Brave New World Odors Dept: Aldous Huxley’s little-known excellence!

Here are some excerpts from this hard-to-find book; when you read through this, you may begin to understand *why* it’s so hard to find.

You’ve heard almost everywhere of _Brave New World_, the famous novel by Aldous Huxley, yet have you heard of the much more rare book, “Brave New World–REVISITED” (Harper & Row, 1958, 1965), which provokes thought on topics that are much deeper than mere critique of the Russians? Here are excerpts from this exceptional book, at last! (slightly edited for easier reading and such)

Chapter III. Over Organization

You’ve heard almost everywhere of _Brave New World_, the famous novel by Aldous Huxley, yet have you heard of the much more rare book, “Brave New World–REVISITED” (Harper & Row, 1958, 1965), which provokes thought on topics that are much deeper than mere critique of the Russians? Here are excerpts from this exceptional book, at last! (slightly edited for easier reading and such)

Chapter III. Over Organization     ”The Power Elite…influences the thoughts, the feelings and the actions of virtually everybody. (p.19)

“We see, then, that modern technology has led to the concentration of economic and political power, and to the development of a society controlled (ruthlessly in the totalitarian states, politely and inconspicuously in the democracies) by Big Business and Big Government. But societies are composed of individuals and are good only insofar as they help individuals to realize their potentialities and to lead a happy and creative life. How have individuals been affected by the technological advances of recent years? Here is the answer to this question given by a philosopher-psychiatrist, Dr.Erich Fromm:

Our contemporary Western society, in spite of its material, intellectual and political progress, is increasingly less conducive to mental health, and tends to undermine the inner security, happiness, reason and the capacity for love in the individual; it tends to turn him into an automaton who pays for his human failure with increasing mental sickness, and with despair hidden under a frantic drive for work and so-called pleasure.” (p.20)

Me, the editor, wonders what this frantic drive is about, and i come up with the idea that the people who buy into the Given imagination even to the detriment of their sanities, would frantically drive for whichever so-called “Norm” was Given to/coerced for them to be. What do you think?

Huxley, quoting Fromm:
“Our ‘increasing mental sickness’ may find expression in neurotic symptoms. These symptoms are conspicuous and extremely distressing. But ‘let us beware’, says Dr.Fromm, ‘of defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend; where there are symptoms there is conflict, and conflict always indicates that the forces of life which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting.’ The really hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal.

‘Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.’ They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness.

These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted, still cherish ‘the illusion of individuality,’ but in fact they have been to a great extent de-individualized. Their conformity is developing into something like uniformity. But ‘uniformity and freedom are incompatible. Uniformity and mental health are incompatible too…Man is not made to be an automaton, and if he becomes one, the basis for mental health is destroyed.’”

“In the course of evolution nature has gone to endless trouble to see that every individual is unlike every other individual. We reproduce our kind by bringing the father’s genes into contact with the mother’s. These hereditary factors may be combined in an almost infinite number of ways. Physically and mentally, each one of us is unique.

Any culture which, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardize the human individual, commits an outrage against man’s biological nature.

“Science may be defined as the reduction of multiplicity to unity. It seeks to explain the endlessly diverse phenomena of nature by ignoring the uniqueness of particular events, concentrating on what they have in common and finally abstracting some kind of ‘law,’…(gives examples) (p.21)

“Here the theoretical reduction of unmanageable multiplicity to comprehensible unity becomes the practical reduction of human diversity to subhuman uniformity, of freedom to servitude. In politics the equivalent of a fully developed scientific theory or philosophical system is a totalitarian dictatorship. In economics, th equivalent of a beautifully composed work of art is the smoothly running factory in which the workers are perfectly adjusted to the machines.

“The ‘Will to Order’ has produced many premature syntheses based upon insufficient evidence, many absurd systems of metaphysics and theology, much pedantic mistaking of notions for realities, of symbols and abstractions for the data of immediate experience…[and] it sometimes happens that a bad philosophical system may do harm…by being used as a justification for senseless and inhuman actions. It is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to Order becomes really dangerous. (p.22)

“The Will to Order can make tyrants out of those who merely aspire to clear up a mess. The beauty of tidiness is used as a justification for despotism.

“Organization is indispensible; for liberty arises and has meaning only within a self-regulating community of freely co-operating individuals. But, though indispensible, organization can also be fatal. Too much organization transforms men and women into automata, suffocates the creative spirit and abolishes the very possibility of freedom.

“As usual, the only safe course is in the middle, between the extremes of laissez-faire at one end of the scale and of total control at the other. (p.23)

“During the past century (1850s to 1950s–ed) the successive advances in technology have been accompanied by corresponding advances in organization. Complicated machinery has had to be matched by complicated social arrangements, designed to work as smoothly and efficiently as the new instruments of production. In order to fit into these organizations, individuals have had to de-individualize themselves, have had to deny their native diversity and conform to a standard pattern, have had to do their best to become automata.

(…)
“Subject to this kind of [alienated] life, individuals tend to feel lonely and insignificant. Their existence ceases to have any point or meaning.
(…)
“Brave New World presents a fanciful and somewhat ribald picture of a society, in which the attempt to recreate human beings in the likeness of termites has been pushed almost to the limits of the possible. That we are being propelled in the direction of Brave New World is obvious. But no less obvious is the fact that we can, if we so desire, refused to cooperate with the blind forces that are propelling us. For the moment, however, the wish to resist does not seem to be very strong or very widespread.

