An American Awakening
America is arguably the most powerful nation ever to exist on earth, and is also the most diverse. Yet despite the diversity of our cultural, religious, and ideological backgrounds, there are some things we all tend to agree on with differing degrees of vagueness and clarity. One is the essential role that individual, political, and economic freedom plays in our lives and our prosperity. Another is the realization that something is going seriously wrong with American culture. Our nation is in crisis, and the apex has not yet been reached.
The economic engine of American opportunity and productivity is an unparalleled cornucopia of wealth and power, yet a nihilistic emptiness and animalistic mindlessness haunts the background of our materialistic carnival. The foundations for the most peaceful and harmonious co-existence of people from all over the world have been laid within our own borders, yet a culture of violence and irrationality, which glorifies excessive emotionalism and the use of raw force to solve all problems, threatens us from within, and has seeped into our children – some of whom are now committing crimes of senseless destruction on a scale that was unimaginable in past generations. Our technology advances to such a degree that soon human beings may not even be necessary - which may be just as well - for unlike these creations of ours, human beings on the whole are not evolving in any substantive fashion at all. Like rats in a maze we chase the flashing lights of bonus minutes and plasma TV’s and combination cell phone / computer / Global Positioning devices, becoming every bit as mechanical and programmed as the technology that leads us. Our principles of personal liberty have been a beacon to the world, yet much of our Constitution has been suspended in the name of security against a threat our own government has played a demonstrable role in creating. Our weapons of mass destruction grow even more destructive, yet we grow no wiser or more deserving of their possession. A caveman with a club and a caveman with a missile are both still cavemen. One can just cause more death than the other. To pursue the path of an ever-evolving material power without a corresponding evolution of consciousness is akin to giving a flamethrower to an adolescent. It is sheer insanity!
The twentieth century writer Julius Evola wrote “If one day normal conditions were to return, few civilizations would seem as odd as the present one, in which every form of power and dominion over material things is sought, while mastery over one’s own emotions and psychic life in general is entirely overlooked.” This insight gives us one of many keys we can use to begin the attempt at pulling our society out of the abyss it is spiraling into. To save a culture as obsessed with power and wealth as ours, we must redefine what “wealth” and “power” actually are.
Consciousness is a funny thing: people think they already have it, and therefore spend no time in acquiring more of it. Yet if you spend time examining your own habits, you might be surprised at how much knowledge of yourself you are missing. Watch the actions of others, and you might be shocked to discover that you are surrounded by sleepwalkers who move through life as if through a dream, unaware of the contrived, subconscious, and symbolic nature of the forces that shape them.
Technological power is not true power, and material wealth is not true wealth. In all cases it involves a man or woman who does not change at all despite their ability to acquire possessions and manipulate their surroundings. A man who has no power over his own mind and emotions is not powerful, no matter what office he holds or how many weapons he owns. A woman who cannot find her value within herself is not wealthy, no matter how much she owns. True wealth and power belongs to an inner, conscious, even “spiritual” state. In extraverted, materialistic America, this concept is as alien as the willful poverty preached by original Christianity!
Now we have the “War on Terror”, “War on Drugs”, War on the Middle Class”, etc. and all these terms are misleading in the extreme. We are actually in the midst of a War against the true power of self-knowledge, and the true wealth of psychological and spiritual evolution. Our own culture wages this war against us, a war against the very self-mastery and growth of consciousness that our survival depends upon. To recognize this is but a step forward towards a true Awakening in America.
- Werbinox
The economic engine of American opportunity and productivity is an unparalleled cornucopia of wealth and power, yet a nihilistic emptiness and animalistic mindlessness haunts the background of our materialistic carnival. The foundations for the most peaceful and harmonious co-existence of people from all over the world have been laid within our own borders, yet a culture of violence and irrationality, which glorifies excessive emotionalism and the use of raw force to solve all problems, threatens us from within, and has seeped into our children – some of whom are now committing crimes of senseless destruction on a scale that was unimaginable in past generations. Our technology advances to such a degree that soon human beings may not even be necessary - which may be just as well - for unlike these creations of ours, human beings on the whole are not evolving in any substantive fashion at all. Like rats in a maze we chase the flashing lights of bonus minutes and plasma TV’s and combination cell phone / computer / Global Positioning devices, becoming every bit as mechanical and programmed as the technology that leads us. Our principles of personal liberty have been a beacon to the world, yet much of our Constitution has been suspended in the name of security against a threat our own government has played a demonstrable role in creating. Our weapons of mass destruction grow even more destructive, yet we grow no wiser or more deserving of their possession. A caveman with a club and a caveman with a missile are both still cavemen. One can just cause more death than the other. To pursue the path of an ever-evolving material power without a corresponding evolution of consciousness is akin to giving a flamethrower to an adolescent. It is sheer insanity!
The twentieth century writer Julius Evola wrote “If one day normal conditions were to return, few civilizations would seem as odd as the present one, in which every form of power and dominion over material things is sought, while mastery over one’s own emotions and psychic life in general is entirely overlooked.” This insight gives us one of many keys we can use to begin the attempt at pulling our society out of the abyss it is spiraling into. To save a culture as obsessed with power and wealth as ours, we must redefine what “wealth” and “power” actually are.
Consciousness is a funny thing: people think they already have it, and therefore spend no time in acquiring more of it. Yet if you spend time examining your own habits, you might be surprised at how much knowledge of yourself you are missing. Watch the actions of others, and you might be shocked to discover that you are surrounded by sleepwalkers who move through life as if through a dream, unaware of the contrived, subconscious, and symbolic nature of the forces that shape them.
Technological power is not true power, and material wealth is not true wealth. In all cases it involves a man or woman who does not change at all despite their ability to acquire possessions and manipulate their surroundings. A man who has no power over his own mind and emotions is not powerful, no matter what office he holds or how many weapons he owns. A woman who cannot find her value within herself is not wealthy, no matter how much she owns. True wealth and power belongs to an inner, conscious, even “spiritual” state. In extraverted, materialistic America, this concept is as alien as the willful poverty preached by original Christianity!
Now we have the “War on Terror”, “War on Drugs”, War on the Middle Class”, etc. and all these terms are misleading in the extreme. We are actually in the midst of a War against the true power of self-knowledge, and the true wealth of psychological and spiritual evolution. Our own culture wages this war against us, a war against the very self-mastery and growth of consciousness that our survival depends upon. To recognize this is but a step forward towards a true Awakening in America.
- Werbinox
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