“A Book I Probably Won’t Write”
(because that’s not how i work)
Rereading my Theory & Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism in search of a quote, I ran across this:
“The first step to Clarity is inner silence (Clarity of Perception). The second step to Clarity is calling things by their right names (Clarity of Thought). The third step is striving for reciprocity, or interpersonal justice (Clarity of Feeling). The fourth step is doing what must be done (Clarity of Purpose).”
Notwithstanding i don’t these days care for numbered-lists-as-if-logical-entailments-sorts of discourse, it struck me that if one is looking for a way to generate tasks (rather than responding to immediate circumstances), this isn’t a bad place to start.
The first part of my insight is that these steps exist at every level: intrapersonal, interpersonal, societal (Steps to an Ecology of Mind). What makes it harder to see this is that in one thought or one action, in one event or one account of an event, the levels are causally mixed. It’s not easy in realtime to separate out one’s reactions from perceptions from preconceptions (which the unfolding usually seems to confirm). And to embark upon a course of action with mixed motives is to add internal friction to external. That’s not to say perfect soldiers are required before a battle, nor writing the dictionary before starting a sentence. But contexts to a large extent determine outcomes.
Each clarification is a reversal of a misunderstanding (Patañjali). I think he compared it to untying a knot. For instance, at the most basic level, meditation consists primarily of separating awareness from the contents of thought: disidentifying from these ongoing items. Calling things by their right names means realizing that the same word is used to describe unlike things, while similarly functioning things can be called by different words. Desiring justice as a feeling is not enough without first perceiving the injustice(or imbalance) inherent in every inequity. Finally, confusion of means & ends is inevitable to the exact degree that one does not see which parts of a situation need to be fixed first & which can wait (triage).
From an ethic of Extraction to an ethic of Husbandry is a matter of applying clarifications from the lowest level to the highest. However, it is also important to understand the Game & the different kinds of Players. Both studies should be pursued concurrently. Cooperation & kindness as an intensifying practice should fill in the gaps of one’s understanding…
The more exacting part of this insight comes when you realize none of these symmetries is really a symmetry.