The Operating System and Beloved Community

The operating system is the thing that controls. It is the hierarchy in the clouds, the invisible tribe, the pantheon of gods and goddesses. The father of humilities like “mine is not to reason why, mine is just to do or die” or blind obedience to whatever is “trending”. It has many devices at its finger tips to persuade us that events are governed by public opinion, and that we are to blame for the state of the world even if we are powerless to change it.     

Through the ages there have been recognizable power elites, such as kings, emperors and empires who came, who saw, who conquered. But they are not the operating system – merely the interests that learned how to use the system to their advantage.

The operating system is invisible, nameless and exploitative. It has no reflective capacity, no feeling or sentiment. It is not interested in culture or science, because it has no interest in life. 

The operating system is not to blame for the violence of the ages,  it simply enabled it. Humanity is not to blame for the violence either – it simply fears the system and creates devices (such as the bank, the church, the corporation) in an attempt to control it.

In the end, when all life has been devoured by the insatiable appetite of the operating system, it will die unconscious of its life and its death.  The operating system is the universal will to power, from volcanic eruptions to social revolutions. If our species continues to glorify power above life itself we shall ultimately be silenced by it.  As long as we worship tools of power such as money, weapons, and technology, we become one of the system’s devices.

But if we can collectively use our power to nurture a community that nurtures the health of life within nature we create a beloved community.

The term “Beloved Community” was one that guided Martin Luther King Jr., in the struggle for civil rights. According to Religion Online, he wrote that the purpose of the Montgomery bus boycott “is reconciliation, . . . redemption, the creation of the beloved community.” 

Beloved community to me means being conscious of and working towards the greater good of all by paying attention to the quality of our relationships. Relationship between ferry workers and passengers, teachers and students, voters and politicians, homeowners and the homeless, corporations and consumers.

Beloved community uses power to support life by welcoming a new neighbour or by heroic rescue missions when a hiker gets lost on a snowy mountain.  Beloved community is the parental care and guidance of children, care for aging parents or troubled siblings.  Many of us have experienced the give and take of beloved community and know of its power. If we want this beautiful world to survive we must do what we can to re-program the operating system to nurture a healthy planet. 

May the coming year be filled with beloved community.

Bill Moyers on The Spectacle of Illiteracy

We are not short of wisdom, leadership and prophets in this age. But to watch mainstream media you would think we have become a species of abundant stupidity and despotic ignorance.  Who would benefit by this portrayal?

Bill Moyers by Yoichi Akamoto 1965

Increasingly, as witnessed in the utter disrespect and not-so-latent racism expressed by Joe Wilson, the Republican congressman from South Carolina, who shouted “you lie!” during President Obama’s address on health care, the obligation to listen, respect the views of others and engage in a literate exchange is increasingly reduced to the highly spectacular wed embrace of an infantile emotionalism. This is an emotionalism that is made for television. It is perfectly suited for emptying the language of public life of all substantive content, reduced in the end to a playground for hawking commodities, promoting celebrity culture and enacting the spectacle of right-wing fantasies fueled by the fear that the public sphere as an exclusive club for white male Christians is in danger of collapsing. For some critics, those who carry guns to rallies or claim Obama is a Muslim and not a bona fide citizen of the United States are simply representative of an extremist fringe, that gets far more publicity from the mainstream media than they deserve. Of course this is understandable, given that the media’s desire for balance and objective news is not just disingenuous but relinquishes any sense of ethical responsibility by failing to make a distinction between an informed argument and an unsubstantiated opinion. Witness the racist hysteria unleashed by so many Americans and the media over the building of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero. Bill Moyers

I can't add anything to this that would be more insightful or present a more indepth observation. I believe Moyers is one of those people who possesses a rare ability to converge a lot of disparate information into a concise diagnostic. Read the whole article here.

Wealth Inequality in America

Published on Nov 20, 2012

Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.

References:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2...
http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealt...
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/19/news/...

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An article worth reading: Sorry 'Catching Fire,' Kids Hunger for Real Rebellion

"The dichotomous world in which we live is becoming more dramatic everyday, so naturally it gets dramatized in the form of film and television. The subterranean pressure that moves culture and people isn't all that easy to see, except for when it comes popping up in movies and TV shows. Like some malignant and massive mycelium that stretches around the globe, it makes both toadstools and movies. It might seem like it just magically sprouted overnight, but there is a vast network of lines of control just beneath the surface of things."

