An Enlightened Tyranny
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Diagram # 167 illustration
Summary
Jan Cox Talk #352 Jun 10, 1988 – 0:50
Notes by TK
Yellow,Blue and Red circuits as measuring devices for H, D and W (although not necessarily respectively). The mind = measurements. The internal conflicts/problems of modern man are no more than gnats –the differing measurements made by the different circuits of the same object. Additionally, the measurements themselves shift from minute to minute. Built-in genetically to everyone at the center of the bell-curve is the desire to be ‘normal’ while they are de facto abnormal compared to their standard of normalcy (not outwardly –but feeling-wise internally, i.e., guilt).
Two-party political systems of government have two types of conflicting measurements going on, which produces a diversity and therefore more fertile interplay in Life’s body. Such diversity is approved by Life and is desirable. Tyrannical systems are relatively dull, dangerous and uncreative: fanatical. They do not allow for a diversity, complexity, of conflicting opinions/measurements.
The most creative areas verge on chaos. The Real Revolutionist thus should be making odd measurements of almost anything –whenever it strikes his fancy—and send them off to Life; he has got to get free enough to make such reports. At the individual Real Revolutionist level there are two optimal states for the exercise of freedom: an internal democracy run amok (chaos) or an enlightened dictatorship absolutely running the state (where no one questions who is in charge).
Transcript
AN ENLIGHTENED TYRANNY
Copyright (c) Jan M. Cox, 1988
Document: 352, June 10, 1988
Some of you should now be able to turn the corner and see something I’ve talked about for a long time. And it’s this: what would seem to be the functions (if we could in truth isolate them) of the mind, the feelings, and the body, could also be called measuring devices. I used the example recently of the Yellow Circuit measuring the “height” of something. But any of the circuits, at any given time, could be involved with any of the measurements — “height,” “width,” or, “depth.” This is very important. Because if you can really turn the corner you can see that the functions themselves are synonymous with what I am calling a measuring device. The function is not a noun, it is a verb, a service. It is not “the mind” or, “the emotions,” it is a measuring service and reporting device for Life. It is like the overseas wire service for Life.
People think of the mind literally as a thing. A noun; a something. What if it is not? Instead of the functions being measuring devices, what if they are the measurements themselves? It is an activity. The mind is measurements; feelings are measurements.
I know that many of you — and everybody in the City — consider the internal conflict of Man to be a real big problem. It appears to be something that should be cured. But once you can turn a certain corner you realize you’ve been wrestling with gnats. It was just a hobby you did not understand — a hobby into which you were simply born. All so-called “problems” are gnats. I don’t care how serious they were or seem to be now. The unforgettable, inflammatory, and inhumane words that passed between you and someone close to you…it is gnats. And that’s being charitable. Some of that stuff is just gnat shit. That is what you’re wrestling with. You are fighting them off with machine guns and baseball bats. But since it still seems to be a problem to you, I’ll go ahead and talk about it some.
Now listen. Every sort of internal conflict can be seen specifically as this: different measurements being taken of the same object by different functions. We have written history of all these thousands of years in which people talk about the apparent internal conflict between “what I think,” and, “what I feel;” between “what I do,” and, “my desire to stop doing it.” If you can, for a second, forget mind, emotions, and body. Forget Yellow, Blue, and Red Circuits. They are unnamed measurements themselves. We are getting into the infinite now and there’s not much I can say to you in words. The only possibility the circuits have is measurement. But you don’t know at any given time exactly what measurement. The “uncertainty principle” was nothing. That was down at the subatomic level. This is right where you can get at it, and nobody wants to. If you are alive and conscious, then these “circuits” are measuring. Consciousness, as they call it in the City, is like a spotlight which momentarily focuses on one of these measurements/functions. It keeps you with the feeling that you can move about internally — that you have different feelings and opinions.
