…Concern shifts, then, from care of the person, or care of the other, to care for the relational process. From what forms of relationship do we flourish? Here again is a pragmatic question for conversations now in progress.
The Ethical Skeptic (TES) has written a very good essay: The Distinction Between Comprehension and Understanding. I want to use a schema presented in his essay to describe what FIML is, how to see it and understand it. Comprehending it requires doing it and reaping its benefits.
TES provides this illustration of the layers of thought and psychology that culminate in comprehension:
I might not use a hammer to represent comprehension but since we have a hammer, it would represent FIML’s ability to smash through the dogma of psychology, our ordinary understanding of psycholinguistics, the simplicity with which we view real-time speech, and our ignorance that there exists anything profound in being able to analyze real-time, real-world speech as it is happening.
FIML is a method, a technique. It has no content save what you bring to it. FIML works with and reveals the profound subjectivity of the individual. Since basic FIML cannot be done alone but only with a partner, it also reveals the profound subjectivity of your partner. In doing this, it smashes the dogmas of psychology and virtually all public/common notions about what the human mind even is.
The difficulties of FIML are fundamentally two: 1) seeing it at all and 2) doing it. FIML is not something people normally ever do. I have been writing, reading, and thinking about FIML for many years and have never seen any reference to anything like it anywhere in the history of the world. If you know of one, please tell me. I will be delighted.
FIML is probably hard to see because all languages everywhere contain a very strong proscription against questioning anyone in the moment in order to begin a sober analysis. People just don’t do that. Getting that close and personal about something someone has just said (or did) is instinctively perceived as disrespect, argumentativeness, stupidity, rocking-the-boat, etc. FIML 100% is not that, but since no one has cultivated the habit or acquired the training to do it, no one can even see it let alone do it.
Most of us can see moments of speech and change our minds quickly if we are ordered, instructed, or want to curry favor. I guess that is a starting point, but none of that is FIML. FIML begins with a subjectively felt (or comprehended) need to find out if you have interpreted something correctly. Very ordinary, right? Yes, it is in “slow-time,” but not in real-time.
When done in real-time, the emphasis is on the one asking the question because this one has noticed an interpretation arising in their mind that may be wrong. The interpretation could be completely new or more likely habitual. By frequently noticing these interpretations and then asking your FIML partner about them (using FIML rules) and listening to their reply, you will gradually begin to see a true picture of your actual profound and marvelous subjective mind as it moves through and responds to its living existence.
FIML is no more difficult to learn than playing a musical instrument, riding a motorcycle, or cooking. Once both you and your partner understand what FIML basically is and why it is so necessary, you will progress quickly and gain many insights into your behaviors and thinking processes. At some point, you will achieve a kind of mutual comprehension of each other that is very clear and beautiful and cannot be gained in any other way.
A few agitated commenters have once again begun denouncing Prof. Jeffrey Sachs for allegedly being responsible for the Western looting of Russia during the 1990s.
Frankly, a decade or two ago I’d vaguely had the same opinion since I’d always seen him described in the newspapers as one of the key economic advisors to the Russian government of that period and had read some article somewhere making that claim. But I’d never explored this matter and over the last couple of years I’ve become convinced that my impression was entirely mistaken.
Therefore, I’d urge that people read Sachs’ article providing his version of the history, very similar to what he’d said in his 2005 book, which I’d read earlier this year. I’d also strongly suggest that people watch his detailed interview, which he apparently arranged after Taibbi and the other hosts had casually made that same mistaken accusation in a previous show.
Over the last couple of years I’ve watched a number of his interviews in which he discussed these matters, and all I can say is that he’s either being honest or he’s about the best liar in the history of the human species.
As far as I can tell, the only reason people believe Sachs was responsible was one 1998 article published in the Nation plus portions of Naomi Klein’s 2007 book. Mistaken ideas sometimes get into circulation and are then repeated back and forth so many times that everyone assumes they’re correct. But I’ve carefully read those two sources and I found Sachs’ account much more persuasive.
More importantly, President Putin and the top Russian leaders have denounced the 1990s policies as one of the greatest economic disasters of the 20th century and have been scathing in their denunciations of the American advisors who they blamed for the looting of their country and the total impoverishment of the Russian population. However, they’ve never included Sachs in that category, and instead they have always treated him with respect and friendship.
I think that Putin and his leadership team have a much better idea of what really happened during the 1990s than any of us do, and the identities of the heroes and the villains. So I trust Putin’s judgment on such things.
