I tend to agree culture is not our frien, yet it gives us the foundation from which we need to examine our lives. Allan
On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Molly <[email protected]> wrote: > "Culture is not your friend, no matter what your culture is. And this > is sort of not a Politically Correct thing to say, because in the > present ambience, (sort of, those who haven't gotten the word) there's > a lot of attention to recovering our ethnic roots and to expressing > our unique ethnicity, and so forth and so on -- I think that's the > beginning of understanding. But all terms that stress ethnicity are > words applied to groups of people. Have you ever noticed that? Have > you ever noticed that you're not a group of people, you're a person? > So you may be "Jewish", you may be "Black", you may be this, you may > be that but there is no obligation to take upon yourself the > generalized quality of these things, because the generalized qualities > belong to thousands of people examined at a time. If you misunderstand > that you become a caricature. You act out your ethnicity as a > caricature. > > So culture is not your friend, ideology is not your friend... Who's > your friend? Well, to my mind, the felt presence of immediate > experience is the surest dimension, the surest guide that you can > possibly have. The felt presence of immediate experience. Feeling is > primary. All rationalization and intellectualization and analysis is > secondary, and comes out of culture. No matter what your culture is, > it has answers. Cultures thinks up answers. So a child asks its mother > a question, like, "Where do we go when we die?" or, "Why does Daddy go > to work?" Cultural answers are always provided, but nobody knows the > real answers to these questions -- that's outside of culture. So > coming to terms and fully expressing your culture is like a stage in > development. And then beyond that lies the aspiration of the felt > presence of immediate experience, and its implications. It's a very > hard thing to deal with and to do when you are poisoned with ideology. > And ideologies are very difficult to deconstruct and rid yourself of > through a simple talking therapy of some sort, through simply trying > to work it out. The best antidote for ideology is to raise the > intensity of the felt presence of experience to such excruciating > levels that it simply vaporizes ideological illusion. And this is what > psychedelics are for, I think. And it also explains (if you've ever > wondered) the incredible phobia of these things on the part of the > establishment, the incredibly deep alarm that these things trigger in > people" - Terence McKenna > > > http://www.salvia-divinorum-scotland.co.uk/quotes/mckenna/cultureisnotyourfriend.htm > > What do you think? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > ""Minds Eye"" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<minds-eye%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en. > > -- ( ) I_D Allan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
