Everything Created in Culture Comes Already Broken
The following recordings are from Jan’s final years, when his voice was diminished and he spoke in a low whisper. Some listeners may find these tapes hard to listen to, or difficult to understand. Thus, as another option, transcripts are being made and will be posted.
Otherwise, turn up the volume and enjoy! Those who carefully listened to Jan during this period consider that he spoke plainly and directly to the matter at hand, “pulling out all the stops,” as he understood that these were to be his last messages to his groups, and to posterity.
Summary = See below
Edited Transcript = See Below
Condensed News = See below
News Item Gallery = None
Key Words =
Summary
6/28/04:
Notes by TK
Consciousness and talk. The primary activity of humans: attempted remediation—i.e., trying to fix something. And talk is the primary modus of remediation—talk, in the form of whining and complaint over what humans have created in the first place—all to little effect. Everything man creates (culturally, not technologically) is created already broken…and needing repairs—happily supplied by those who are quick to identify and decry the imperfections! (39:15) #3166
Notes by DR
Jan Cox Talk 3166 Anybody with an agile tongue or talented as a writer could at anytime, when congress or Vatican is open, sit there 5 minutes and could write a frightening story they had heard at random. Walk into a car repair shop, or congress or the white house and they’re trying to fix something. Those people living under bucolic conditions or even starvation; those people are not trying to fix. The more civilized the setting collectively and individually the more people try to fix stuff that according to them men broke, keep finding ways to buck the law, etc. or individually complain. But after a year of talking about passing a new law against Enron no crook worth the name would ever again do that. Law is a waste of time.
The Second tributary-every figment of culture, every thing of second reality men are trying to fix. Culture is all created out of words and he is constantly trying to fix it. (Technology can sometimes be left alone for years-(difference between tangible and intangible). Everything man creates he creates already broken-not saying he means to). A religion, a government with rules to live by someone will point out immediately something that you’re got to fix, intangible stuff, creations of man’s consciousness.
Transcript
06-28-04 #3166
Edited by S.A.
I can’t resist pointing out an interesting tidbit, based on something I presented last time for a different reason. I had asked you to consider buildings like the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Congress, the U.N. Building, the Vatican, and the Pentagon. I then questioned whether, if you were from another world and I told you that those were the most important buildings on the planet, you would be surprised to find out that the only thing going on inside those buildings was talk.
What I want you to consider now is that at any time that Congress is in session, the Pentagon is open for business, or the world’s great cathedrals or synagogues are in operation, anybody with an agile tongue, a gift for gab, a natural talent to write, could pop in unannounced and listen to the talk for no more than five minutes and hear something at random about which they could write an extremely frightening article.
I remind you that we are still talking about consciousness and talk. I picked out buildings that you can view symbolically or metaphorically as housing the most important operations on the planet. You could poke your head into one of those buildings anywhere on this planet, remembering that what goes on inside is nothing but talk, and if you sit there surely no longer than five minutes, you would no doubt hear something that would give you the basis for a newspaper article or TV news story that would leave readers upset to the point of trembling.
There is another interesting facet to this. If you look out at life, people are always trying to fix something. What would you reply if you stood on the top of some mythical mountain from which you could see humans going abut their lives throughout the whole world, and I said, “Describe for me in a few words the primary activity that you see people engaging in at any time, day or night, anywhere on the planet that you look”? You would have to respond that people are always trying to fix something. I hate to be redundant and say, “Isn’t that interesting?” How about, “Isn’t that funny?”
Obvious places to look at how people are always trying to fix something would be medical facilities and automotive garages. More subtly, look into Congress, peek into the Pentagon, Wall Street, or any of the world’s churches, mosques, or synagogues. You could describe what they’re doing in several different ways, but what is the one description that will cover every other description of what they’re doing inside those buildings? Yes, all they’re doing is talking, but what is the talk about? The talk is about trying to fix something.
Is that an overstatement? Is it incorrect? Think about all the money we spend on this. First, politicians spend a huge amount of money to get elected, and then we citizens spend even more money in government upkeep. Your taxes might easily take a bigger chunk out of your paycheck than your food and housing, just to keep the government running. And what are they doing in the White House, in the Pentagon, in Congress? They’re trying to fix stuff.