“As Mr. William Whyte has shown in his remarkable book, The Organization Man, a new Social Ethic is replacing our traditional ethical system–the system in which the individual is primary. The key words in this Social Ethic are “adjustment,” “adaptation,” “socially orientated behavior,” “belongingness,” “acquisition of social skills,” “team work,” “group living,” “group loyalty,” “group dynamics,” “group thinking,” “group creativity.” Its basic assumption is that the social whole has greater worth and significance than its individual parts, that inborn biological differences should be sacrificed to cultural uniformity, that the rights of the collectivity take precedence over what the eighteenth century called the Rights of Man.” (…)

“According to [this] Social Ethic, Jesus [of Nazareth] was completely wrong in asserting that the Sabbath was made for man. On the contrary, man was made for the Sabbath, and must sacrifice his inherited idiosyncrasies and pretend to be the kind of standardized good mixer that organizers of group activity regard as ideal for their purposes.

“This ideal man is the man who displays ‘dynamic conformity’ (delicious phrase!) and an intense loyalty to the group, and unflagging desire to subordinate himself, to belong.
(p.25)
(…)
“[An organization] is not good in itself; it is good only to the extent that it promotes the good of the individuals who are the parts of the collective whole. To give organizations precedence persons is to subordinate ends to means. What happens when ends are subordinated to means was clearly demonstrated by Hitler and Stalin.

“Under their hideous rule personal ends were subordinated to organizational means by a mixture of violence and propaganda, systematic terror and the systematic manipulation of minds.

“In the more efficient dictatorships of tomorrow there will probably be much less violence than under Hitler and Stalin. The future dictator’s subjects will be painlessly regimented by a corps of highly trained social engineers. ‘The challenge of social engineering in our time,’ writes an enthusiastic advocate of this new science, ‘is like the challenge of technical engineering fifty years ago. If the first half of the twentieth century was the era of the technical engineers, the second half may well be the era of the social engineers’–and the twenty-first century, I suppose, will be the era of World Controllers, the scientific caste system and Brave New World.

“To the question quis custodiet custodes?–Who will mount guard over our guardians, who will engineer the engineers?–the answer is a bland denial that they need any supervision. There seems to be a touching belief among certain PhD’s in sociology that Ph.D.’s in sociology will never be corrupted by power. Like Sir Galahad’s, their strength is as the strength of ten because their heart is pure–and their heart is pure because they are scientists and have taken six thousand hours of social studies.

“Alas, higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue, or higher political wisdom. And to these misgivings on ethical and psychological grounds must be added misgivings of a purely scientific character.

“Can we accept the theories on which the social engineers base their practice, and in terms of which they justify their manipulations of human beings?

some text to think through (for sober reflection) (What do you think?)

Some sobering ideas on thinking about thought control in our time:

“In the advanced industrial societies the problem is typically approached by a variety of measures to deprive democratic political structures of substantive content, while leaving them formally intact. A large part of this task is assumed by ideological institutions that channel thought and attitudes within acceptable bounds, deflecting any potential challenge to established privilege and authority before it can take form and gather strength. The enterprise has many facets and agents.”–Noam Chomsky in _Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies_ (link: http://home.nvg.org/~skars/ni/ni-preface.html )

Note the words “any potential challenge”. What do you think that means? Can it apply to creative nonviolent visioneers? When? Perhaps only when we are gaining momentum like in Minneapolis and similar places with the pre-emptive arrests and detainments, and other harrassments of “the ringleaders” and their bases of creative outpouring? Are you even familiar with these examples? Read indymedia and educate yourself! (re: indymedia.us or any of the other localized links shown on their page)

The next question to ask is, how will those seeking to utilize their creative  nonviolent intelligence be blocked? The answer is, to the owners of those who seek to block even our defense of humanity’s great spirit (and deflection from the stupidity of violent warfare in response to State/corporate/etc. overstepping and making us into “collateral damage”, that we are “stupid” and “are not capable” of doing anything but shutting up and getting back to work. A very cynical, already dead mind-set that some of us will continue to challenge no matter what.

It is in this spirit that i have taken it upon myself to engage humanity (whereever i find myself) beyond Given/alloted “norms” and into the unknown realms of radical sanity, no matter what. And possibly inspiring other oppressed persons with my example of being able to move through my fears (i.e. of knowing too much). In “irrational glory” jiu-jitsuing such cynicism towards spanarchic/mutual liberations of who we truly are!

And the tactics i use? Escaping from formal organizations and the momentum “needed” to build up such movements for “revolution”, for one. Leaning towards being merely one of other informal inspirations to others with similar inclinations who might dare to try and explore such approaches. Do you think this is unwise? Why? Can you back up your beliefs on this? Have at it, then!

My own view stems from self-educations of what elders with more experience have resorted to in the face of intensified adversity. Take John Trudell. He doesn’t tell people where he’s appearing next, to my understanding. And he tells people what he really thinks, even when they judge him to be crazy. He avoids being made into “a leader” and is “merely” an artist. He’s an inspiring example for nuts like me! And what he’s been through is tell-tale for how he’s learned to respond with his ability.

Images from recent activity

the regaliuh i chose for this action into yet another radical unknown

summary:

A “direct action” of sortz, via creative nonviolent visionary capacities, into an unknown which locals described to me to be a place white folks wouldn’t want to be at night (later, i was there at night, solo, but that’s another story).

Very powerful experiences with both nature and humanity on this 70-mile art(e) ride. VERY powerful. Especially the behavior of various wild animals i passed, and later a seemingly very scary storm headed my way (which exhibited a “necklace”-type lightning bolt before i “sent” energy back to it that may have touched its “unconscious” so that when it finally reached me, it was precisely the kind of light rain that i had prayed for–to cool me off).

Interacted with a pretty wide variety of folks, with interesting results, including one young woman who shouted from across the street with a “That’s AWESOME!” quote.