Imagine all three of these measurements going on simultaneously. What people call the conflict between what they “think” and “feel” is just that the “height” of something is not the “width,” and yet they are both attributes of the object. And the object can be a person or a memory. At any given time, since multiple measurements are being taken, there is an immediate and built-in conflict. But does anybody in the City ever look at it in this way? They can’t. They don’t. What if the great internal struggles are nothing but this? Nah, that couldn’t be. I warn you that I am not being cynical. I am not making fun of humanity. But it makes you laugh even when you know I’m not making fun of anyone, because it is all so real. That is the way you feel at the level of City consciousness: and what could be more important than your problems?
Were you to see that your feeling toward (for example) your father is one measurement which Life is receiving, and that what you think about him is another, and that at any given time they can shift — what would be the possible consequences? Do you see that no measurements are “wrong” (that is, good or evil) in themselves? You cannot use the height and beat on the width with it and say, “Straighten up you bastard.” Obviously; that’s silly. But when it comes to the apparent conflict between “think” and “feel,” that is just what people do: “I know I should feel differently; if only I could bring myself in line.” What if there is no conflict? What if there is nothing to work out?
Vis-‘a-vis the measurements which humanity is always taking, you should be able to hear me: there are almost as many different measurements of some particular thing as there are people who take the measurements. What seems to be the diversity of humanity is the diversity of the “overseas reports” coming in to Life. Everyone finds their measurement to be slightly different from that of the next person. (That is one of the reasons which seems to make science such a singular occurrence: within that game, the rule is to have measurements all the players agree on.) There is implanted within Man — in conjunction with these three nonspecific measurements/functions — a desirous picture of normalcy. Life does this while still turning out the abnormal. And I am not talking about the fringes outside the bell curve: the so-called psychotics and killers. I am talking about you. The middle class. The majority of people everywhere have a dream about being sane, sober, and settled. And yet Life continues to turn out people who are in fact itchy, neurotic and inclined to addictive behavior. That is, prone to be alcoholics in every sense of the word.
What I want you to see is that most people in any group, race, tribe or nation appear normal by their genetic definition. They appear so, and are driven to believe they should be so. But they are not. It is always just a little beyond their grasp. Everyone understands and feels that. The feeling inside is that what grasp of normalcy they do have is very tenuous: “I could be a drunk… No problem… I’d be tempted to leave my wife and kids without a word if I ever got drunk again with old what’s his name… We always used to talk about selling everything and going to Tahiti…” He isn’t going to do that, but it’s that feeling inside. Nobody feels as normal as everyone else says they should be.
While you’re still waiting for the punch line, I’ll take an external example which is tied to all this. It is an example of the topographical information which people do not see. (If you know how, you can fondle Life — and it will tell you things.) It is “two-party systems.” In politics, a “two-party system” is used in contradistinction to a “tyranny.” There is a real consequence to this: in a two-party state there are dual sources of measurements being made about the nature of that area of our planet. About that area of Life’s body. It is both going to Life and apparently feeding back to the people. It is a particular function of Life’s body. With a two-party system there is a diversity and a more fertile reporting. On the observable level it comes out through the people having a more complex and diverse menu of thought, feeling, and conversation.
This is not a history lesson, but I can note for you that historically, “cultural leaps” do not occur under an iron-hand state. For that kind of external progress there must be a kind of two-party political freedom. There must be an ability for conflicting measurements. They would call it conflicting opinions, ideals, or feelings about the nature of life, but I am telling you it is the making of different measurements. Life — you must see — approves of that. Where do people eat the best and seem the happiest at any time in history? It is not under a Stalin. Never. (Remember, this has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with something else.) In fact, the manifesto of the one-man tyrannies which are always with us comes down to this: “These are unstable times, my friends…we must have one man in charge. Okay? If not, you’re dead.” The areas wherein there is no diversity are always the epitome of the dull, the dangerous, and the uncreative. Out in the ordinary world everybody knows that. All you have to do is visit such a place and it’s as if the color has been sucked out. Their faces look that way, their clothes look that way, and they don’t seem to notice.
But in the City an observer of such things will go into a spiel, as they must, about “political suppression and its evil results.” It is true enough on a kindergarten level. But it is actually that the diversity and complexity of measurement has been taken away from the people of that state and they have become fanatics. Which, if you begin to see it, is simply a synonym for “dull.” And just notice how Life seems to reward those areas where diversity is found. America, for instance, is at this time the best place to live. It is the freest. Look how Life seems to smile upon such a place. I can even point this out, as weird as it is: if you hadn’t noticed, America as a whole has less natural calamities than the rest of the world. Go figure that out. (It will shift somewhere else — it always does — but you won’t live long enough to see. Before America it was some other place.)