Dorothy Woodend, Today, The Tyee.

Dark Politics: the effect of power on living systems

The best article I have read which explains to me that general feeling of dread I have about the future, is written by Heather Morgan on rabble.

Morgan says that Dark Politics is an ideology "which seeks to obfuscate, misinform, change the rules of conduct and flourishes most when no light of truth is shone upon it."

While Rob Ford appears to be pathetic, Morgan questions his actual role as a political clown.

Reasonable people may think our political representatives should have a code of behavior that inspires us, or a sense of responsibility towards the people he or she serves. But the mainstream media says he still has supporters, which suggests that there is a block of citizens who are willing to trade in honesty, sobriety and service for low taxes.

Ideas such as the notion that the role of government should be increasingly inched towards the ultimate goal of doing little more than reducing taxes while begrudgingly still paying for things like the military and a few other "essential" services. That government should largely divorce itself from civic engagement or from acting as an equalizing mechanism. From fulfilling the collective will of the people.

Dark politics is not interested in the way life endures, supports or celebrates beauty, or hope for a better future.  Dark politics does not understand nuance and diversity.  It is the task of humanity to uphold justice for civil society to survive.  It is up to us to vote for social justice and to use our power to nurture a society built on a reverence for life.

Desire, Design and the Operating System

It appears to me that human history and all its inventions dwell within a circle of power.  The glorification, the use and abuse of power interacts with our human endeavours mostly beyond our control. There are nations and people who possess power but not forever.  Anyone who has had power over others or things fears they cannot hold their control forever.  As individuals and institutions we create laws, culture (media) and ideology in order to maintain an illusion of control, to protect ourselves from chaos.  If I were to say this is the truth - it would be my attempt to wield power over this instant.  If I were to study philosophy, science, law and culture to the breadth and depth of my capacity it would be in order to influence the world.  It's too late in my life to attempt this even if I could, and even if I achieved it (500 years after William Shakespeare), it would be for a brief moment in time and place, and it would be a call for the next player to deconstruct this theory.

As news stories appear daily about our prime minister, the mayor of Toronto, or the president of the United States as they play out the extent of their given powers while they can, some may believe they possess powers beyond their position and that all they have to do is manage it well. But all political leaders must negotiate with the ever changing directions of power in their lives - the interests that support them and attack them are like tennis balls on a court which they must hit and send back to their opponents.

All that we desire and design is negotiated with other desires and designs which we cannot see or even plan for. There is always the pressure of the operating system projecting and sabotaging our strategies.

Our human history has led us to believe that we possess the power to control the world and we give those willing to stand up as leaders our loyalty, as long as they convince us they can protect us from the chaos of invading interests. But when our leaders break or reveal cracks in this promise we sack them with derision and ridicule.

This is a very violent game - to the senses of all who are involved.  It seeks scapegoats and sacrifices.  It allows millions to suffer starvation, genocide, indignity and madness, mostly because we cannot see power as something beyond our will, that no matter how much we worship and strategize, we can never control.

Because we are addicted to our own sense of entitlement we believe our leaders hold the key to our security through some kind of magic.  The esoteric rites are for high priests only, who are trained to keep the secrets of their submission to powers we cannot name or see.

So how can we live free of oppression? First by understanding that the oppressor is not a person or party or nation or corporation - it is a co-dependent game of denial.   They play their part sometimes well, sometimes appallingly, but the news reveals they are exhausted.  Even the largest corporation treating civil society like an obstruction to their goals, installing  puppet governments to do their bidding, can only maintain their illusion if we keep believing in it.

If power is within and beyond us then we must learn how to negotiate with power as we would with nature - that it belongs to history and the future, to our ancestors and our great-grandchildren.  This requires a sense of shared ownership and responsibility.

The Inescapable Network of Mutuality - by Martin Luther King Jr.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted.

Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.

We must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.

The foundation of such a method is love.

Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war.

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

We shall hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.

(Singing the Living Tradition. Beacon Press, Boston. 1993)