Notably, i represent no formal organization or colonial dogma, and admit to being crazy (but not insane!), ready to quote Aldous Huxley on the sanity of being crazy in an insane society (from his book _Brave New World–Revisited_ page 21).

Note: the main sign on the “head” of the bike is a quote from Barbara Hand-Clow’s book Catastrophobia and says: “Poised to take the brave journey back to our previous brilliance.” Our previous brilliance? Yes, as pre-colonized human beings, all. Before compulsory education reduced us to mere “citizens” and “workers”, before we were assimilated and colonized fully or mostly.

practicing and perfecting our bests while we still can!

Creative *resurge n’ see* action on indigenous rez, July ‘09
by younger Bro (with Unorganized Unorganization of the Unorganized)

Intro:

Biked about 70 miles round trip–especially thru one larger community of fellow human beings– with the intention to send the best of what i am currently manifesting and channelling (not to mention long immersed in exploring) into the heavily colonial-bombarded fellow human beings called indigenous folks (the actual nation kept confidential for privacy purposes). Wore some spontaneous (and not so spontaneous) regali-uh and the seeming fruition of a vision regarding what might be “the best” way to especially art my intent: a neon-red question-mark on my face! Experiences included very untypical natural and critter behavior all the way to exhilerating joy shared with a few key persons –outside of the usual matrixes of imposed reality.

subheads:

Nature’s resonance
A previous vibe-exploration
The Dear People
Back to this ride
Old spirits challenging me?
Confronting racism
Sunny and warm and other signs
Folks encountered
Pushing
Success!
A fruit stand

Overall, i think this “crucial artz” interaction was ’successful’. How do i judge this? Via the ways of the weather, via enthusiastic honking, and via not only friendly vibes and waves, but especially one young lady’s cheerful shout of which you may read of later on.

Nature’s resonance
First and foremost on this day’s journey was nature and her closest peoples. Tho an acquaintance told me there was a hard rain ten minutes after i left my camp, i personally experienced none, nor even much wind. For me, pedalling on my bike at a normal pace, it was a nice, cool morning, perfect for my intuitive inclination to take a form of “direct action” towards folks i find myself especially interested in touching.

A few miles down the road i happened to look up in the sky and see a flock of large birds getting ready to obviously land on the nearby lake. Yet just as they seemed to see me, they all began, one after another, to “back-pedal” in mid-air. And then i watched them, and they certainly watched me, as we moved by each other. Them, a flock of PELICANS!!!! (i’d only seen ONE on my entire ride of 20 days north, and was greatly surprised at that sighting more than a hundred miles south) So wow!!

The next thing i remember noting was a large storm-like cloud just this side of the horizon, in the east. It resembled a gigantic frog. Having worn the moniker of frog quite a few times, i kept looking at the shape to see what it was doing and what it might do. i could clearly make out the shape of a frog reclining and seeming to smoke, and then leaning over from its perch and seeming to notice me (and my neon red question mark). And that’s the last i saw of it before the local trees shielded me from seeing it any more –in that form, anyway.

A previous vibe-exploration
I’d done an initial ride, before this longer one, of about 20 miles (round trip) to just a few miles across the border of this ndn semi-sovereign nation a few days prior to this ride. As a kind of touching to “feel out” the vibes in the context of having been somewhat hyped-up against by a local yocal i kind of know and am visiting. Tho he had underlined the danger of staying overnite on their land (telling me he would expect a phone call from the hospital if i dared to what i had at first planned to do: camp somewhere and try to share my arte), he felt it was safe enough in the daytime. But with vibes like that coming from him, i definitely would be on my guard.

Even tho i know that in all border-areas around groups being especially attacked (be they ndn or Black or etc) there is a lot of hype and racist projecting and such, i knew that there could also be a germ of truth in there as well. And given that most settlers are heavily imbibed with such a fear orientation, it would likely also be the case, i reasoned, that the ndn fellow human beings would be forced to respond in a similar kind of way…expectations of cynicism towards all whitemen.

The Dear People
Anyway, on this preliminary-type ride i experienced multiple magick’l energies with nature’s closest folk, especially. Like on the way towards there when a fawn stopped and listened to my words of joy and love–i.e. “Oh what a lovely GREAT spiRiT YOU are!” (as its sibling and ma fled).

Further on, i sighted an adult (?) or teenage (?) doe walking with another fawn out in a field and pretty close to a large island of trees. When she sighted me, however, she didn’t run towards that place (which would seem reasonable), but at such an angle that i figured would cross just in front of me. Maybe she sought to run with me, as other deer have done from time to time? Curiously, she left the fawn in the dust, so to speak, and here’s what happened:

The fawn tried its hardest to stay up with this doe, but was hard-pressed by the roughage of the soil. When finally gaining the road (whereupon another doe had bounded out of some small woods and crossed with the first doe), came up to the road and then slowed as if to listen to its mother (“Don’t cross roads without looking first!!”), and then finally bounded across somewhat awkwardly (perhaps assuming it would be shot anytime?), and then, obviously exhausted, almost feebly bounded to where it stood, i saw as i passed by, with the other doe, whom stared me down and seemed to say to me, “Shoot me, if you must kill us.” While in the distance, the teenaged (?) doe was still running and had gained much distance.

Or how about the large-ish shrew-like mouse that ran with me for several yards a mile or so onto the Rez? Running out into the road as it saw me, and running alongside me!!