I assume you have been able to hold the awareness that none of this has to do with politics. It is the reality again of the super-obvious. All of this is true, but it is not true for the reasons people think. The weird part is that what you used to think is actually true, but to a factor of four. What you say is true is kind of interesting, but what’s really true about it is to take “interesting” and cube it. In the City they can’t do that.
A Real Revolutionist has got to be free to take any measurement, file almost any report, whether Life asked for it or not. The ultimate of that, you might notice, is This. Because in general Life did not send you here. Not in the same way that it makes you go down to the store and buy a loaf of bread when you’re hungry. This Activity, from one viewpoint, is something less than really necessary reports to news central. (But Life has always had such as This around. I’m not going into what might be the purpose except to refer you back to the “impossibility factor.”) Internally, you have got to be free to take any kind of measurements you want; to measure things you have no business measuring; to measure things in ways you would not ordinarily have measured them — in a sense to mismeasure them. That is, to think about things you normally feel about. To feel about stuff you normally avoid.
To get free is to be able to hear something like This. It doesn’t fit with anything. Sometimes it seems to measure “this way” and the next time it measures “that way.” Sometimes it measures here and then there from minute to minute. It’s not just that in some way Life has let me do this. You have to be free to do it. Do you hear me? You have to be free to do it, or you are eventually stymied. You eventually will take the ordinary measurement of yourself and accept it. You will finally go ahead and take the genetic suit which Life has been trying to put on you. Some people end up accepting that measurement on this basis: “Ah, I have seen the light.” And what they are really saying is, “I don’t think I can stand any more of this. I don’t want to see any more. How does it fit through the shoulders?” Life does not have to call you back for a refitting after that. Life will tell you, “That fits real nice. Good little boy.” — whether it fits or not. Because Life can tell you anything it wants to. So you go waddling off, pulling your little duck on wheels. Great fit. Great fit. Get a red tie to go with that.
At the individual Revolutionary level, there are two approaches to being able to take any and all measurements. That is, to be free to do so. Both approaches sound right but I am trying to get you to go somewhere else with it. The first approach is to apparently have a full-fledged internal two-party system — true democracy, not a republic. Complete diversity of opinion. I do not mean that you would be a mechanical version of the multiple personality syndrome. You would not be psychotic. This kind of freedom is willful. It does not simply “flow.” You have to have control over it.
The other possibility is to have a kind of enlightened dictatorship. There would be a tyrant or dictator, but he would .pawork in conjunction with taking measurements from the people. Think about it.
I bring this up because it is worthy of your consideration. Some of you feel sometimes as though there is a stable internal center in you. Then again you feel at times almost as though a democracy has been turned loose in you: you do not feel as tied to “you” as you used to. If there is to be an apparent stable center to you it must be a kind of enlightened despotism, because you would still have to be getting information via measurements. The despot would have to take into consideration that some of the people’s measurements are ridiculous. And a good enlightened despot would love them. He would enjoy a good laugh.
Both approaches are the passing states through which all of you will go. Drift, drift, drift. Some of you bounce back and forth, and there are ways to use that information. The ultimate is not either one, but both of them. There is one thing, though. (You can take this metaphorically or not.) There is one thing to be said about a really good tyranny: at least everybody knows who is in charge. You think about that. Wouldn’t you like for someone to be in charge? Why else do some of you think that on off-nights you could even like me, if you knew me personally? (I guess I went too far. Lest any of you feel you are missing out, I don’t want to make you feel bad. Because I don’t particularly like me…strike that. That’s irrelevant, and we don’t need to frighten the children and the newcomers.)
Stay sober and don’t play in traffic. And eat your carrots. And as mothers used to tell their little tykes in the forties, “If it’s overcast, be sure and wear your rubbers.” But in the forties that meant something else. Just a little free history lesson. Bye.