Episode 32
Transcript:
Jiddu Krishnamurti:
First isn't it obvious that all human beings throughout the world after so many million of years are conditioned. They are conditioned by their religions, by establishments of governments, by the economic condition, climate, food, clothes, by their family, by their education and so on. How do we deal with this fact and discover if it is at all possible to free the mind from this conditioning- from two, three, 5,000 years of so-called civilization? That's the problem. Can I be free from all this?
Peter Joseph:
Good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning, everybody. This is Peter Joseph and welcome to Revolution Now, episode 32, November 11th, 2021. The opening audio was from a talk given by Jiddu Krishnamurti years ago on the subject of conditioning, something he often liked to speak about in his philosophical musings. For those unfamiliar with Krishnamurti, he was a unique thinker writer and public speaker. Someone who would be horrified if anyone ever used the word guru or any such egoist pop culture status distinction to compliment him as a so-called philosopher.
And there's nothing spiritually woo, woo, or mystical about his writings or talks by the way. Rather, he had a talent for engaging wide trains of thought, including a kind of meditative process of self questioning whereby rather than directly impose perspectives on the reader or listener, he created a kind of environment for them to ponder in, in the interest to foster a personal process of discovery. Planting seeds, as opposed to imposing, which I think is an advanced form of teaching.
But anyway, more specific to the subject of conditioning, we're reminded of the paradoxical question, how much of you is you? And I would argue it's one of the most inconvenient considerations we face given our sense of identity and ego. It's deeply counterintuitive and hence difficult for our semi conscious minds to think anything but our own free mental will, can be the point of origin in our behaviors. The definition of cognitive dissonance is holding two opposing beliefs at the same time, posing the question that who you think you are, and what you're doing is actually a consequence of conditions and influences somewhat out of your control, eroding your sense of free will and identity.
A question that invokes perhaps the most profound cognitive dissonance we as human beings can experience. It takes a kind of humbleness and sensitivity to fully feel that. A strange kind of compassion in regard to not only others around you and their behaviors, but also your own. To recognize ourselves as throughput's, balancing the tight rope between our own volition or free will and hence rationalized responsible action by which we tend to judge each other of course, and necessarily so, and the bio psychosocial pressures that come from the external,
in one sense or another, is indeed a challenging sensitivity. And modern culture is very confused by this notion to say the least. We live in an era defined by the assumption of personal responsibility with very little true gravity given to the system dynamics that motivate and create human behavior, which is ultimately a tragedy because we are avoiding from a structuralist standpoint, the potential to resolve many aberrant antisocial behavioral tendencies in society by rejecting this basic sociology. Now you might notice I just used the word "external" to describe influence or conditioning.
And of course, that is an illusion. There is no such thing as external in life, there are only special case, divisionary, objectified nouns that we have self referentially formed in our attempt to comprehend and organize our environment around us. Hence, the reductionism that's been talked about before in this podcast highlighting the need for a synthetic holism once again, to show larger order context. Western philosophy has organized self largely without context. As a series of parts, once again, we see the tree. We define it by its common attributes, like it exists in a picture book, roots branches leaves.
Yet those characteristics are no more important than the environment that the tree requires to survive at all, the air, the land, the water, the ecosystem. And the same for the individual. We see the individual and we ignore the larger order environment that not only creates that individual, but also perpetuates the individual and the individual's behaviors. A so-called external environment that consists not only of our biological unfolding, but also our ever complex psychological and sociological unfoldings, which are largely attributed to the state of education in a given society along with of course, the structures, institutions and related incentives that guide general survival behavior.
So going back to Krishnamurti and his context of conditioning, what I like about it is the way he uses the word, not just to associate it to some kind of social influence or educational influence, but also extending the context to evolution itself. Because we are dealing with the same basic concept. For eons, an organism is crafted or conditioned by its environment. Molding genetic dynamics and the malleability of the human organism or any organism is quite clear from the standpoint of evolutionary adaptation and the plasticity inherent.
Which by the way, is an excellent counter to those who ignorantly promote the idea that somehow the behaviors we see in life are a result of a fixed human nature. Yet, no matter how you define human nature, it can only be a transient state from an evolutionary standpoint. The difference is the time scale. On one side, you have single generational cultural influence, for example, that alters behavior in an immediate sense, at least in the scope of a generational time, such as having a belief in religion or adherence to some cultural pattern or ideology that you were taught as a child.
