Utopian Musings: Companionship, Community, Compassion, Passion

43 comments on “Utopian Musings: Companionship, Community, Compassion, Passion ”

• Comments are now closed

1. Ant 1

   25 April 2017 at 1:31 pm

   Passion, compassion, giving, community, one another: all the standard “stuff” of religion, – without reference to the “sky fairy.”

   Like it or not this IS the direction for a post socialism, communism, capitalism humanity.
   The Buddha, the Nazarene, Mohammed all emphasized these directives. References to God (except in the case of the Buddha) may have been to accommodate the limited levels of consciousness in those times, emerging as they were from eras of worship of luminaries, animals, the sun etc. The Nazarene gave a hint of the future by introducing the concept of an impersonal God (who “made his rain fall on the just and well as the unjust”).

   The new era will emphasize the transition made by individual consciousness which discovers the extraordinary satisfaction/inspiration of living the substance of this article.

   Even if there was a “sky fairy” such a lifestyle would be pleasing to him.
   • Incognito 1.1

     25 April 2017 at 9:52 pm

     Thank you.
     • greywarshark 1.1.1

       27 April 2017 at 10:26 am

       Incognito
       I feel that Ant’s comment puts our concerns as people well. One thing though, we all overestimate our depths and heights of understanding. We need to keep a feeling of awe to keep ourselves in check. None of us know everything, and if we did still wouldn’t be able to hold it all and make powerful decisions that would always use all that knowledge for the best result – which would be?

       There would be so many variants that would have to allow for chaos theory (pictured often I think, as a butterfly flying in Brazil having an effect across the world eventually). There may be a god, and it would be wise to remember that even if there isn’t, we need to have a mind to all the understanding of everything that we can never achieve, and try being a bit humble about making finite and precise statements about things beyond our ken.

       If there isn’t a god, we have it in our power to raise ourselves to a level of consciousness and behaviour using all our potential, to bring us close to what that wonderful personage or creative spirit would be. But every step forward or upward is followed by a half to one and a half steps in the other direction! We may be trying, but objectively, we are very trying and that is just by our own reflective judgments of ourselves. Could do better, class!
       • Incognito 1.1.1.1

         27 April 2017 at 11:42 pm

         Hi greywarshark,

         I have to admit that I don’t follow everything you were saying.

         I agree that we don’t and possibly cannot know and understand ‘everything’ but that is not really our purpose, is it, if there is a purpose?

         Jung introduced the concept of the collective unconscious – to him it was more than a concept. Teilhard de Chardin came up with idea of the noosphere. Bergson introduced élan vital. Others have different names for it but I believe that all these ideas and faiths circle around a core truth. As long as we humans have been thinking and verbalising our thoughts the same theme has reoccurred, time after time. So, what is all this telling us? I have no idea whatsoever; it’s a big mystery to me and I am in awe of it.

         For a long (!) time I have been obsessively looking for answers and knowledge & understanding but for me it turned out to be largely an exercise in futility and frustration; it leads away from increased awareness and consciousness. Rather than constantly asking questions and chasing answers it might be helpful to sometimes silence the rational thought and logical reasoning and have faith in that other part of us that we seem to have ignored and perhaps even have come to fear.

         I don’t know whether this in any way addresses your comment but it is all good, isn’t it?
       • Ant 1.1.1.2

         28 April 2017 at 8:25 am

         You mention awe and humility, – again cornerstones of religion. Esoteric traditions assert the rational mind whilst essential to coherent life in form can and must be superseded by a more subtle element of consciousness whose attributes mobilize the qualities emphasised by incognito. The rational mind then becomes the instrument of this transformed element. May attest to this reality, via so-called religious conversion, and experience profound life changes. .
         • greywarshark 1.1.1.2.1

           28 April 2017 at 7:00 pm

           Ant
           Interasting and meaningful discussion. You may find new piece on Bowalley Road on social generators has some points.
2. Ad 2

   25 April 2017 at 1:40 pm

   Incog, Max Harris beat you to it with very similar utopian musings, except with policies attached:

   http://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/22-04-2017/the-nz-project-offers-a-bold-urgent-idealistic-vision-i-found-it-deeply-depressing/
   • Sacha 2.1