This issue has major importance because of Sachs’ current status as one of the foremost critics of American policies. Indeed, in my articles I’ve made that point that Sachs has probably now become the highest-ranking American ideological defector of the last one hundred years, or at least no other obvious names come to mind:
I have been extremely suspicious of Sachs and avoided posting any of his material on this site. I am willing to consider Ron’s argument but also can’t not notice, once again, it’s one Jew defending another. ‘The best way to control the opposition is to lead them’. If you click on the link to Ron’s comments and read some other comments, you will get a fuller picture of this issue. I, for one, remember the rape of Russia and that Sachs was a prominent exponent of economic ‘shock therapy’ not only in Russia but also South America, if memory serves. I may be wrong and am willing to change my view of Sachs but am not eager to do so. Below is a recent video of Sachs commenting on Ukraine. In that video, he blames everything on ‘USA’ when the reality appears to be different and rife with his tribe always at or near the top. So, I dunno. Best to be suspicious, yet at the same time ready to forgive anyone who honestly repents and changes their ways. Of course, Sachs is claiming he never was doing bad things in Russia and Ron’s use of Putin’s non-criticism of Sachs is illuminating, but there are surely many dark wrinkles inside of that. A non-confession, non-repentance, I-was-always-right-and-good argument might be true, but consider the sources. ABN
The astral plane, also called the astral realm or the astral world, is a plane of existence postulated by classical, medieval, oriental, esoteric, and new age philosophies and mystery religions.[1] It is the world of the celestial spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and is generally believed to be populated by angels, spirits or other immaterial beings.[2] In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy and neo-Rosicrucianism.
Another view holds that the astral plane or world, rather than being some kind of boundary area crossed by the soul, is the entirety of spirit existence or spirit worlds to which those who die on Earth go, and where they live out their non-physical lives. It is understood that all consciousness resides in the astral plane.[3] Some writers conflate this realm with heaven or paradise or union with God itself, and others do not. Paramahansa Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), “The astral universe … is hundreds of times larger than the material universe … [with] many astral planets, teeming with astral beings.”
My sense is the term astral plane has fallen a bit out of favor. In some cases it is replaced by ethereal plane. In Buddhism, it is traditionally referred to as ultimate reality or vaguely as nirvana, or what comes after nirvana. More recently among scientists and philosophers, we are seeing the concept of a conscious universe or a thinking universe, a universe in which consciousness is a primary force, feature or dimension. However we refer to it, we need a term that evokes dimensions or planes of awareness beyond earthly or mundane awareness or ‘relative reality’, as it is put in Buddhism.
The concept of an astral plane dates back to Plato if not before. The Buddha was referring to something like that without using any term when he spoke about nirvana. The Buddha was a Scythian who argued against the strong Scythian belief in an absolute distinction between right and wrong and a single, great God (Ahura Mazda) who created the world and could be known only through doing good.
It’s a good development that scientists and philosophers today are increasingly seeing what the Buddha and many others have seen throughout the ages. I believe deep meditative states and a moral life afford us frequent opportunities to commune with or glimpse dimensions or realms beyond our normal default cultural behavioral realms.
Buddhism is a profoundly ethical teaching but it also rejects absolutes. We humans are characterized by emptiness, impermanence, and the suffering wrought by clinging to any concept, belief or idea, and yet are capable of freeing ourselves from ‘relative reality’ through ethical practice and experiential samadhi states.
The Buddha remained silent on matters related to anything like the astral plane because he knew that focusing on ethereal aims (especially in his day?) tends to reify them, which then leads to ossification, doctrine, worship without reason. I wonder if in our day, the Buddha would reason differently as many reasonable thinkers now accept that consciousness may be inexplicable by rank materialism or particle physics or biology based on those; and thus may/must be a primary aspect of all that we know of.
Sounds reasonable from his angle, but Mearsheimer either pretends he doesn’t know or really doesn’t know that destroying Ukraine was always the plan. Destroying Russia along with or after destroying Ukraine is also the plan. Destroying Europe is also the plan. The people doing this are not irrational. They are aiming for global domination. You have to think like them to understand what they are doing and why. All policies they control are designed to weaken and destroy the entire West so that they can control all of it. It’s a perfectly reasonable strategy and it has worked extremely well for them. Included in this strategy has been multigenerational clandestine infiltration of all Western institutions accompanied by disabling promising young Westerners (especially boys and young men) so there can be no one left to fight back. Notice how virtually all Ukrainian men of military age have been slaughtered, many of them forced to the front, many of them underage teenagers. Zelensky is not Ukrainian but rather a member of the cabal that has destroyed Ukraine. They are happy to kill as many Ukrainians as they can, already 700,000 and counting. Europe and Russia are next. I like Mearsheimer, but like so many other alternate voices to mainstream cabal, he assumes they think like him, or pretends they do. Maybe he believes pure reason (based on his classical assumptions about right and wrong) will convince an incorrigible adversary to change its ways. Mearsheimer is a ‘realist’ who analyzes ‘great powers’ based on their perceived needs. Why has he not realized that the ‘great power’ controlling the West is hidden, secreted behind veils of misdirection? They are behaving exactly as his political philosophy dictates, but based on different assumptions and different goals. ABN
I betray my poor education by admitting that I had never heard of W. V. Quine’s “indeterminacy of translation” until last week. My ignorance is especially egregious as I have worked as a professional translator for many years.