While on the other side, in the very long term, you have layers of complexity that produce things like the extension of our forebrain, challenging the very structure of the human mind, changing the nature of consciousness itself. So we're dealing with the process of influence and plasticity, both in the short term and the long, and the only constant is change. Who knows what may happen in long term human evolution as these conditioning pressures continue? Assuming we survive at all, we might be able to in the very distant future photosynthesize sunlight.
All of this is to say that we have evolved to adapt to changing circumstances. Ideally, at least from an evolutionary standpoint, to perpetuate the species. And it would seem irrational if we had evolved a nature, a human nature, that was in fact incompatible with our own survival, would it not? And when you think about that problem, because our behavior today as a society is absolutely incompatible with what's required for the natural world, meaning we are violating our most natural survival laws, sustainability laws.
You find the problem of two opposing forces of influence or conditioning. Once again, one is visceral and one is abstracted in modern cultural comprehension. The visceral force of conditioning is our manmade social system underscored by market capitalism, which has codified a certain type of philosophical and operational perspective that is arguably extremely destructive. As agents of the system seek to only perpetuate the system, the game board, for the sake of short term personal interests at the cost of long term destruction.
The obstructed force of conditioning is in fact, the real world, oddly enough. How many people out there still don't believe in basic sustainability science? And the reason they don't, is because the problems associated are too large, too intangible. Not to mention the system incentives of our man-made economy move against such recognition. As shocking as it is, humanity's contemporary observation of the requirements to be balanced with nature and hence, sustainable is indeed completely abstracted.
Western society, which has effectively taken over the entire planet with little exception, now unified in a neoliberal economic bias, is rooted in a philosophy that has absolutely no relationship to nature or our habitat. We have lost our most common sense. It would not surprise me if in a few years if students walked into a grocery store and saw tomatoes, and literally had no idea where the tomatoes even came from. Maybe the tomatoes stork brought them. Anyway enough of this tangent, all this is to say that our lives are conditioned through influence both in the short term and the long term.
And we are universally malleable in that way, even though there are clear patterns that will emerge and it's not some blank slate, of course. I'd like to recommend Dr. Robert Sapolsky's book Behave and his lectures on the subject of how we can understand any behavior from this short to long term timescale. He has a brilliant way of describing what happens in the mind before triggering a behavior and then analyzing longer and longer timeframes of context, both cultural and evolutionary to produce that given behavior.
Now, all that said, let's jump back into our analysis of common myths and general propaganda people use to support the current economic system. In the prior podcasts, we have covered the myth that capitalism mirrors human nature, along with the myth that the system is a meritocracy in the purest sense of the idea. Hence, you get what you work for, which of course, is not the reality. And the third issue we countered was the idea that the market is neutral. So many people out there still talk about equal opportunity as if it's a real thing in this kind of economic system. The idea that anyone can be rich if they just try hard enough, which of course, is mathematically impossible.
So now we're on to number. Here we go. "Capitalism represents economic democracy." This is a fun one because it's so silly. There are a couple angles to consider. First, there is the, you vote with your dollar idea, right? As is the case with most of these myths, the premise is always something that is partially true or at least true from a certain angle. That angle being exaggerated or taken far out of proportion in regard to the viable application of any premise.
In other words, you take a myopic hyper reductionist observation, and then artificially superimpose it upon the real world. And the more simple and seemingly plausible the premise, at least intuitively, the higher odds it will be believed by the ignorant. "You vote with your dollar," it's a simple idea that attempts to realize a kind of market self-regulation in social affairs, along with good and service determination and how those goods and services are created, of course.
And the delusion takes hold and suddenly you see the world only through this kind of market lens, trying to fit everything into this little box of rationalized causality, right? So more specifically in this, by way of supply and which is the self regulating mechanism in question, the public influences economic activity through what it does and does not buy. This can be argued with respect to everyday purchase decisions, along with more targeted protest actions, such as good boycotts and so forth.
It can also be co contextualized with respect to public financing, political finance, which is where things get extra amusing in this discussion. When you donate to a political candidate under the assumption that money will help assist that political candidates rise, you are voting with your dollar, of course, because you are assisting material resources in advocation. But wait, how does that one play out in a society of great economic inequality? Well, obviously those with the most money have the most purchasing power and hence have the most voting power.
As I have cited before there was a study done in 2014 by Gilens and Page of Northwestern university. And they concluded that "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule near zero statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy." The researchers concluded that lawmakers policy actions tend to support the interest of the wealthy, Wall Street and big corporations. Oh, imagine that. It all makes perfect sense. Let's be consistent, shall we? We live in a society where money is the means and markets create the incentives.