Sure, every now and then somebody will introduce a bill to name a stretch of highway after a deceased senator, but if you get up and go to the bathroom, that kind of business is over before you return, because what is the real business of all of those important institutions worldwide? Fixing stuff—and that’s just the warm-up, although if you’re like me, you could spend months enjoying that, like squeezing the very last drop of juice from a pink grapefruit.
Please note that the more civilized the setting, the more stuff people are trying to fix. People living out in the jungles spend less time fixing stuff. Maybe once or twice a year, they work on bringing their hunting bow into better condition—but if you go from the jungles of Brazil into the cement jungles of Manhattan, collectively a great deal of people’s time is spent trying to fix stuff.
Think of that first stage as a river of people always trying to fix something. Let me describe the next stage as two tributaries feeding the main river. The first tributary adds this to the statement: men spend a great deal of their time trying to fix stuff that men broke. The Pentagon is trying to fix possible weaknesses in our defenses. Why? Because the Russians, or the Chinese, are threatening to break our defenses. In Congress, they spend a lot of time trying to fix the the criminal code or the tax code. Why? Because people continually break the criminal code and the tax code, and people keep finding new ways to break the law or cheat on taxes. Departments like the EPA are trying to fix the environment. Why? Because the environment is broken. And why is the environment broken? Aha! Because people broke the environment.
As an individual, your consciousness is the primary area in which you may be trying to fix things that people broke. How? By complaining. If you’re not in Congress actually voting for new criminal laws or changes in the tax code to catch all these Wall Street crooks stealing your hard-earned money, then what do you do? Your consciousness reads the words in the paper, or hears them coming out of the radio, and you rail, whine, gripe, and carp about things that men broke.
By the way, your whining does about as much good as congressmen do by voting for a new bill. That obviously doesn’t seem to be the case, because let’s say Congress passes a bill that says if another company does what Enron did in the early part of this century—went bankrupt and cheated their investors out of billions of dollars while at the same time the corporate officers filled their own pockets—the new law will ensure that the next CEO and corporate board of directors who commit those crimes will go to jail for a dozen years or more.
I hate to point this out, but as soon as the approach that Enron’s bigwigs used to steal from their investors made the news, people who were about to do the same thing developed a whole new approach. By the time that law was passed, no swindler worth the description was going to do what Enron did, so all that law-making was a waste of time.
I don’t mean to give you the blues, but say that you watch a TV story about Enron, and they show a group of men in thousand-dollar suits doing perp-walks out of the courthouse, hiding their faces. Then you read that those men hired the country’s most expensive attorneys. They’re already out on bond, and commentators are saying, “These guys gave themselves retirement packages of a billion dollars apiece two weeks before they declared bankruptcy. Even so, it will be amazing if any of these crooks spend a day in jail. Instead, they’re going home to their multi-million-dollar mansions.”
You hear this on the news, and your consciousness yells, “I hate this! What kind of world—blah, blah, blah!” Your brain is breathing fire. You may later think, “What am I doing?” But your internal yammering did about as much good as Congress passing a law to stop people from ever pulling an Enron caper again. The next swindlers with the talent to put together an Enron will be sure and develop a brand new technique, so your individual carping about the Enron fiasco did about as much good as the congressional bill will do. Anybody with common sense could have guaranteed that.
To recap, the point of the first tributary is that men are always trying to fix something that men broke. If that were not the case, then the Ten Commandments would have been all the law that man ever needed.
When Cain slew Abel, perhaps that was the start of man’s unruly behavior. After that, men got together and passed a law that said, “Thou shalt not kill”. Men fixed something that seemed to have been broken. But as soon as they passed that law, somebody found out how to break it. He beat up another man to the point that he might as well have killed him. Perhaps he put the other man in a permanent coma. Society wanted to try the perpetrator and punish him, but he said, “I didn’t kill that other man, so your law doesn’t apply,” and people had to agree. Their brand new law was broken and needed fixing, so they made up a new charge, assault and battery—too late to use against the man who nearly killed someone. Men keep trying to fix things that men do, and other men find new ways to break the thing that was supposed to have been fixed. The Criminal Code—that is, the criminal laws that the U.S. Congress has passed—have now got to fill nearly a thousand volumes, and each volume is eight hundred or a thousand pages long.