Maybe I had heard about it but had forgotten. I am being self-reflective because FIML practice is deeply, fundamentally concerned with the “indeterminacy” of translating one person’s thoughts into another person’s head.
Quine’s thesis is not just about translating from one language to another, though there is that. It is much more about the fundamental impossibility of determining what anything means well enough to “translate” it into another context, a next sentence, into another person’s mind, or even “translating” your own speech from the past into the context of your mind today.
If I had known about Quine, I probably never would have thought of FIML because his ideas and the slews of papers written on “indeterminacy of translation” surely would have made me believe that the subject had been worked through.
As it was, I have plodded along in a delightful state of ignorance and, due to that, maybe added something practical to the subject.
In the first place, I wholeheartedly believe that speech is filled with indeterminacy, which I have generally called ambiguity or uncertainty. In the second place, I have confined my FIML-related investigations mainly to interpersonal speech between partners who care about each other. I see no solution to the more general problem of indeterminacy within groups, subcultures, or linguistic communities. Until brain scans get much better, large groups will be forced to resort to hierarchical “determinacy” to exist or function at all.
For individuals, though, there is much we can do. FIML practice does not remove all “indeterminacy.” Rather, it removes much more than most people are aware is possible, even remotely aware is possible. My guess is FIML communication provides a level of detail and resolution that is an order of magnitude or two better than non-FIML.
That is a huge improvement. It is life-changing on many levels and extremely satisfying.
FIML does not fix everything—and philosophical or “artistic” differences between partners are still possible—but it does fix a great deal. By clearing up interpersonal micro-indeterminacy again and again, FIML practice frees partners from the inevitable macro-problems that micro-ambiguity inevitably causes.
Moreover, this freedom, in turn, frees partners from a great deal of subconscious adhesion to the hierarchical “determinacy” of whichever culture they are part of. Rather than trapping themselves in a state of helpless acceptance of predefined hierarchical “meaning,” FIML partners have the capacity to sort through existential semiotics and make of them what they will with far less “indeterminacy,” or ambiguity, than had been possible without FIML practice.
The meme Castizo Futurism is used to describe the blending of Whites and Latinos to form a new ethnogenesis, as well as a rightward political shift among Latinos. A liberal publication describes Castizo Futurism as multiracial White Nationalism, as a lot of young White nationalist men aren’t actually White, with prominent dissident right figure, Nick Fuentes, having Latino ancestry. While many on the Right embrace Castizo Futurism, it is also used derisively by Alt-Right types. The embrace of Castizo Futurism signifies some degree of White demoralization.
Whiteshift author, Eric Kaufman, predicts that many minorities, especially Latinos will be absorbed into Whiteness just like Italians, Jews, and Irish were, though not Black people. Kaufman being half Jewish, a quarter Asian and a quarter Latino though White presenting, is a product of this. Thus Kaufman seems fine with this Whiteshift coinciding with civic nationalism based on preserving Western values. He just opposes any overt forms of White identity politics.
In contrast with Kaufman’s Whiteshift, Michael Lind advocates for the formation of a new blended American race and culture. Lind argues that this new American ethnogenesis is needed to save America from balkanization but also must be post-White. I reject the American Melting Pot and favor ethnopluralism or rightwing multiculturalism, where Whites retain a distinct identity within the framework of multiculturalism. However, there also needs to be room for mixed-race people and people in interracial marriages to form their own identities.
Using miscegenation to bleach minorities into Whiteness is quasi-imperialist but has been how America has prevented balkanization. This also fits in with Latin America’s racial caste system and the concept of Mejorar la Raza, or “improving the race”. Basically, Indigenous and mixed-race people can move up in caste via intermarriage with more Caucasian people. America’s future could very well be like Latin America’s caste system where upwardly mobile non-Whites assimilate into Whiteness by marrying White while downwardly mobile Whites marry out and cease to be White.
Interesting read. I have no position on this except wanting to preserve Western civilization. At the end, the author alludes to gene-editing but says nothing more. I am certain advanced IVF, gene-editing, and eventually some form of digital babies gestated in off-body wombs will completely change our views on race, lineage and ethnicity while also massively raising human IQ and health by promoting good genes and removing bad ones. What we are genetically today will live on only through our best genes and the whims of parents, if there still is such a thing, who will select their digital babies from catalogues. I see this as an optimistic thought. Conscious evolution bringing out the best in us. ABN
Clown World loathes Whites and loves wars. This creates a problem, because straight White men, the lowest of the low in Clown World’s eyes, are needed to fight Clown World’s wars. Alas, the policy of “Revile them, then recruit them” isn’t going well. In both Britain and America, White male recruitment to the military is disastrously down even as Clown World plans a triumphant war against Russia. And China. And Iran. And North Korea. There’s an Axis of Evil, you see, that must be opposed by an Axis of Anal. Evil countries like Russia, which don’t believe in the worship of homosexuals and non-Whites, must be defeated by good countries like Britain, which do believe in such worship.