You can buy anything and everything. That is the prevailing religion, is it not? So why would you ever think political office cannot be bought and sold along with legislation itself? That would be inconsistent thinking. And that's the first most glaring problem in this idea. It would only work if the society was economically egalitarian. Because an imbalance in wealth means an imbalance in power. At the most basic foundation of democratic participation is the assumption of equality between actors.
Capitalism seen as a process of democracy, literally translates into one person having hundreds, if not thousands of monetary votes, so to speak, while a poor person has none. More succinctly and gesturely speaking, if you look at the vast unequal conditions we have in a given society or the world at large, you are simultaneously looking at the power imbalance problem. Wider the inequality, the more power imbalance, as we also see empirically and clearly so.
The second problem with this is that in a highly unequal society, once again, life constraints financially will guide people's consumption behavior more than any other moral or ethical disposition. Politics aside, the idea of voting with your dollar in order to curtail the use of say slave labor or animal abuse or pollution and so forth is only as effective as people's ability to afford such morality. In other words, by force of social stratification, people are not only as free as their purchasing power will allow them to be, they are also only as socially conscious or ethical as their purchase of power will allow them to be.
It costs more to care. All the goods that are produced in higher integrity circumstances or have higher integrity dynamics or characteristics are more expensive. A single mom on minimum wage is not going to be prioritizing the environmental conditions of the sweat shop that made her children's inexpensive shoes. This fundamental constraint on each and every individual creates an economic logic that can only barely approach interests in sustainability or human rights.
Ethically, I personally would like to drive a non-hydrocarbon based vehicle. Guess what? I can't afford a Tesla or anything of that nature. Even more ethically, I would like to not have a car at all and use a decent public transit system. Guess what? The option isn't available in the hell scape known as Los Angeles, where I currently live. And everyone talks about the horrors of single use, good or single use plastics and so forth. Yet we walk past the 99 cents store all the time and we ask ourselves, is such a demographically targeted market a good idea?
It's like fast food. Yeah. You can eat some grotesquely fried monstrosity for a couple bucks and then endure the many, many thousands of dollars it's going to cost when you're dealing with long term heart disease. And hence likewise, there is literally a demographic market that is only able to afford what it can. And the less purchasing power available, the more fundamentally destructive people are to themselves and the ecosystem. That's how consumer targeted stratification works.
The demographic buying power dynamic is a powerful feedback loop that basically disallows ethical considerations in favor of managing artificial scarcity on behalf of the individual, simply trying to get by. So anyone who says you vote with your dollar is completely ignoring this system level fact. And moving on- Third, this idea also emphasizes a longstanding propaganda that it's the consumer's responsibility to take care of things and never the company's.
There is nothing more beneficial to the inherently ruthless corporate architecture than declaring that the companies are simply responding to consumer demand and hence their decisions only to blame for any negative outcomes. That's quite brilliant, actually in a very Machiavellian way. Remember that old anti-pollution ad with the native American and the tear on his cheek when he sees the garbage on the side of the road? That ad was paid for by the very industries that produce such plastic and other forms of pollution.
The message, it's on you, the consumer to recycle and pick up your trash and so on and so forth. We have nothing to do with it as the producing company. We are just at your bidding, consumers. And implied in all of this noise is the idea that by some mysterious force of supply and demand, the average person, the consumer is in control of what goods and services are produced and how they are being produced. Yet, if you pay attention to how the market decides what to produce, it's actually entirely top down.
The public doesn't somehow communicate their interests and concepts with corporations for their own economic self-interest. Rather, and quite obviously, goods are imposed upon the public's will pushed into consciousness, generating consumer consumption trends again from the top down through marketing and advertising. While it is true, corporations are obviously probing metrics that they've collected to figure out people will buy. Let's not confuse legitimate, tangible needs coming from personal interests of the individual in consumer society with corporations seeking market share.
That is one of the most unique illusions in this whole equation. Society today is bombarded all day long, assaulted in fact, all day long with the imposition to consume something, because that is what the system requires to operate. And that bombardment is manipulation and has nothing to do with meeting human needs. It does so by proxy, as a side effect, in fact. The consumer has no direct about anything when it comes to the imposition of a given good. Remember the rise of Apple corporation upon the invention of the iPod, one of its most profitable ventures that put Apple on the map years ago?
Do you think anyone asked for that shit? The iPod was made as an upgrade to portable CD players. Okay, cool. And the cult of Apple was duped by the endless lifestyle marketing campaign where eventually everyone and their mother had to have a stupid little MP3 player with people lining up for 20 blocks in downtown New York city Apple store to buy this stupid shit. I was there. I remember watching these people, standing in awe at the litany of people looking for an upgrade did CD player. They're not there because of the utility, they're there because it is a trend.