Or the image that came to me of a circle of gigantic cloud people seemingly waiting for me and another cloud to join them (kind of like a dream i have from time to time where after this life i am to return to a cirlce of spirits whom have sent me out to figure things out better for the whole); with the other cloud feeling like it was acting as an aider or go-between, helping me to see that i had time to still join them (from my place directly below, if i could make it); this all while the road moved in just the right direction (missing the darkest storm-looking places). Still, i had made up my mind to only go a few miles in, so despite feeling a pulling to go into the space that the circle of clouds seemed to be holding, i turned back.

Back to this ride
About 4 miles into the Rez, having passed my earlier position, i felt like stopping (forgot why) and just as i did, rite at THAT SPOT, i saw a Red-tailed Hawk spring out from somewhere near the ground and begin flying, within rows of the outermost trees between me and it. It didn’t try to fly into the open, but seemed to be using the trees as some kind of defense. Who knows? Anyway, upon returning (on my way back ‘home’), i came across a solitary feather from that kind of bird, in the area i had seen that one (tho it had originally flown across the street from me).

Old spirits challenging me?
The next thing i especially came upon was for only a relatively small time. A horde of buzzing flies descended upon me and began seeming to challenge me and my intent. i thought sure they would accompany me for the rest of the ride, but would find out that such flies were not in hordes and acted like other places in this part of the state i was in.

This horde began reminding me of what my Hollywoodified thinking has programmed me with (even tho i’ve done a pritty fair job of thinking beyond it these daze) : that these flies might well be angry warrior ancestors of the local people wanting to “fuck with me” a little more before they’d “let” me come into their territory in any deep way. Just as i thought this, one in particular knocked into my face! But that only happened once. Most just buzzed around me in an angry-seeming way.

As for my expectation that rez dogs might attack me, i had a special defense strategy all ready for them. Tho few even barked, one or two did, and made a show of coming out after me on the road. When they did this, i immediately began encouraging them on. “YEAH, you need exercise!! COME ON!! Good Dog!!” And of course, with a stranger ordering them to do something, they instinctively halted. Heh heh. A little reverse psych! Better than any club or pepper spray (which i didn’t want to bring anyway)!

Confronting racism
i did find myself having to confront some of my internalized racism (as well as racism being actively put into me in my location near an indigenous border), yes. Like asking myself why i didn’t just stop and try to hang out for awhile in various spaces on Indian Land (outside of the one time i stopped for any lengthy period of time at a place i was looking for a friend at). Or why i didn’t go into any obviously public-oriented buildings and make my presence more known. Now (weeks after the initial write-up of this), i realize that i was unconsciously avoiding things i have learned in my life to be careful about. For one, to be more respectful of a people’s home territory by not imagining that i can just waltz in and hang out and seriously ‘hope’ to find depth connection. And for two, realizing that public buildings and the like are bastions not for sane-seeking, but repositories for b.i.a.-type mind-sets. So it was gOod how i proceeded, that first time in a semi-large town of indigenous folks.

So, racism? In my case, i claim it is likely in some form (coming with my alienation from these fellow people), tho i happen to think, of the Charles H. King variety;(1) that is, as we begin to see exactly how racism manifests in ourselves and the cult-ure we’ve been conditioned into, we, seeking to respond with the best of our awareness (aka responsibility) do so. For me, a solo-ized person walking yet another dangerous path, similar in some ways to these fellow people, with the intent to share my successes and my solidarity with all angles of informal humanity. Or something like that!

Input, of course, always invited!

Thus, my action as a continued, even daily, processing –thru and via many prior interactions (more than 20 now, x-country) and more and more becoming to radically beautiful powers in places where my’s (yours and my) gifts feel like showing themselves and even blooming. With the result of moving thru and beyond fear of the Unknown and into evolutionary status and surprising potential. And, the bottom line, not being arted by dominating alienation.

i’m getting ahead of myself tho. Heh eh-heh.

Anyway, as i found myself sometimes recoiling from the way some of my fellow people look–a recoiling of not being used to being around such different-looking folks– i then found myself seeing many of my previous ndn friends and gOod acquaintances in those faces! And such beauty in their eyes and the story of their faces! yet my learned reluctance and self-restriction made itself clear to me, first and foremost.

There in an Unknown, singly stepping into a semi-soveriegn community, my first impulse is/was to protect myself restrictively, and only, in time, and in meeting up with others, would i let my armor slip down a little bit more. Notably, even tho i’ve long advocated for engaging in strategies of “protection via enrichment”. Then again, i *was* enriching myself by even attempting to go into this Unknown so radically. So maybe…anyway, perhaps to save for a conversation someplace else?

Obviously, the attempt to jiu-jitsu received information, both on small scale topics as well as the larger scale topic of how i want to try living my life (freely) even more than i have been. And perhaps share what i have learned with others who can at least basically grasp–and have frames of references for grasping– what i have long been going into more and more. That is, jiu-jitsuing prevailing fears as i move thru them. And, if it is my time to pass on from this life then it must be time to pass on. But so far, even in the most harried of situations (counting from actions since about 1993), i’ve found quite amazing openings for my brand of arting, which i shall now refer to as “the crucial artz”. (2)

This said, i see my insight as dovetailing with traditional indigenous ways of seeing and being in the world. And, in fact, having much to learn from my older brothers and sisters (and yes i am willing to risk saying that without being indigenous to this side of Mom Earth by blood, as far as i know).