     25 April 2017 at 4:57 pm

     For a more accurate rendition (including a useful exploration of what he means by “love”), here’s Mr Harris himself: https://aeon.co/essays/it-is-time-for-love-to-become-a-radical-force-in-politics
     • Ad 2.1.1

       25 April 2017 at 5:19 pm

       Jesus had the market cornered on that a couple of millennia ago.
       Mr Harris could start with the first sentence in the book of John and work it out from there. It starts: “In the beginning was …”

       Or maybe Harris is just another repressed Christian.
     • Incognito 2.1.2

       25 April 2017 at 9:54 pm

       I will read that with interest and thank you for the link.
   • Incognito 2.2

     25 April 2017 at 9:45 pm

     Hi Ad,

     I have been reading a few things about Max Harris, which have piqued my interest, and did read Danyl Mclauchlan’s book review yesterday. I have yet to read The New Zealand Project, and it might be a while before I get to it, but Danyl’s comments and some others here on TS very recently made me dust off this Guest Post, which I had first submitted late December 2015 but Lynn was just too busy to deal with it and I let it slide into oblivion.

     Policies are important for political parties but I am more interested in the perspective of each individual person who belongs to various groupings and is a member of the same society I happen to live in as well. I am interested in the relationship between the individual and society and the ongoing tension between individualism and collectivism. Obviously, this is reflected in the political spectrum, i.e. Left & Right. I know that these opposing traits can be reconciled within an individual person (e.g. me; a work in progress) and that the tension dissipates.

     I’d be keen to hear what Harris has to say about this if anything.
3. Bill 3

   25 April 2017 at 2:25 pm

   Well, what if we were to identify those structural or systemic dynamics that acted against community etc and simply rejected them from from our suite of behaviours?

   What if we were to discover that many of the dynamics that reward us at the individual level, when and where we sacrifice the community or social good, have been gathered under the auspices of an identifiable and named paradigm?

   Wouldn’t we get a fair way down a road towards decency by simply rejecting that paradigm?

   I believe socialists, autonomous marxists, communists and anarchists were saying something along those lines more than 100 years ago. And the name of the thing they pointed to or at was ‘capitalism’.
   • Incognito 3.1

     25 April 2017 at 10:21 pm

     Hi Bill,

     Sure, we can reject the paradigm but we cannot reject the root cause why it came to be and become the dominant paradigm of modern time. It is a human construct.

     I believe it is about change, change of behaviour, change of attitudes & mentality, change of perceptions at the individual level in the first place.

     My impression is that actually quite a few people feeling this change in the air but it is fragile and easily suppressed and hijacked by politicians. In my view other politicians are hopelessly behind or insensitive to it and my guess is that change will come from grassroots level and not from our politicians or political leaders, or (public) intellectuals & scientists for that matter although they all have a role to play.

     I don’t think we need a revolution; in my view this is the natural (!) evolution of humans and the human race. This doesn’t mean that everything will be o.k. but it puts things in a much larger perspective than an election cycle, for example, or even one human generation.
     • Bill 3.1.1

       25 April 2017 at 10:43 pm

       Hmm. It’s a human construct – ie, thought of by us, designed by us, imposed on us and by us, and therefore not anything to do with ‘unavoidable’ natural causes.

       I don’t subscribe to the Marxist notion of ‘historical determinism’ or any liberal variation of it (which is what the evolution portion of your comment implies to me) – that’s a deeply flawed notion that Marx could only come to by interpreting the past through the necessarily warped or partial lens of his present before vainly casting his line of ‘connections’ into an imagined linear future. (A bit like putting a room full of computers to task on a shattered glass and then turning around and saying the pieces could only ever have fractured and scattered as they did…an exercise in banality.) There is no over-arching ‘progress’ arising from the so-called enlightenment as liberals too, with their adherence to never ending reforms of the existing system like to believe.
       • Incognito 3.1.1.1

         25 April 2017 at 11:36 pm

         Indeed, not determined by natural causes but undoubtedly influenced by those. I guess we can and do agree that change is possible (and necessary).