And that is how contemporary society works on the consumer level. I even knew people years ago that waited until the next version of the iPod came out and then bought that one. Cult of Apple people that had seven versions of iPods, just because they were dedicated to the idea of participating in that market. It was just weird. So billions and billions of dollars made taking a slight revision of something that already existed and then marketing the shit out of it to create public appeal. And people hate it when you talk that way.
Because once again, it challenges their own volition. People don't want to believe that they're doing something because they've been manipulated into doing it by social forces. A good introspective question to ask yourself is why do you buy anything that you do? Why is it that you can be perfectly fine one day satisfied with life. And then your friend buys something, you see it, or you see an advertisement and suddenly you develop this need to want to have this thing that you didn't need at all prior, and probably isn't necessary to your life anyway.
Not to mention the most broad, fundamental sickness inherent to it all. Since the drive for more and more material development is insanely unhealthy as there is no end. It's a value system disorder once again. So the main point here, the system is dictatorial in how it produces by force of structure to keep the cyclical consumption machine going. It does not meet demand to start. It has to entice demand. Demand is literally manufactured. I mean seriously, why do we have advertising at all? It's stunningly offensive and grotesque. You can't go five seconds in this life without dealing with an advertisement from somewhere.
Or even worse, meeting another human being that has been so indoctrinated into this commercial society, that they are literally a walking advertisement. That's how bad things have become. Advertising is a genre of communication entire early dedicated to manipulating your interests for the benefit of others. Is this philosophy that humans apparently have no idea what they want or need and require some kind of larger all knowing corporate force to tell them what's best for them to sell them something-
is this really a good method of sustainable social organization? And as I've said before, from an environmental conservation standpoint, it's beyond preposterous, billions of humans trying to survive over generational time on a finite planet would have a value system of materialism and commercialism and consumerism that promotes infinite growth. Obviously, an intelligent society would support minimalism and conservation and of course efficiency.
None of which exists in market capitalism. So to summarize my third point, a company, sector or industry is imposing its will, working to manipulate people's social nature and vulnerabilities in order to create addictions and insecurities that lead people to the next purchase, for the sake of course, of economic growth and cyclical consumption as the system demands. And finally, Fourth. Coming back to this broad notion of just capitalism and democracy, we're faced at the most glaring reality of business structure.
Is the most notorious form of business organization, the hierarchy that we see across the world with very little variance, resemble anything that you would call democracy in and of itself? Is it not a pyramid hierarchy that commands from the top down with responsibility from the bottom up? Is business itself as we know it in practice, not a culturally accepted form of hierarchical dominance oriented dictatorship with wage slaves hired and fired at will while the owners operate in literally a pure dictatorial fashion?
Aside from the exploitation of the wages in order to gain so much more disproportionately. So one guy can barely survive on minimum wage, working multiple jobs, having to be on welfare while another person has a $50 million yacht? If you think for one second that you can organize human activity in a series of such business dictatorships and then magically expect anything that would even remotely resemble democracy on the political level, particularly, is stunningly naive.
Consistency will always prevail. You can't just magically say that money and special interests will have no place here. Once again, folks are going to vote with their dollar and perpetuate what is mostly an inverse totalitarian corporate structure. The Supreme court ruling years ago that generally declared it was free speech to spend money to influence politics is actually not an irrational conclusion. It is completely consistent with what the social system is. Democracy is a distant afterthought. And I'll conclude with this issue just by summarizing that the idea that capitalism could be considered in the same universe as democracy, which requires equality surrounding social determination is absolutely laughable.
And I think I'm going to have to cut the episode a little bit short because the next response to our list of myths and propaganda is quite long. We are on number five now out of 13 in total, I think. So this is going to take a few more episodes. It's kind of funny when I started this, I was, "Oh, I'll knock this out in two episodes." Obviously not. I guess, if I didn't have my opening rants and tangents, it would move a little bit more quickly, but hopefully they are appreciated.
This program is brought to you by my Patreon. I've got a lot of things happening simultaneously. I'm very excited about Zeitgeist four. I have a very new approach to it. It's going to be a refreshing exercise I think. Obviously, it's a continuation of the prior trilogy as it were, but I'm going to take a different stylistic direction and a different narrative direction than before. But of course, it will stay extremely Zeitgeisty. All right, folks, I appreciate it. Be safe out there. Talk to you soon.