And learning i did have. Even in their silence, indigenous people teach! Knowing it or not, their spirit sings them in ways they have often (i think) taken for granted. It’s like a woman i met during another action (in a Washington Rez) seems to believe (i had gotten to know her quite close over a few months). Perhaps after growing up watching too much propaganda, er, TV. And because her culture wasn’t represented at all, not seeing that greatness celebrated *at all* and making similar assumptions that other human beings make (i.e. as pointed out in a crucial text entitle “Media Control”) in similar circumstances. Things like her family seemingly being so close in a joyful way to each other, and, not being represented at all, assuming that such was of little value.(3)

Anyway…

Sunny and warm and other signs
What with the semi-heavy “suit” coat i wore (of a heavy material), even with no shirt, i was pretty hot. And it was almost like “a mobile sweat” this time except that i didn’t have any of the variety of masks i’ve worn on many of my previous crucial artz actions. Sweaty, but not THAT sweaty.

See the accompanying picture(s) for how i designed myself, color and arte-wise.

If you can’t read most of them, here they are:
One pinned in plain, easy-to-see sight:
“Don’t believe anything i say. Think it thru instead!” (this was read aloud, to my happiness, by a fiesty young lady at the place i stopped at furthest away from my starting place.)

Another, located below a bunch of pictures i’d pinned together on my torso:
“Great human spirit liberation” on one side, and the other: “beyond same old again”.

And on my upper arm (facing away from the road), on a circle of paper: “NOT MARTIAL ARTS, CRUCIAL ARTZ!” This had a pink dot in its center which read: “human spirit liberation”.

The main sign, a quote i got out of a book by Barbara Hand Clow entitled “Catastrophobia”, read:
(small print):”We are” (then large print, sparkly and hand-colored) “POISED TO TAKE THE BRAVE JOURNEY BACK TO OUR PREVIOUS BRILLIANCE”.

i also wore a few purely natural adornments. One was a peice of curled birchbark i’d found somewhere. Wrapped naturally inside it was the part of a dreadock i’d cut off awhile back. i did pin a curled up photo of a wolf i made good acquaintance with some years ago, tho. The birchbark felt especially interesting to me because i felt in wearing it that i was responding to peices of such i’d found systematically on the side of the road for a few hundred miles of my longdistance ride up this way a few weeks prior. Just in case someone was seeking to communicate via that means..i wanted to “say” that i “understood”.(4)

Folks encountered
Going into the rez i recall seeing several styles of travel. There were the clear windows, one with a packed carfull of shirtless youths with a woman driving; there were lots more dark windows. There were solo drivers, one woman leaning over sideways as she passed. For each, tho i would grow tired of this after awhile, i would give ‘em my “Weeblos Peace Salute”, heh. A little creative way to show my spirit a little better, i felt.

A few miles before getting into the main town i was heading for there was the man standing out, alone, on a drive-way-like place, who wore a purple shirt. We eyed each other silently as i passed him. It was deep, and i look forward to perhaps some day knowing him better.

Pushing
Kent Nerburn’s book “Neither Wolf Nor Dog” impressed upon me the angle of taking care not to push, or at least rationalizing my own inputting differently. While still wanting to SOMEHOW share my giftery and possibly even more (i.e. my personal experiences with creative, confrontational nonviolent openings) i tried to be sensitive to this sentiment. But likely, the pushing the people in Nerburn’s book described was mostly about formal pushing, as done by religious and scientific missionaries, as well as by the more usual colonial tools.

Next of note were a group of youth swimming off a dock in a small lake. Some must’ve intuitively “heard” me, for they turned their heads just at the rite time as i passed in my distance, and waved. As my vibe-o-energies touched them on their backs from afar!

Then the college receptionist in a ghostly-dark space at the entrance to the local college in the bigger of the two towns i visited. i was looking for my good acquaintance from AIM’s ‘The Longest Walk’ (‘08) and enquired about the place he was supposed to be working at, at behest of Dennis Banks. She had no idea, tho suggested i go to the next town, another 5 miles beyond. i hadn’t planned to ride that far, but it would only be another 10 miles…

Got to the place faster than i expected, but didn’t find anyone who knew my borderline friend, at least they didn’t say.. On the pretense of wanting to give the place a pile of pritty deep books, which i ended up not being able to *find*(!??), only to discover later that they were “hidden” deeper in my packs than i had figured…argggggg…i kind of got my foot in the door. Or at least, was successful at drawing a small crowd of folks patronizing the place, as they asked about what i was doing.

After all, my bike was all decorated with art and flamboyancy, and of course i still had my question-mark attached to my face and all!

Success
Success here means that i was then able to share a bunch of my art, have some converstation, enjoy some humor, and generally get a taste of the great spirit i love so much about hanging out informally with indigenous folks. It was a standing affair, but their spirit reached across the usual boundaries (between we euro-peons); at least that’s what i felt.

i told ‘em that i wanted to give all of the art (one packet amongst several was all i showed ‘em) to their place, or at least leave it for them to peruse and come back for it another time. i think they were surprised to hear that, and perhaps somewhat even taken aback. What might be up my sleeve? (And what experiences previously had they had from crazy white folks coming into their territory like i?)

One 30-ish guy hung out the longest with me, questioning me, and once even warning me about wearing my hat back the way i wore it. i figure he was giving me the benefit of the doubt that i was simply another fool-ass, naive white “boy”-type…advising me that i *should* turn my hat brim back up to the front so not to be viewed as a threat by gangland folks around there.

The thing of it was, tho, that i *wanted/want* to interact with them folks! Because my arte message is largely FOR THEM! To this younger man i responded too basically, wishing i had told him of my long thought-through intentions–and diverse experiences–with such. Tho i did tell him that i risk my life all the time, such as by biking on roads!

Maybe i could have been more coherent, or maybe how i was was just right, who knows? All i know is that the younger dude accepted my flyers (including my last (?) TrudellJohn/art’d flyer) and said, in a curiously cammo’d way, that he would certainly be looking up the links on these. Yee-haa! He also agreed to take the peice i had made especially to give to gangland youth (which had a depth spirit driving a kewl-car and asking “How deep is your art?”), which i wanted to give to the place itself.