…It will be interesting to see what direction Vance goes, factoring in his ties to Tech oligarchs. There are trade-offs, as the rightwing of Silicon Valley is open to the more grey tribe, dissident sphere, yet also invested in neoliberal policies like h1b immigrant visas and deregulation. The reality is you need some elite support and this Silicon Valley grey tribe elite is preferable to the old guard GOP donor class like the Koch Brothers. I could see a future post-Trump, tech-oriented GOP that is centrist on cultural issues, for natalism/soft eugenics, pro-high skilled immigration, tech accelerationist, pro-crypto currencies, and for replacing social programs with UBI.
Vance is intelligent and much more intellectual than the other MAGA figures. While Trump could have selected another boomer or a diversity pic, I can appreciate that Vance is a White millennial male. Trump’s selection of Vance signals that Trump is symbolically aligning with populism and Vance is some flex of the online youthful right. Basically, Vance is the best of a list of uninspiring potential VP candidates.
Reasonable overview of Vance and why Trump picked him. I like the kind of thinking in the highlighted paragraph. That’s basically what real-world politics is, all that it is. Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, we need that kind of thinking. ABN
UPDATE: This is an excellent essay and I encourage everyone to read it. I believe this is the kind of outlook we want to get massive numbers of people to understand. We the plebs have some say in how we are ruled pretty much only through public opinion. The better many of us understand the world we really are living in, the more likely we will be able to humanize post-modern totalitarianism if we cannot defeat it entirely, which is a very daunting task. With Sundance’s permission, I have posted the entire essay on this site. ABN
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Abandoned by his father to a troubled single mother; eventually raised by grandparents. He is then recruited from an Ivy league law school by shadow figures, a specific billionaire and a network of interests. He changes his name, writes a book about his life story, and with the support of the aforementioned – who eventually pays for the assembly of a strategic campaign influence network, becomes a Senator for 2 years before being quickly elevated into position in the White House.
Many people reading that paragraph would be familiar with the life story of Barack Hussien Obama. However, that paragraph also explains the right-side version of the exact same storyline, James David Vance. It’s a mirror.
On one side of the UniParty mirror we have an emotionally constructed political figure for the left. On the other side of the UniParty mirror we have an emotionally constructed political figure for the right. Each person, each emotional narrative, carrying the specific nuances to appeal to their wing of the UniParty audience. However, both are following the same playbook.
It started with a conversation several weeks ago. Who is JD Vance and where did he come from?
How does a person without any baseline in politics, not a council member, not a mayor, not a state rep – or state senate, governor etc., become a U.S. Senator and then quickly get into the White House?
What I was told sounded eerily familiar.
JD Vance was born James Donald Bowman in Middletown, Ohio (August 2, 1984). He then changed his name to James David Bowman. He then changed his name to James David Hamel. Eventually, in 2014, notably after Yale Law School (class of 2013) and after marrying his wife Usha, now age 30, he changed his name to write a book.
Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy was published by Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house, Harper Collins in 2016. The book was made into a Netflix movie, [Reed Hastings] created by Imagine Entertainment and directed by Ron Howard (2020). However, the interesting background on JD Vance goes back to Yale, and the Obamaesque tap on the shoulder that comes from a billionaire most are familiar with, Peter Thiel.
I can see this POV. it could be that way but not necessarily. I never said Trump is an ‘outsider’. I said he another faction of the elite, a better faction
all history has had elites. elites fight and have differences. this has always been the case everywhere in the world. what you say is not impossible but why did they bother with the fake assassination? if they already hold all the cards there was no need for that
I do not believe there are no good ppl anywhere in IC or in the elite, so I look for the other factions. I use the example of history to do a Bayesian analysis = probability very high there are elite factions who are fighting for the ultimate win. I prefer the Trump et al faction over everything else I can see
ergo: it is smarter to accept the assassination for what it appears to be and support Trump than not to. I am 100% fine with supporting people who are only 75% OK, even less in some cases and always case by case for small players. that’s life in a complex world
if you are right, we will know soon enough. if you are wrong, you are wasting energy not me
Steve Sailer has spent a lifetime observing human behavior and coming to obvious, sensible conclusions. For the crime of noticing reality, he’s been ostracized, although secretly everyone still reads him.
American Buddhist Net 