which is the gravest threat to the monomind. If you meaningfully seek forms of experience which precede or challenge the monoheart, then you can expect the four horsemen of the groupmind in short order:
- exclusion
- silence
- ridicule
- violence
The unhappy supermind that reigns in the unworld can only accept egoic emotions — those based on the fears and desires of self. You can be angry, bitchy, self-indulgent, catty, bored, tight, irritable, excited, over-excited, paralysed by self-doubt, psychopathically selfish or, more often than not, flatlining in a vaguely satisfied vaguely unsatisfied haze of normality… all fine. But feel tenderness, or an exquisite sensitivity to the unique vibe of the day, or all electric and flashing, or ten-levels of melty, or roaring and yawping, or intoxicated with being, or bright and brimming, or still like a Swiss Lake — feel such things as these, deeply, deep and intense, as only unique feelings can be — and watch as the social hammer falls, feel the alarm, fear, anger, condescension and envy rise from the wasteland, see the smothering blanket of exclusion, silence, ridicule and violence fall.
But what if it were not so? How would your life be if you acted on monomind taboos? Consider how your life would be if you paid no attention to law, took responsibility for your psychological problems and troublesome emotions and learnt to live without them, if you were fundamentally uninterested in material advancement, if you fully accepted the reality of death, if you accepted that civilisation was falling — if you lived as if this were true, if you actually put quality above progress, complementarity above equality, context above self, if you fully educated yourself outside of institutional structures, if you strove to use your feet, insisted on self-medication and refused institutional constraints. How would your life be if you began to master your thinking and emoting self, and let the strange, awesome and supervivid feeling reality of your actual conscious experience into the moment?
How would your life be? Our life?
It would be better.