         I don’t know anything about the stuff you wrote about Marx and ‘historical determinism’ and so on; my thoughts are mine but obviously influenced by many things, especially thoughts & writings by many many others. BTW, I have never read anything from or studied Marx – my professional ‘field’ is devoid of anything Marx, etc.

         I do think there is a process happening that is called evolution in the line of thinking of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and others. At an individual level there is personal evolution AKA development or growth or awareness. The collective and individual processes cannot be treated as completely separate.

         Only when people ‘wake up’ will we see real changes in society, changes that might help to mitigate the size and impact of ACC, for example. Simply showing people the facts and knowledge of pending doom is effectively no different from the Sunday sermon and threating fire & brimstone. It might work for a wee while on a number of people but as we know it won’t last and it won’t be enough. In fact, it can be divisive and counter-productive. To me it is obvious that we need something better and it is coming, slowly …
         • Ant 3.1.1.1.1

           26 April 2017 at 11:42 am

           Far as I can make out de Chardin carried the impersonal God hinted at by the Nazarene a step further, – implying that under the evolutionary urge the race had reached ‘peduncle time’ where many millions stand poised with massed intent at the threshold of enriching the noosphere with a genuine expansion of consciousness. There’s no shortage of hints abroad that this expansion transcends all formal religion; an online search will find many groups (e.g. Spiritual Atheists!!) responding to the inner promptings of this time.

           .
           • Incognito 3.1.1.1.1.1

             26 April 2017 at 10:24 pm

             My own personal journey has been ‘tracking’ more with Jung than with religion but they say that all roads lead to Rome. I have met a few fellow travellers along the way and it is always a joy to compare notes.
4. greywarshark 4

   25 April 2017 at 4:03 pm

   Other things that make a strong and good community are essential. Such as the ability to trust.
   Respect the good in others and to look for it instead of doing the tall poppy, finding fault, scoring off.
   Awareness that everyone has faults and to be aware of your own, while not denying those of others, perhaps through PC.
   Being aware of the good things that you have and being thankful and knowing when to say enough.

   Not allowing other people to demand stuff all the time from you while putting you last too often, and then festering with this. Saying what you want, standing up for yourself, putting your own case though not all the time, is essential. Community is good but some have the idea that serving the community or family means becoming the gofer, a sort of reliable slave.

   Helping people to empower themselves, not doling out charity and patronising others who are perceived to have less or be disadvantaged. Help people be strong in themselves and don’t underestimate their capacity to make decisions, do things.
   Give people tools and a helping hand if needed.

   These are all important as defined examples of value generalisations.
   • One Two 4.1

     25 April 2017 at 5:47 pm

     So very eloquently said, greywarshark
   • Incognito 4.2

     25 April 2017 at 10:23 pm

     Agreed.
5. gsays 5

   25 April 2017 at 4:22 pm

   Well said incognito.

   Sharing is natural, it accords with our nature.
   It feels good to share and it feels good to be shared with.

   Couldn’t agree more about the sacrifice of the individual for the community.
   A way of looking at it is: when making a decision
   for the individual, consider the family,
   for the family, consider community,
   for the community, consider the nation etc.
   • Grafton Gully 5.1

     25 April 2017 at 5:21 pm

     Our great welfare system is more than just charity because we do not say to the rich: Please give something to the poor. Instead we say: German people, help yourselves! Everyone must help, whether you are rich or poor! Everyone must have the belief that there’s always someone in a much worse situation than I am, and this is the person I want to help as a comrade. If one should say: Yes, but do I have to sacrifice a lot? That is the glory of giving! When you sacrifice for your community, then you can walk with your head held up high. ”
     — Adolf Hitler speech at the Winter Relief in 1937
     • greywarshark 5.1.1

       25 April 2017 at 5:49 pm

       GG
       Interesting that. It sounds very reasonable at first. Perhaps the ‘German’ people is a giveaway. If he is only talking about a percentage of the population it is not a great welfare system.

