Good day, Class. Some of you have asked what schedule of course work is required to become a Doctor of Separate Reality. Please understand that this is not a PhD, though like many degrees of that type in many fields, is utterly pointless and without value in the workplace. It is only indicative of mastery of numerous absurd and esoteric concepts, most of which are virtually unknown to the entire population of the planet.
Attainment of a Separate Reality sheepskin entails direct experience of consciousness as it existed prior to the imposition of Failed Nineteenth Century Beliefs upon the collective mentality of Humankind. And, like Napoleon taking the French Crown from the hands of the Pope and settling it upon his own brow, one must confer the honor upon oneself. Tanning the hide of one’s own sheep is no easy task either, as there are many other animals, mostly bipedal, which are easier to fleece.
Today’s Failed Belief System simply must be discarded to attain even a smattering of the insights consistent with a point of view which recognizes the absurdities of competing contemporary “realities.” Any number of social or academic rationalizations aside, these so-called realities stand opposed to the Separate Reality once generally agreed-upon as reflecting what is historically known as “common sense,” as has the Failed Belief we will shortly consider.
It has poisoned the culture and the body politic for at least the past two centuries. Having long and ugly roots, it nonetheless goes by the lovely name Romanticism. To approach this pleasant-sounding but unpleasant subject, however, we must first consider a term which might have entered your consciousness as you slept through your Western Civ classes, but may not be familiar to those of you who were “liberated” from even bothering with the study of “Dead White Men.” We begin with the Age of Enlightenment, though it has nothing to do with the satori of Zen Buddhism or the cosmic consciousness of Taoism, Sufism, or the Transcendentalism of both Hindu and Western schools of thought.
The “Enlightenment” we are concerned with at the moment has its origins in the seventeenth century and the advancement of Reason, which is well and good and resulted in numerous virtuous events, notably the overthrow of tyrants, establishment of democratic republics, individual freedoms and tolerance of religious differences. A robust cultural force, it was all very scientific and measurable and free from superstition and the like, but ultimately rather too much so. Contrasting sharply at times with the other forms of Enlightenment mentioned, it lacked somewhat in areas of faith, or spirituality, or emotional fulfillment. Thus the blowback, or unintended consequences, appearing in the form of Romanticism, first augured in the writings of Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
In a nutshell, which might be an appropriate metaphor, Rousseau insisted that human beings in their “natural state,” one in which they could live without having to contend with the repressive hierarchies of established social and economic conditions, are essentially good and moral, the implication being that human nature is in itself good, and society, with its emphasis on things like private property, competition, and merit (thus inequality of outcomes), is bad. Bad, bad, bad-but Rousseau’s theories are themselves problematic. The idea that “what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine” has its obvious drawbacks, the ancient Aryan word for “war” having the meaning “time to go get more cattle,” for example.
From there, we could labor endlessly over the theoretical minutiae of the idea of the Social Contract and the myth of the Noble Savage, but the pertinent issue is the perception of human nature. If we are born “good”, only to be ruined by society and economics and so forth, we can trust our instincts and feelings. If that idea is wrong, that is to say, if such things as the Biblical metaphor of the Fall and “The Smoking Gun Presents: The World’s Dumbest” can be understood as being, at the very least, indicative of the imperfectability of human nature, there exists a fundamental error in cultural thought that could use some fine-tuning.
Romanticism contrasts easily with Realism; the former relates to subjectivity, the latter jibes with more objective matters. The Romantic nature desires that there be no war; the Realist knows war has been around since prehistory, and thus wants the finest, most fearsome weapons-not necessarily to obtain more cattle, but just in case self-defense, or defense of said cattle, is required. The Romantic is passionate to obtain, or even to be, an object of desire; the Realist places the good of the loved one first in relationships, and refuses to compromise honor or integrity to obtain wealth, fame, or the self-esteem associated with sexual conquests or more cattle.
For the Romantic, feeling is everything, the end-all and be-all in living and decision making. This world-view has evolved since the days of Rousseau into a dominant cultural force. While Enlightenment-based points of view depend upon Reason in the process of founding opinion and judgment upon facts, Romance cannot be bothered by anything that might get in the way of the preciousness of subjective emotion. Thus the Separate Realities, as exemplified by this exchange between Whoopi Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly:
GOLDBERG: I’m still not a fan of the war in Iraq. I think we went in under misguided ideals and with no real way to get out. And now what we’re seeing is everybody saying how are we going to get out? How are we going to get out? Democrats, tell us how we’re going get out. Republicans, how are we going to get out? Nobody has an answer. Nobody knows how to get out of this, because it’s a mess.
O’REILLY: And that’s a legitimate point of view.
GOLDBERG: OK. That’s my opinion.
O’REILLY: And I respect that point of view. But if you’re going to go out and say to millions of people we got to get out of there now, then, I’m going come in and say, “Well, what happens if we do that? Do we put America in more danger?” And it doesn’t matter how you feel, you need to – you need to think about that.
GOLDBERG: If you are asking my opinion…
O’REILLY: Yes.
GOLDBERG: Then it does matter how I feel.
O’REILLY: No, you need to think about it.
GOLDBERG: No, Bill. You need to think about it. That’s how you do it. I don’t do it that way.
O’REILLY: So you don’t have a responsibility to back up how you feel?
GOLDBERG: No. I have a responsibility to answer your question.
Rousseau and the Romantics who came after him might, in large part, have questioned–with good cause and motive– the efficacy of Reason in settling all issues, but to dismiss the function of Reason altogether in establishing a viable point of view, one on which actionable decisions can be made, reflects a Separate Reality which exists in a dimension not of time and space but of attitude, where emotion is the ne plus ultra of cultural forces.
Certainly this is a viewpoint that has often been termed one of mere subjective delusion. It can’t be called thinking: it insists that it is not. It’s not Idealism, unless in the pejorative sense that, while it may be wonderfully imaginative, it’s worth nothing except to those who claim it “contributes to the conversation”, meaning “impedes rational discussion and decision-making”. Thereby it derails any realistic train of thought regarding issues and events on behalf of those who would coerce acceptance of their agendas or otherwise lord their pseudo-moral sense of superiority over everyone else.
Genuinely idealistic students of life are encouraged to heal themselves of this kind of cultural conditioning, toward goals of clearer thinking about themselves and the human condition, while also being strongly cautioned that the attempt to cure others is rarely, if ever, successful. They prefer their reality separate. They pay for it, too, but we should not be compelled to do so.
Until next time, think responsibly, and don’t hesitate to let someone else be the designated drunk.
–SG
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