Gramsci Again

October 5, 2022 9:56am

Our first grandchild arrived October 3, so it has been a busy time. With a new generation on the ground, world events take a slightly new perspective. The prospect of war with Russia is even more frightening and nonsensical than before. While trying to parse the significance of the Nord Stream sabotage, I run again into the work and words of Gramsci and find this jewel on Wikipedia:

“Gramsci saw Marxism as a marriage of the purely intellectual critique of religion found in Renaissance humanism and the elements of the Reformation that had appealed to the masses. For Gramsci, Marxism could supersede religion only if it met people’s spiritual needs, and to do so people would have to think of it as an expression of their own experience.” – Wikipedia

I have a link to a good article on the impact on current culture of Gramsci’s ideas – search his name above. In short, he realized the failures of Marx and Lennin; he suggested that obedience is better won from a willing partner than from a beaten and tortured subject. To achieve this obedience, he suggested that Communists must spend generations remaking society, taking away traditional touchstones of religion, family, and country. Only then would communism be able to step into the breach and proffer the “salvation” of hopeless men and women.

So, all around, you see the fruits of this effort. Society is ravaged by a rejection of traditional values and the consequences of this rejection: lack of personal discipline and responsibility, addiction, moral decay, poverty, an uneducated and ill-informed citizenry. The bright line between good and bad now difficult to discern for a stunted populace. And, while this insidious process has unfolded over decades (and accelerated exponentially in the last few years), the unwitting pawns of the progressive movement, unknowingly follow the blueprint laid out by a frustrated Marxist written in an Italian prison during WWII – thereby sowing the seeds of their own destruction. The denouement is nigh, time to pick a side.

Letting Go

October 9, 2022 10:54am

I am reading the Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Ranier Maria Rilke. It is reminiscent of both Swann’s Way and The Book of Disquiet. It will go on my list of recommended reading!

7:20pm

I sit outside on a crisp autumn evening reading the Notebooks. The sky is a deep blue background to the yellowing elms and cherries whose trunks are lost in black shadows. We understand the depth of the woods by the blackness lurking there at the base. Just as I walked silent, darkened corridors at school during Christmas vacations when everyone else was gone and I was alone in the empty buildings believing in the floor though I saw nothing but black before me and only trusted logic to carry me through on the solid footing I assumed would be there.

On this autumn evening, I heard geese honking far away and barely caught sight of them with my bad eyes as they strangely headed north to the river – a destination I just guessed at.

I watch the leaves at the tops of the trees tremble in the barely discernable breeze and I wish to be a spirit hovering there among them – one with the Earth and the universe. I would whisper to them, “do not despair, let go. It is alright; billions before you have done it. They found the strength to fall, and it is they who have nurtured you this past summer season as you will nurture those who come after you. Fear not and let go. And then one frosty morning, they will fulfill their destiny, fall to the ground, enter the soil and provide for the next generation.

I think that someday soon I will whisper these same words to myself. Some crisp autumn evening as I sit in some lonely and wild forest, I will comfort myself with these last words. With a bottle of wine, some cheese and perhaps Barber’s Adagio for Strings, I too will let go as light fades in the trees and that final darkness settles.

The universe proceeds according to its cycles; birth, growth, death, renewing itself just as the Rig Veda says, the cosmic egg expanding and collapsing, just to begin again.

How many lives have we lived in this cycle that has existed since the beginning of time? Did you ever get it right in your infinite attempts? Do you even care any longer?

Dog

October 18, 2022 10:15am

My reply to Joel Hirst’s excellent piece RIP My Best Friend | Joel D. Hirst’s Blog (joelhirst.blog)

A lady in my office (small rural school district) befriended a dog that just had pups under a deck across the street. The dog was afraid of men. Eventually, the lady is feeding the dog and the dog is hanging out in the office. The woman now says someone’s got to take this dog. I had two young daughters who wanted a dog, so I took her. The kids grew up with this dog who had a pretty good life for a “stray.” She had the run of five acres, and she would follow me on walks around the perimeter. She would shake hands and I would chase her around the yard as she ran figure eights around me. The kids went to college, to distant cities, to married life and still she was here. I would look into those brown pools of liquid eyes and wonder what was going on behind them…. even now I choke up thinking about this. She aged and slowed down. The liquid eyes lost their luster, and illness came. I remember the last time we walked the fence; it was very hard. When I put her down, a tear fell on my arm. With people, it’s always complicated, with dogs it’s pretty much simple, straightforward love. That’s why it’s hard to give them up.

God Commits Suicide

October 22, 2022 8:23pm

Let’s say you are God. What’s your first move? There’s nothing but you. NOTHING!

Whadaya do? Create a big empty space…. then fill it with miniscule bits of matter? or do you create one big flat infinite “Earth”? Come on…you can do better than that; use some imagination! For cryin’ out loud, you’re omniscient and omnipotent,,,,is this the best you can do?

And then there’s companionship. Do you even need it, given who you are? If you do want some company, how about making a bunch of stupid savages who can’t follow one simple instruction – “don’t eat the apple”, you say….and what do these dumbasses do? Eat the freakin’ apple!

No, it might be better to create a companion with whom you can actually share the bliss of creation…. someone that actually understands you and what you have accomplished.

Which do you choose? It was Hegel who said, “only one man ever understood me and he didn’t understand.” So, if you are like many thoughtful people, you probably have few real friends and literally no one with whom you share your innermost thoughts. Now that you’re God, multiply that by a trillion and realize that you will face eternity as a very lonely deity…….that is, unless you can end it yourself! Can God commit suicide? If you do, what happens to your creation? Does it go on? or does it disappear? If we begin to see the stars go out, we’ll know the answer!

Dissolve the Countries

October 24, 2022 9:29am

I read more about the historical duplicity of the US government in light of the war in Ukraine and I despair over the prospect of US youth serving as cannon fodder in the plans of the puppet masters running this evil sideshow we call global politics! I wonder if the internet will have any effect on the run up to war this time. If we could reach a critical mass of people enlightened enough to see through the manipulations of our own leaders, we might stand a chance of thwarting their self-serving interests.

The Biden administration is in much the same situation as FDR before WWII and the provocations of both Russia (Ukraine joining NATO and the sabotage of Nord Stream) and China (chip sanctions) seem designed to push us closer to war. Good for all those invested in the MIC and bad for all those who will suffer the consequences.

I begin to think that all countries should be dissolved, and all powers given them should be returned to the local polities. This would immediately eliminate foreign incursions and 90% of unnecessary spending. Imagine if our army was made up ONLY of the individual states’ National Guards and that any concerted military action had to be approved by all the states. I think we’d be better off.

The Weight

October 25, 2022 11:52pm

I never arrived in Nazareth. That’s the problem.

I find that I am totally unsuitable for life. It has always been that way. I try to fit, to pretend but the preface belongs to some other volume; these were penned by different authors whose visions forever disturb in some dark, disjointed dystopia.

I am a weight, dragging down everything and everyone. A mass, warping time and space so that the unsuspecting slip over the event horizon of my nihilism and come face to face with the nothingness of their own personal black hole.

Why is there violence and deceit? Is there not enough already? Avoid further complexity and strive for a simple life of mutual respect and toleration so we can make the best of a bad hand.