       And Yes, but do I have to sacrifice a lot? That is the glory of giving! When you sacrifice for your community, then you can walk with your head held up high. ”

       My earlier point was that the individual and the community should be in balance. Sacrificing a lot is for emergencies, and even then it should be in balance. A Christchurch man left his wife and children and went off in the family car to help others coming down the Port Hills and was killed. So he deserted his family for others’ benefit. Good hearted, but not fair. Balance, there is a limit to what can be done by one person or a group. And there is an economic-efficiency term for it called ‘opportunity cost’, which means that if you spend your time on one thing, you lose the opportunity to employ your time somewhere else.
     • Carolyn_nth 5.1.2

       25 April 2017 at 6:04 pm

       Charlatans in politics is not a new thing – maybe why Incognito is looking to mobilisation of people in grassroots communities.
       • Incoognito 5.1.2.1

         25 April 2017 at 10:49 pm

         Indeed I am.
       • Incognito 5.1.2.2

         25 April 2017 at 10:56 pm

         Indeed I am.
     • Incognito 5.1.3

       25 April 2017 at 10:45 pm

       Well, I hadn’t seen this one coming.

       Firstly, I don’t think I ever used the word “sacrifice” or even implied it. Doing something for another or for the community is not a sacrifice as such if it is the right thing to do for all involved and if it is about the interaction rather than the transaction. This doesn’t mean everything is easy but the burden gets lighter or disappears completely depending on how you perceive the action. A parent raising a child knows full-well that it can be very hard at times and yet no parent expects an award or glorification. I like the pay-it-forward concept or random acts of kindness but it is better encapsulated by Buddhist altruism in which the dualism between giver and receiver takes on a whole different dimension. However, I was keen to avoid religious or similar references in my post.
       • gsays 5.1.3.1

         26 April 2017 at 5:52 pm

         Hi incognito, I assume you are responding to me about sacrifice.
         By sacrifice I mean things like getting up before dawn for Anzac service, what parents sacrifice for the betterment of their children.
         Perhaps the biggest sacrifice is to forgo the idea of self and look for the unity in any situation.
         • Incognito 5.1.3.1.1

           26 April 2017 at 10:33 pm

           Hi gsays,

           No, my reply @ 5.1.3 was to Grafton Gully @ 5.1 although Bill @ 3 also used the word, which is actually fascinating.

           That said, I am in complete agreement with you.

           I also think that our Western dualism of you vs. me and us vs. them can block the way forward.
   • One Two 5.2

     25 April 2017 at 5:42 pm

     Yes and No..

     The individual is the smallest community and must first learn about ‘the self’

     If ‘the self’ is not understood or given priority in the ‘correct’ manner, then the likely hood of the so called functional community…is what can been witnessed at the present time..malfunctioning

     The individual has been stripped, turned inside out and discombobulated onto a form which is far from ‘the self’..’humanity’ mostly has little to no idea who, or what ‘we are’

     It is a common misunderstanding that the individual is the ‘problem’..

     That perspective is misplaced and problematic..
     • gsays 5.2.1

       25 April 2017 at 6:27 pm

       hi 1 2,
       it is the belief that the indivdual is paramount that has gotten us to where we are today.
       i would argue that the individual (self?), far from being stripped, is overly adorned with wants, opinions, attitudes, desires etc.
       all legitimate, partly as a by product of many billions of dollars spent over a century, telling us so.
       • greywarshark 5.2.1.1

         26 April 2017 at 12:18 pm

         The individual being lauded and being appealed to by business and RW economists, is carrying out a campaign that is counter to the apparent goal. In creating a mindset that stresses that the individual is me getting king or queen treatment, and me-first is how it should be, that attitude becomes a mass attitude which conforms to whatever approach is presented to individuals to satisfy themselves.

         So we have a mass of individuals conforming like a school of fish. Then the individual who wants to present a new approach is rejected. Often you will come across the answer to a question by someone that ‘They are only just one person, or or a small and vocal group of dissenters’.