As for the others? i feel i made a kind of first-step bridge to them. A kind of first-step where when i share with them, others may come out of the woodwork, so to speak. Who knows? All i know is that i must escape the confines of showing art via the usual colonial channels!

There was one particular feisty young lady (in her 20s?) that i think i mentioned above who was particularly inspiring to me. She was quite provocative, and even commented on an original peice that i’ve been wantintg to get rid of for awhile now. This peice depicts the raging spirit anger, in sun-form, of youth whose humanity is denied by both colonial norms and, it seems, by how traditional indigenous forms are becoming not merely guidelines (as Taiaiake Alfred has demystified in his book Wasase), but a new kind of dogma.

Anyway, this young lady commented that she would like to tatoo THAT art on her left buttcheek!!! Whoa-woW! Yowzah! And tho she didn’t follow thru with  taking it when i offered it to her, i thought, hmmm, maybe *i* should have it tatooed there; then, if i’m ever set up for prison rape, it would be one wild-ass (heh) statement to those trying to hurt me. Yeah, i like that.

Curiously, none of these folks openly agreed to take nor took any of my arte when i wanted to leave it or even some with them or even give it or some to them. They seemed caught up in other thoughts. Perhaps thining, if they responded in the affirmative, that i’d spring some kind of bullshit? Or perhaps it was something else? Non-materialism? …?

Whatever, i left with all of my arte, and no goodbyes. i saw one guy i had particularly found an easy-going vibe with, out in the distance, standing alone, and i felt, holding that space to watch me from the corner of eyes…but i could be completely projecting. Okay. But thanks for being so easy-going all o’ y’all!

Riding back into the bigger town, i came upon many more folks. Many youth were organized around some kind of project of painting some roadside wooden fences (i’d seen only a few on the way in, but now many more were there). And friendly and eager motorists (all Native) were waving at me and honking. One young lady, from the other side of a suddenly quite busy road, yelled out to me after showing me the “thumb’s up” sign, saying:

“THAT’S AWESOME!!!!”

a fruit stand
At a tiny fruit stand where a seemingly whole family (?) of guys (kids on up) sat, i passed, and then was called back. We spoke a bit and i pitched my interest to show my art somewhere there, along with wanting to show them a bit of it. They wouldn’t “bite” tho. Maybe they just assumed things in very negative ways? Or maybe if i’d sat down with them and hung out awhile they would have opened up more?

So i figure it was my anxiety, held just under the surface (“thanks” both to my fellow white men who’d been hyping me up previous to this interaction as well as my own *usual* uneven keel), which they picked up on. Hm?

(well, i’m stopping writing this for now as my ‘puter battery is low and i want to get this onto disk)

notes:
1) Charles H. King (author of the small press book “Fire In My Bones”) led a forum on racism in 1984 to which i attended on a scholarship from an autonomous Black newspaper out of Michigan entitled “Information Magazine”, for which i was doing artwork for at the time. King stressed one idea that stuck in my mind: that ALL are racists, it’s what we do with our imperfection that proves our responsibility or irresponsibility.

2) the crucial artz/s are all about practicing, honing, and deploying (heh) our creative intelligences into the increasingly deadening suiciety all around. It is a creative, confrontational method or way of doing things which finally escapes “Us vs Them” and focuses primarily on ways of radical’s radically bridging with the martially-stuck–realizing the over-arching value– and seeding classic nonviolence attributes of friendship over the longterm, as well as re-villageing values and decolonization awareness. Read more about the crucial arts at: www.angelfire.com/psy/crucialarts/

3) i refer the reader here to Noam Chomsky’s especially important speech and published book/fully online article “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda” where he talks of folks watching TV and just assuming that they’re stupid or uninformed since no one’s mentioning their particular feelings and such. If you can’t find it fully online, leave a comment and I’ll post it.

4) All of this “irrational” if your programming keeps your imaginations contained in that way. Or perhaps “poetic” if that’s the best you can drum up. In my view? It’s about openings. Every time i’ve biked out solo into the Unknown, I get quickly in touch with my intuitive and feeling side, and “open up” to such things as serious spiritual input.

Note: the last image to the right of “heart” is meant to both incorporate the Anowaran symbol of the Four Directions, as well as the largely forgotten (yet still “unconscious” and intuitively present) spirit power of off-balance european indigenous folks.

Crucial videos and some commentary

May you activate your critical analysis with inputs from the following quite excelling videos (hardly heard of, of course):

Start George Carlin, below, in “america is tyranny”, at 1:20:

I question looking merely at the elites being interested in “more for themselves and less for everyone else”, that George promotes. He’s right on everything else, yet his analysis is symptomatic, in my view. Yes, the elites are authoritarian, yet behind the intensity? How did they come to BE so severely alienated from the rest of us??

THAT is the significant question that no one is apparently investigating. Okay, Chomsky investigated it, and he aided me in seeing the reality that even the elites –even the elites themselves are handed “down” a coercive way of seeing the world. That’s right! Because they started out young themselves once!

In their elite schools, not everyone would have accepted the Given alleged wisdom (true in some contexts, bigoted and severely alienated in others!). And how were these dissenters (perhaps merely intuitively dissenting) dealt with –made an example of? By threatening to cut off their wills, by threatening to send them to military academies or other boarding schools. By threatening to send them to privately-run psychiatric “behavior modification” camps.

And the rest of the young elites? They would see or hear about someone “made an example of” and learn, early on, to conform!