The second tributary that pours into the river, I can never explain. Either you get it, or you don’t. Let me first remind you that I am not talking about any physical changes man has made in the environment through the use of technology that he has created. Technology aside, I suggest quite strongly that, with regard to every non-tangible feature of society, of culture, of civilization, man is continually working on some part of that non-tangible feature to fix it, or to fix some piece of it. Culture, being non-tangible, is all created out of groupings of words, and man is constantly having to try and fix all aspects of those groupings of words. That leads to to the second tributary, which is that everything non-tangible that man creates, he creates already broken. Please note that I am not saying that man intends to create things that are broken.
Here is an exercise for you try. Starting from scratch, create a religion that would not need repairs immediately. Or try creating a government in the widest sense—that is, a society with rules to live by that don’t need to be fixed immediately. Use any rules, and any number of rules, that you want. Pick out any of the social sciences to use as a basis for this activity. If psychology interests you, and you think our culture is piecemeal and incoherent, a bunch of hooey, then you’ve got full rein. Using psychological principles, create a whole new social structure, one that doesn’t need to be fixed as soon as you present it. Make your social structure as simple or as complex as you want to. Just be sure that as soon as you present your new creation to somebody else, they won’t be able to immediately point out something broken.
You should probably not try this if you are easily frustrated to the point of psychosis. I assume you get the hint. Can man create any cultural institution in the full sense—a religion, a social model, an economic model, a political structure—that does not instantly need fixing?
Doesn’t that make you want to dunk your head in a bucket of water just in case it’s about to break out in flames? Do you get the full model I’m presenting? That in a civilized setting, people spend much of their time fixing intangible stuff that is broken, and that was broken at the moment of its inception. The more civilized the culture is, the more this is true. What are people spending most of their time collectively doing? Trying to fix intangible stuff. Not machinery. Not even the human body. There’s a lot of car-fixing and body-fixing going on, and it’ll sure get your attention if your car is blown up, or if your knee is blown out, but if you look at what people are mostly trying to fix, it’s cultural stuff.
Consider whether man can possibly create a cultural, intangible something that doesn’t come in to existence already broken. “Broken” is not the best word, because how can you break something that doesn’t exist? Let’s just say “already in need of fixing”.
Think of any creation of man’s consciousness—a new religion, or a new social plan for how humans can live together. A man holds his new creation out to you, and as soon as you look, you see that it needs fixing. It’s brand new, made from scratch, and someone, who could even be the man who created it, looks at it and immediately realizes, “Oh, no! The first thing we’ve got to do is fix this!”
How can you not enjoy a life like that? How can men complain about small details like, “My car won’t start,” or, “I’m dying,” when they can look at all of this unending humor?
Jan’s Daily Fresh Real News (to accompany this talk)
ALL REPORTED PRISON UPRISINGS ARE PRETENSES
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Real Deal Details On Escape
JUNE 28, 2004 © 2004: JAN COX
More Stories About “A man” Here And There.
________________________________
One man’s favorite comment to his ordinary consciousness
concerning what he’s up to is: “Try it! – you’ll hate it.”
Ordinary men seem to have an innate interest in being a trial lawyer –
as witnessed by the fact that whenever they talk about themselves
they sound like they’re delivering a closing argument.
(“Point Of Order, Your Honor: Should this be found strange?”)
One man experienced a string of false pregnancies;
“Better though than no pregnancy at all,” adds he.
Every morning, and other times when he awakens and looks back on the dream world he just departed, one man always notes to his self that he was lucky to
get out with his life.
Tropical Tonsorial Update.
Accepting the thoughts that naturally appear in your consciousness
is like a bad comb-over.
One man sometimes pictures that he is a brain inside a body.
The Personality Of It All.
Either all humans are frauds or else none are.
Those who write horror stories believe they are smarter than everyone else —
when their books sell;
when they don’t, the public’s stupidity is to them, just reproved.
Several times one man seemed to have outsmarted death and felt quite proud thereof, ‘til one day it hit him how dumb death is.
(Which triggered further realizations concerning other of his past conceived victories.
“I may be stupid as shit, but at least I can not be by understanding it,”
notes an uncommon chap.)
Every time one man would be struck by lightning, it would cause an electrical storm.
Everyone (certainly not limited to paleontologists) discovers the remains of
prehistoric creatures (though few ever correctly identify them).