         Human nature is very devious, and nothing is as straightfoward as it may seem.
         If it seems obvious and TINA, look for suppression of awkward, disagreeing, individuals who may have a valid point that would give policy a completeness for most situations, if the points could be taken into account.
6. Kay 6

   25 April 2017 at 4:38 pm

   Capitalism dictates that everything and everyone has a monetary value; the neoliberal experiment has thrown many of even the most community minded people into survival mode simply to survive, so unintentionally it ends up becoming “me first” because the harsh reality is a roof over one’s head and a way to pay the bills don’t go away. When all one’s time is taken up on basic survival then of course disconnect from even your immediate community is inevitable.

   Of course, this is no excuse for a fit young man in his business suit not to give up his seat on a packed bus for an elderly person.

   Or for those who don’t teach their kids common courtesy, like giving gran a call and saying thanks for the birthday card. Or even just phoning to say hi. You know, being nice. These are nothing to do with survival/stress; but examples of the wider societal sickness (I don’t know what else to call it) that’s taken hold. I feel if these types of basic behaviours can’t be reversed then within a couple of generations we can forget about the concept of community completely.
7. Philj 7

   25 April 2017 at 4:40 pm

   Thanks for stating what would appear to be fundamental to becoming fully human, which has to be a collective awareness. Consciousness is slowly evolving and if we don’t realise it soon, we may collectively, lose any opportunity to. There is no ‘other’
   • Incognito 7.1

     25 April 2017 at 10:55 pm

     Thank you.

     You’re well ahead of me but I’m slowly catching up.
     • Philj 7.1.1

       25 April 2017 at 11:23 pm

       Cheers Ad. I don’t see that I’m ahead of anyone. We behave as individuals but in a shared reality which is relationship. It’s the bit in between. Martin Buber is worth reading on this.
       • Incognito 7.1.1.1

         25 April 2017 at 11:45 pm

         Thanks.

         I have never heard of Martin Buber and will check it out.

         I agree about the shared reality but in this reality I am called Incognito, not Ad 😉

         You’re ahead in the sense that I have many thoughts on this topic, as you can tell, but have not yet found the right words to put it together for another Guest Post, for example. These posts, and my comments here on TS, are a great self-test; writing what I mean is no mean feat.
         • Philj 7.1.1.1.1

           26 April 2017 at 7:10 am

           “I agree about the shared reality but in this reality I am called Incognito, not Ad 😉”
           Lol. Apologies Incognito, my mistake. Yes, I thank you for raising this topic as it goes deeper than the veneer of MSM political discourse which I am finding increasingly irrelevant and obstructive. The traditional right / left dichotomy is injurious to a healthy society, local and global. We, collectively must create a new ethic for ourselves. The planet will still be here regardless…
       • greywarshark 7.1.1.2

         26 April 2017 at 10:32 am

         Only when people wake up. Well many will not ever, while they ‘sleep on’ they are not obliged to have troubling thoughts and limit their lifestyles which are comfortable. Then there are others who are set on blaming the system, or themselves, for their low position in society. They are oppressed and need to do a lot of rethinking on how to climb out of their rut. So they have to apply troubling thoughts to themselves, and why they are in the state they are in.

         I am reading Alan Duff’s book about himself and his highs and lows. Out of the Mist and the Steam 1999. Troubling thoughts there, could never settle into a lifestyle which was comfortable, fell down, got up, done much, got MBE.
         But it’s taken thought and action and philosophising along the way.

         It is essential that there is talk about philosophy, starting early in life, beyond limiting bad behaviour (in a generally agreed way) , sharing toys, not spitting and biting other little children etc. (I would like not stealing other kids sports shoes added to the list of unacceptables! But that is just looking at the immediate and practical, this need for a better philosophy is beyond these.) More than just following what everyone is doing as if that is ‘natural’ and, permanent and where our social evolution has led us.

         When one looks at how NZ has lost its commitment to each other, respecting the need for each to have a satisfactory life, which goal has been abandoned in exchange for the promise of more money and also the fear of not being able to export and increase business enterprise, it is shocking how what was regarded as permanent and natural has been lost.

         Now people go round chanting slogans, and that is not in protest marches either. The wealthy have been chanting Key knows what to do, how to run the country, or we have to dairy farm to the max or die, or we must have casinos, be a hub for international finance, or become a backwater.

