Maybe what I’m really after in speaking of an imaginary “you” and “Me” is a rapport with these persistent thoughts of self and other, these imaginary beings that occupy center stage in life. I’m not interested in being a writer, it’s not my career. But in looking at the dishonesty of thought honestly I’m dealing with a communal mess. And part of the resolution of a communal mess will necessarily involve communication of this sort.
Writing provides the opportunity for an elongated span of attention on these matters. But it’s not the only way to approach all this. So it’s not about writing, it’s about the communal movement of thought. In any communicative case (speaking, fighting, using sign language, doing math) the same issue looms that I was trying to contend with — what to do about the self-image that insists on acting like a middle-man at all times, even poking its ugly little head between two embracing lovers more often than not in the form of anxieties and worries. This spoiled brat of thought has to be the center of attention and is constantly driven by insecurities, because it is by nature a deception, a projection posing as a reality.
So the question tends to be, how do I look at thought honestly knowing full well that a fictitious “I” or “me” will inevitably intrude on the scene demanding to play a central role?
There are a million ways to handle this and all have been tried in these essays, with varying effects. The one is to do what is being done in this paragraph, which is to refuse to use personal language and speak from the third person’s perch.
“We know the predator. We see them feed on us. We are aware to starve the beast is our destiny.” — John Trudell
Dear fellow white men, but I hope others stick around as a Greek chorus.
An honest recognition of this culture’s history of treachery, kidnapping, torture, and murder is needed to read this.
However, that doesn’t mean that white men can claim a supremacy here — as if we were a supreme example of human violence and domination. Every empire is racist or murderous.
However, our own empire is not yet history. And ours has become more destructive than any previous empire, because it coincided with the development of new technologies of control. And this gives our own brutalities more destructive force on a global scale, compared with other violent organizations of the past, such as the Roman Empire.
So, even though this is a human problem, the hypocrisy of my “own” people (our conviction that we’re the good guys no matter what history has to say) is the particular expression or surface bark on this trunk of human suffering, through which we need to start drilling, in order to reach the common roots of the problem.
So, I start by the simple and now seemingly obvious confession that America has not been a “good guy”, like white people believed. We are like all empires, a sociopathic institution that is more concerned with maintaining its position of power, and was not often a light unto the world, as white people have been led to believe.
The “citizens” (or subjects) of every empire are blackmailed pawns in service to the crime syndicate of the military industrial complex. So, they are also perpetrators (administrators and soldiers) of empire. They are both victims and perpetrators. The self-righteous anger felt by any victim is manipulated by forces of carrots and sticks into serving the very power that subjugates them.
It’s easy to blame MAGA for their loyalty to a corrupt system. But the liberal establishment blames MAGA far too much, because then they don’t have to look in the mirror. Their contempt for the “ignorant working class” distracts them from noticing their own forms of collusion. The denigration of deplorable, white working-class voters is itself a form of supremacy, which prevents a coalition of white-collar and blue-collar from forming, thus protecting the empire from any true rebellion.
In other words, it’s not just MAGA who have misdirected their slings and arrows at fellow peasants, rather than aiming them at “the Epstein class”. The liberal management class does this in blaming the stupidity of the MAGA class. Both liberal and MAGA elements of society merely show different forms of allegiance to the corrupt organization of empire. The one gives its bodies, its muscle, its enforcement; the other works to interrupt the formation of a peasant-wide coalition that would bring the whole thing down.
Furthermore, the liberals still show allegiance to the system itself, from which they derive status and money. And the conservatives still show allegiance to Might as Righteousness, from which they derive purpose, place and power as servants. So, even if we all managed to quit going at one another’s throats and turned the pitchforks towards the Epstein Class, our own colluding tendencies would end up leading to a similar system of supremacy and racist empire, without deeper introspection.
The same relentless energy driving a toddler in its Terrible Twos still drives that voice in my head. However, when I see a toddler, I know I’m in the presence of a genius, albeit a naïve one. It’s not the size of the intellect, but the velocity of learning that describes its intelligence. I, on the other hand, tend to move in well-worn circles, constrained by prejudice and vested interest. I’ve learned to “circle the wagons”, so to speak, around particular conclusions.
Essentially, I’m what happens when a toddler’s unstoppable urge to learn gets diverted into supporting a predatory status quo. Open-ended learning gets replaced by a narrowing framework of instruction as the driving force; and a dawning sense of some innate order or intelligence in the world gets short-circuited by dependence on authority and by conformity to the culture’s creeds and isms.Read More »
Negative Geography 