The most important thing for a writer to remember who makes a great
intellectual discovery is to never………………………..(oh, something or the other).
The man previously reported on who sometimes imagines he’s a brain inside a body also says the experience is mind-blowing (and laughed by the way, upon uttering that phrase).
Whenever he’d start to look back over his life, one man would always focus on
one particular spot: the time he determined never to look back over his life.
One man decided that if he did come back after death
he wanted to return as a dog he owned.
The conscious part of the brain will do almost anything
to keep from being left at home on its own.
Whenever he’d heard the statement: “We’re all in this together,”
one guy always wondered if someone had gotten out of the bucket.
One man says that being unconscious does have its benefits,
(though hard to describe to those who are not.
“Which would be who, exactly?” inquires a passing cop.)
Noodles one guy: “What’s wrong with this arrangement: the only way to know that you’re hip is for other people you consider hip to say that you are?
Worse still: how does this apply to knowing you’re enlightened or not?”
In the land of feet — ants are always on edge.
Some neurons asked some hormones: “When we grow up can we be on edge?”
“Why not – we are.”
A father said to a son: “One day instinct and thought were talking –
no they weren’t — they CAN’T! Gotcha!”
(And an ant thought: “If reincarnation works and I do come back,
I want to be a flea on the dog owned by the man mentioned earlier.”)
One man’s thoughts constituted his worst nightmares –
until he understood that his thoughts constitute him. Now he’s REALLY bummed!
One man often hosts some of the world’s most important people – yet is a hermit. (“Go figure,” says he – “some place else,” he adds.)
“Hey – you can’t fool me: that’s a gag – hermits don’t talk.”
One man suffered mood swings – and made them into a hammock.
One man never listens to any news that doesn’t affect him personally:
he only listens to news that comes from him.
People who have died never complain that it’s: “One thing after another.”
(“Bailiff! – should I object to this.”)
Maxim Update.
If you have to ask the price – you deserve to be forced to buy it.
One man mused:
“Neat is it not how anyone with a reasonably facile mind can listen in for a bit
at what is routinely discussed in the world’s most important buildings
(symbolically: The US Capitol, The White House, The Pentagon, The NY Stock Exchange,
The UN, The Vatican) and then write a Pulitzer Prize quality frightening essay
concerning something they heard there!? Oh yeah, something else:
why is it necessary to put a laugh track on comedy shows
but not a sob track on dramas?”
And one guy pondered: “Does my consciousness know something I don’t?”
(And all the dogs and fleas just laughed and laughed.)
To protect his liver from infections, one man, relying on alcohol’s acclaimed
cleansing properties, consumes copious amounts of various distilled beverages
(and takes similar care of his consciousness by freely taking in all the
everyday ideas of his fellow man).
One man has established a club he’s named: Welcome To The Club;
the sole requirement for membership is to not know what you’re talking about
and not be aware of it. (He says enrollment has already surpassed six billion and is growing.)
(To qualify as an officer in the organization you must not only not know what you’re talking about but must be given to issuing advice to others.)
Says one fellow: “The only thing I enjoy more than making a farting noise
as a representative of the establishment sits down,
is doing so to my own brain’s normal consciousness.”
The Certain Man’s Neural Health Update.
The more often you listen to the thoughts that appear naturally in the
conscious part of the brain, the more likely you will be mentally ill.
Conversation.
“A man who never quotes or resorts to statistics, may know something.”
“But still, if he’s talking about anything seriously, it’s probably unlikely, huh?”
“A certainty.”
The conscious part of one man’s brain admits: “I suffer from an eating disorder:
I’ll swallow anything given me.”
“Man! – that’s weird.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
Just for fun, one guy will hang out insouciantly in an area known for its
mental pick pockets.
In one land, just before prisoners are shot they’re forced to play the accordion,
(just to increase the embarrassment of the moment).
With the certain man’s consciousness: the shoe is never on the other foot.
The Film Chronology.
The way it looked from his seat, one man’s life went from being a cartoon, to a trailer,
to a drama, then a documentary, and now a comedy (at least of sorts).
“Four bucks for popcorn! – god damn!” – he said to himself at the last moment.
“Sloppin’ the hogs,” is what one guy calls it.
“What?”
The whole thing.
Then in his head was heard the announcement:
“We now return your consciousness to its regular programming.”
“Thank god,” sighed the man.
J