         I note that various times in civilisation have been named ie the Age of Enlightenment, but it seems we are sliding back to conditions and thinking that we thought had been passed, so that we were moving on progressively.
         Are we going back? Is there a trend line that can be traced through the upward and downward movements, and where is it headed?

         Wikipedia on sociocultural evolution:
         Enlightenment and later thinkers often speculated that societies progressed through stages: in other words, they saw history as stadial. While expecting humankind to show increasing development, theorists looked for what determined the course of human history.

         Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), for example, saw social development as an inevitable process.[citation needed] It was assumed that societies start out primitive, perhaps in a state of nature, and could progress toward something resembling industrial Europe.

         While earlier authors such as Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) had discussed how societies change through time, the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century proved key in the development of the idea of sociocultural evolution.[citation needed] In relation to Scotland’s union with England in 1707, several[quantify] Scottish thinkers pondered the relationship between progress and the affluence brought about by increased trade with England. They understood the changes Scotland was undergoing as involving transition from an agricultural to a mercantile society.

         In “conjectural histories”, authors such as Adam Ferguson (1723–1816), John Millar (1735–1801) and Adam Smith (1723–1790) argued that societies all pass through a series of four stages: hunting and gathering, pastoralism and nomadism, agriculture, and finally a stage of commerce.
         Auguste Comte (1798–1857)

         Philosophical concepts of progress, such as that of Hegel, developed as well during this period. In France, authors such as Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) and other philosophers were influenced by the Scottish tradition. Later thinkers such as Comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) developed these ideas.[citation needed] Auguste Comte (1798–1857) in particular presented a coherent view of social progress and a new discipline to study it: sociology.

         I read John Christopher’s Prince in Waiting was the first one of the series.
         This was about a young man who has been chosen to lead his people by the elders. But he is affected by his wife falling in love with another man who replaces him. He is for progress and science, the people reject his ideas.
         There are three books, developing the story which deal with different ways of society.

         Incognito says 3 1 1 1: I do think there is a process happening that is called evolution in the line of thinking of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and others. At an individual level there is personal evolution AKA development or growth or awareness. The collective and individual processes cannot be treated as completely separate.

         Perhaps we should do a mass reading of Teilhard de Chardin and others mentioned above and go for a second book club discussion. Trying to get a workable policy on how we shape our thinking for our life’s reality will not be something that can be brought about by a quick discussion, a bill to be talked about in a select committee. Getting down to the nitty gritty of the ideas and thoughts and opinions of what might be good to have will only be the first stage of this essential, life-changing project. Many of the ideas may be impractical when meeting with our intractable deeply-held unconscious and sub-conscious thinking and reacting. I do not think we actually understand our deep drives, our unconscious etc, even after centuries of self-examination and objective discussion and the exploration and theories of Freud, Jung, Adler? and others.
         • Philj 7.1.1.2.1

           26 April 2017 at 10:30 pm

           Thank you for your thoughts. I find this discussion more interesting than the drudgery of the usual daily political smorgasbord. Teilhard de Chardin was regarded by Sir Lloyd Geering as influencing his thinking about the evolution of human consciousness.
8. RightWingAndProud 8

   25 April 2017 at 5:26 pm

   The key to happiness is not getting what you’ve always wanted (you’ll always want more) but being satisfied with what you have.

   ===================================
   “Ignoring something is not the same as being able to handle them. If you don’t listen to people on the net, then you wind up in a echo chamber that is not useful.
   We eject the people who violate our rules.”
   • Incognito 8.1

     25 April 2017 at 11:05 pm

     The key to happiness is to be who you want to be and become who you want to become. The verb “have” has got very little bearing on happiness as such, although it can temporarily satisfy; it is nice to have a roof over your head and a nice soft bed to sleep in. Satisfaction does not equal happiness.
   • Philj 8.2

     26 April 2017 at 7:22 am

     Thanks for the ‘key to happiness’ RWAP. It explains in part, why people vote right wing. Please excuse the generalization.

• Comments are now closed

• Log in
• Donate
• Contribute post

• Articles RSS