So, the challenge is not people; the challenge is beliefs. Of MARTIAL beliefs forcefully handed “down” to each generation in a chain-of-command-style way!

THEN you start to see why various upper echelons say that they didn’t know. Then Chomsky’s analysis of their “internalized value system” starts to become clearer. THEN you start to see how even the officers and the generals of the social structure think and why. And when.

Some more crucial videos:

Toxic Sludge is Good For You (a book by Stauber and Rampton)

John Trudell, a Lakota wisdom keeper, speaks frankly:

Okay, you have this information, now what?

How about something along the lines of using our creative intelligence? How about something that actually worked already in history? Try this video on for size:

Yes, “The Singing Revolution”! Now, at one time there was the WHOLE THING online on youtube. Parts 1-10…Hmm, where has it gone?

To conclude, we have a host of different voices speaking generally similar things. Institutions and the people who man them should be approached carefully and critically. This is only a very partial list of voices dissenting quite articulately. This blog will continue to bring more voices. How you proceed from here is up to you.

To protect our forests AND gift meaningful homes to elders!

a forest protection subdivision??

So, here’s an idea whose time has perhaps come:

Something like two crucial angles in one! Forest protection and a meaningful place for elders to come, while out-of-work younger folks help.

You’ve heard the news. Forests all over the coast are getting a beating by high winds of late. Basically, the old growth trees were taken out and now, when Mom Earth’s windy ways come through every few years, there’s no one there to protect them. And so they fall. En masse. Well, okay, not a MAJOR ways, yet.

On the other hand, a lot of folks are getting older. What spaces have they prepared for themselves where their excellent hippie spirits may continue? Where their gifts may truly be valuable?

What if a new way to protect the forest was created? Perhaps like Old Growth Subdivisions (bad word??). Basically, bunches of “tree houses” made of rock (??) which house visiting elders, give jobs to working-age folks, and create more meaningful community (as the local land is worked to keep it from being poisoned, i.e. by rainwater run-off from the city).

Such could begin on private land, and if the idea took off…perhaps next to forests needing it most?

A counter argument might be made that those trees now falling down from high winds are being naturally selected in forests which are perhaps too thick anyway. Well, i’m pretty ignorant when it comes to the environment, i admit. But still, think about this!

If anything, maybe “Communities” magazine (re: via www.ic.org)  could do an article. And of course, i’d LOVE to see my art accompany such!

What are the pros and cons for such “forest protectin intentional communities”? Anyone?

New art i mentioned previously, inspired by hangin’ out with Oldskool folks and other consciousness

hope this shows up, as i've been having trouble uploading it...

News I heard recently has been supporting the mainline hype about “our” society now being “an information society.” You’ve heard it before. In reality, it’s about “in formation”, or disparate groups being formed more streamlinededly into formations which are usually *not* of the people’s (so utilized) interests. Nor, for that matter, those who are to do the shepherding. Oh, they BELIEVE they are working within their “interests” but the reality, proved in corporate cult-ure over and over is truly more about war method than human values method.

As cynical as everyone is trained to become, this state of affairs runs rampant, with only a few fools like me (this artist/” visionary”) apparently even questioning…

For us, fully marginalized and perhaps soon to be under concerted attack (from whichever direction), speaking such truths is mostly a spiritual path way, so we plug away anyway…

Feel free to publish this and other art of mine where-ever you like, as it is “anti-copyright”. Indigenous folks the world over are particularly welcome.

In human solidarity,

a. visionary

Thursday, Friday reports of stretching out my creative nonviolent strategies a little

Well, decided not to go out in that part of town (the NE side of PDX), the next day, after all. Instead went over to the Pearl area art thing, and for my first time explored it a little, and when I stumbled upon a place to show the art i had brought with me i placed it directly on the concrete–in front of a gallery that was closed (aptly titled “the wandering gypsy”!). Didn’t hold back from speaking my mind, either!

Thus i made various comments, such as to most who walked by without stopping: “Of course you HAVE TO walk by without looking! Because only APPROPRIATE art in galleries and in frames is ACCEPTABLE to look at!!”

Later on, the younger crowd showed up and we had quite a good time getting into deep critical discussions about the chicanery of the art world and other, broader topics. Definitely heretical stuff! And likely not what Pearl business types would prefer. (No other art out there –at least on the street–appeared to be anything deeper than money-seeking stuff)

Curiously, the owners of “the wandering gypsy” gallery (a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, amongst a bunch of such on one street) were at first okay with me being in front of their place, and then, about an hour or so later came out with a completely changed vibe.

Perhaps they had overheard my open insubordination to the art/gallery “scene” and my demystifying of such tricks? Or perhaps it was my general “radical” attitudes shared “too” freely? I don’t know, but the lady artist’s guyfriend told me, right up in my face, to move away. Then the lady artist even told me that the police would probably be by to move me along even more…

Me, I informed them of the US Supreme Court’s Decision (in 1998) that defends ART SOLD ON THE STREET AS A FIRST AMMENDMENT ISSUE. Where artists do not even need to have a permit! (see background on this decision at: http://sacredlight.to/decision.htm (or .html i forget))

A curious energy for those promoting the idea of “wandering gypsy”, eh… But not surprising to experienced dissident artist!

The next nite (Friday), however, i decided to go walking around more locally touting my recent color art (inspired by the meeting of the gentlemen spoken of in the article above), this time articulating myself as the “Unauthorized Mobile Art Gallery”.

This tact was most enjoyable when i came up, completely spontaneously, to a small probably “hip” gallery which was having an exhibit oriented to robots. Humm…

But they had an interesting bus parked outside…i thought it was being used to ferry folks around to different galleries…which used the word “bomb” in its bus-sign-thing, and it was supposed to be some sort of lounge. That’s pushing things a little to use the word “bomb” these days, whoa.

