and...

[solarpsychedelic]

Went out, got soaking wet, then dried off. Still on a roll. Here we go:

I used to think that enough education and exposure to humanistic ways of thinking would safeguard a person from tyranny and cultic thinking. But that my idealism. Life experience, studying history, and observation have taught me the opposite:

Both sides are vulnerable to cults and cultic thinking based around the core problem of hubris.

And what safeguards you more than education is self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

A person could have only a grammar school education but still know what’s going on while the Ph.D. just fvcking falls for it.

When you start to think that only your way, your life, your head guy, are the best and the only way to go about life then you have a blind spot, you’re disconnecting from reality, and you might be in a cult.

Cults on the right include German National Socialism and Italian Fascism. Cults on the left include the Cambodian Khmer Rouge and Jonestown.

And at what points do the two ends of the horseshoe meet?

• idealism or at least someone selling/propagandizing idealistic notions of how things “should be.”


• a strongman on top making promises for…


• easy answers, like, let’s say, a solution


• the strongman’s lieutenants jockeying behind the scenes for their slice of the power pie


• purity politics and purity tests that increase and become more baroque over time until nobody qualifies


• a sense of who is the elite and the elect and who is not


• disconnection from the real world and good, loving people (who may or may not be the family of origins, because abusive families can operate like cults).


• and if it gets bad enough or the cult gets enough power, targeting and persecution of those outside the cult: scapegoats.


• and due to ridiculous purity tests, scapegoating, and jockeying in power, cults can, if they get big and power enough, end in violence and death.

How do we get over this mess? First, we have to get over ourselves and acknowledge our humanity, our humility, and that we as humans have more in common than we currently think.

Humility in the sense of humbleness is the antidote to hubris.

Humbleness to know that you, me, we, all of us are mere blips in the universe. The fact that we are here, we are sentient beings on a planet that supports life while the other planets are dead rocks, is amazing. That mere fact alone ought to inspire humbleness and gratitude and a desire to make the most of that little blip that we have.

Why would you want to waste that blip on negativity and fear and hurting others?

In the end, nobody is more important than another. Because we are all nobodies. And there’s a freedom and a joy in that.