Me, i would have liked to see the bus made into a gallery itself! Complete with Secret Rooms where one would have to CRAWL into! Heh!

The folks hanging out at this gallery seemed to assume i was just another derelict-type, however (not being dressed in expensive “hipster” clothing?), and notably showed a kind of patronizing disdain for me –until they actually looked at the one piece i was showing (telling them it wasn’t for sale).

A kinda fun way to interact with ‘em!

Later, walking around after dark further in this neighborhood i’d previously hurried through (like most everyone else called “White”), i had a few enlightening experiences; just the kind to move me past some of my prejudiced assumptions!

Especially when i slowly approached two young Latino dudes. They were visibly moved, and we struck up a deeper-than-usual kind of interaction. Same with a “Black” dude who was waiting for a bus nearby.

We all parted on an up-lifting note, while I didn’t compromise my critical thinking approach at all!

a visionary’s report: beyond fear: stretchings and practicings

….So, our visionary went out to this one corner in a part of town he had not hung out in in any truly meaningful way before, taking some of his art (originals and not), and proceeded to follow through with a suggestion made by an elder member of the local longtime community (now being displaced by “gentrification”).

“The white-haired gentleman basically suggested that i take my art and show it, rite there in this middle-of-the-week evening and i followed through,” our visionary said. Basically, he exited his usual “cave” life and “dared” to “hang out” a little more authentically.

“Actually, i got the notion while talking to another elder on the phone,” he said, referring to a longtime friend in his 70s. “And i went out into the unknown of the night and spoke with him ’til my phone’s battery went close to dead. When i returned to the area where my ‘cave’ is, there were a bunch of local oldtimers, holding autonomous space in a way that most folks of my ethnicity wouldn’t ‘normally’ approach easily.”

But they reminded him of some good ol’ days in the past, and it wasn’t long before our visionary’s vibes went beyond the usual armored ways of streetfolks.

“Being myself, and my old consciousness bubbling back up, i guess i reached a few of the gentlemen, tho one stayed aloof, later even letting drift the word ‘jackass’ to where i heard it. But I wasn’t looking for any trouble, so let it go.”

Showing his “good” art also helped. And to touch his heart “home”, one of the elders firmly spoke of them all (including our visionary) being HUMAN BEINGS! “Wow!

So much more REAL than so many other places i’ve been!” our visonary exclaimed the next morning. He was plainly moved in a most deep way!

Real, with uncertain outcomes hanging just over the situation with those folks; but, after all, most of such would be due to being so heavily propagandized. I.e. against “streetfolks” and their alleged perpetual flailing by the systematic contextless media machine.

So our visionary went out and proceeded to put a bunch of his intentioned art down on the sidewalk (without a gallery and frames, and all that value system–including having nothing for sale) and began to experience passerby’s vibes.

Not many people were out, of course, and the method began to get “old” quickly.

“After awhile i came up with a somewhat wild idea: To put one of my color prints OVER my face, and just hold it there.”

That is, our visionary stood at a certain semi-busy urban intersection with the art over his face!

“A lot of people slowed down, but i don’t know if they could really see my art.”

He fully expected the 5-0 to show up anytime, and soon. At least that’s what the cops in his head were saying. I mean, here he was, standing, and kind of “hiding” behind one of his more wild art peices. Something that conveyed a vibe very different than anything most might ever expect!

This was his intent, even tho it was completely spontaneous.

What would he have done? He was thinking of various responses, but was unsure of which he would use (stay tuned for tonight’s report, perhaps written tomorrow for what may happen on this topic).

(A curious, if possibly unrelated note: while the writer was posting this article while using a NE public library computer, a uniformed cop stepped out and stood in the open for awhile, and then went back inside a place where at least two cops were. The question crossed the writer’s mind: Are public library computers that closely monitored, or is this writer “just” paranoid?)

Various passerby were intrigueing, including one who “ran over” our visionary’s art. But our visionary didn’t take it personally and even saw the action as *additional artisitc input*!!!!

Later, a young lady happened by. She is a regular of local pow-wows, and she asked to use our visionary’s phone. Well, he said it was already very low on its battery, but it still worked for her needs. After she was done she seemed so moved by our visionary’s art and personality that she shared a rather deep ‘poem’ with him before parting.

attention fellow visionaries and other darers!

pencil art

and don’t forget to gift back with your bests!

Lakota wisdom via leading depth charger, John Trudell

Lots of depth seeing and sharing in this series of excellence put out recently by www.mothersworldmarket.com! If you haven’t seen or heard Trudell speak (who doesn’t want to be “a leader”!), you’re missing out BIG. But don’t take my word for it, take a look:

Here (one video), entitled “in my reality, I’m crazy”: vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=50252305

info from the series’ site: This is an unedited preview of a lecture that John gave in October 2008…[at the University of Illinois, I presume; they just say U of I].

or, the series at:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&channelid=431681664

Even for me, these videos shed much light, so HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!

Info includes (in the video link i give here):

To be “normal” is to be consumed by fears, self-doubts, and insecurities.

we have been imprinted to use our power against ourselves via emotional distortions so that we can fit into the larger machine; we’ve been taught to embrace the lie, to embrace the promise; how we’ve been imprinted to see reality;

to get through the ride without letting ‘the human’ (our programming which is not our self, really) eat up our being;

Remembering to live!

Inject clear thinking!

Remember the POWER of our intelligence!

Be careful of believing *believing is thinking*.

Respect the power of our intelligence, our gift we’ve been given!

In judging we can’t learn.

Enslaving us with debt.