Something to meditate on... Joking aside, business as usual won't do. // Lennart
Sent from my phone. > On Jul 9, 2016, at 10:03, Centroids <[email protected]> wrote: > > Our buddy Mark. I may quibble with some details, but I think he's right that > we need a new mindset to revolutionize our implicit institutions. > > > > The New Age 40 Years Later > > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-heller/the-new-age-40-years-late_b_9765486.html > (via Instapaper) > > The New Age movement rose in the 1970s and has largely faded, but its impact > remains, according to Mark Satin, whose 1976 book, New Age Politics, has been > rereleased and updated in a 40th anniversary edition. > > New Age Politics: Our Only Real Alternative crosses over between politics and > spirituality because of Satin’s conviction that the best political change is > inspired by a transformed consciousness. Although my views are strictly > secular and Satin’s are not entirely so, I’ve found him to be one of the most > intriguing thinkers of our era. The questions I asked focused more on the > spiritual than political. The interview was conducted over email. > > > Photo of Mark Satin by Sandra Wassilie > > Rick: Over the past 40 years, how has “New Age” spirituality evolved? When I > came upon the scene in California in the 1980s, there was a lot of “new > religions” or cults, to use a pejorative term. It seems like these have > faded, and Buddhism now fills the niche for people seeking an alternative > religion. How do you see this? > > Mark: New Age spirituality has gone mainstream! I mean, hardly anyone uses > the term “New Age” anymore, but I suspect most Americans now have a personal > interpretation of God. It may be informed by the Bible, by what we hear at > church, and so on, but it’s also informed by our own life experiences, by > revelations we may have had, by our encounters with other faiths and with > healers and teachers whose faiths may not be easily classifiable. And that > was the essence of New Age spirituality, was it not - to take responsibility > for our own pathway to the divine? The religious writer Thomas Moore captures > the spirit of what I’m saying in the title of one of his recent books, A > Religion of One’s Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a > Secular World. > > You might think American Buddhism represents a return to a more conventional > spirituality. But talk to American Buddhists and you’ll find an amazing > variety of views on spiritual and secular topics - a variety, I dare to say, > that’s shaped more by their life experiences than by their sect’s teachings. > All of what I call in New Age Politics our “monolithic institutions” are > being stripped away today, thank God, and that includes the strictures of all > the world’s religions. As a result, we are becoming closer to God than ever > before. Do you see? Without dominant mediating institutions, our relationship > to God is more personal than it’s ever been, and we are more vulnerable and > naked before God. Hopefully that will help us make more inspired political > choices. > > Rick: In The Yogi and the Commissar, Arthur Koestler wrote about a spectrum > of those seeking change, from the more psychological to the more materialist > perspective. It seems like your New Age Politics was an appeal to look more > toward the Yogi. Is that so? > > Mark: I haven’t read Koestler for nearly 50 years - I loved him, he helped me > avoid the worst excesses of the radicals of the 1960s. (Barely.) But if I > understand your question correctly, then I’m going to have to answer with a > qualified “Not really.” > > It is true that my book stands Marx on his head, says our social and economic > problems are ultimately traceable not to capitalism but to the consciousness > most of us share. A consciousness that goes back hundreds if not thousands of > years before capitalism! Thus far I guess I resemble the Yogi. But unlike > many spiritual people, I define that consciousness very precisely. I say it > consists of a complex of six cultural values or attitudes that I like to call > the “Six-Sided Prison.” The six walls of the Prison are patriarchal > attitudes, egocentricity, scientific single vision, the bureaucratic > mentality, xenophobic nationalism, and the “big city outlook.” These Prison > walls are depressingly familiar to us, are they not? I have spent much of my > life trying to bust out of them. They are not only ultimately responsible for > racism, militarism, ecocide, ridiculous wealth and opportunity disparities, > and all the other horrors of public life. They are also ultimately > responsible for the ways we repress our inner selves and those closest to us. > > But note my use of the word “ultimately.” There is a Commissar in me too! For > the Prison doesn’t exist only in our minds, and we can’t just wish or > meditate or educate it away. Over the centuries it’s generated “monolithic > institutions” that repress us from without, and that reinforce and perpetuate > the Prison within. Church- and dogma-centered religion, which I touched on in > answer to your first question, is one example of a monolithic institution, > but there are plenty of others - the automobile-centered transportation > system, the jobs economy, the military defense system, doctor-centered > healing, lawyer-centered dispute resolution, school-centered credentialing, > compulsory heterosexuality, excessively rigid social roles, the > hyper-centralized state. On and on. > > All these institutions are what I call “deep monopolies.” They are monopolies > not of brands, but of products and processes. They deny us choices in life, > and they make the Prison of consciousness feel natural and “right” to us. So > I am a Commissar to the extent that I want us to break these monopolies up, > by any means short of violence. > > Not to be too cute about it, then, but New Age Politics could be re-titled > “The Yogi and the Commissar Walked Into a Bar ... .” The last section details > all the ways we need to work on ourselves, to break the stranglehold that the > Prison of consciousness has on us. But it also details a myriad of ways we > can work to break up our monolithic institutions. My experience is that, in > real life, most people who are drawn to working on the Yogic side are also > drawn to working at the Commissariat, and vice versa. And I think that’s not > an accident. New Age politics is natural to us, once we reject the silly > Marxist notion that we should postpone working on ourselves until “after the > revolution.” > > I suspect that that’s what Koestler really wanted to see, by the way. He > would have wanted the Yogi and the Commissar to meet at the bar - at the > middle - at what my last book called the “radical middle.” He may have felt > it was impossible in the 1930s and 1940s, when the Commissars were fascists > and communists. But in our time, it is imperative for consciousness change > and institutional change to proceed together. One of the theses of New Age > Politics is that - for better or worse - you can’t have one without the other. > > Rick: How do you see our current politics in terms of materialist and > post-materialist values? It looks to me that the economy’s inability to > increase material wealth of working class people is causing a lot of anger. I > am, however, skeptical, that any policy, even raising taxes on the 1%, will > make that much of a difference. I’m inclined to believe that slow grow in the > developed world is chiefly due to a slowing of technological change (despite > the internet) - as discussed in Robert J. Gordon’s new book, The Rise and > Fall of American Growth - and that we need to shift to a more > post-materialist mindset where we seek to grow in happiness through > psychological practices like mindfulness rather than seeking more material > goods. > > Mark: We have simply got to change over to a post-materialistic mindset. > That’s exactly what I am getting at when I say we have to replace Prison > attitudes with life-loving attitudes - patriarchal attitudes with > post-patriarchal attitudes, egocentricity with spirituality, and so on down > the line. There’s even a section in New Age Politics where I propose > replacing the materialist worldview with what I call a trans-material > worldview. And, of course, I propose replacing each of our monolithic > institutions with their “biolithic” equivalents. Production and consumption > would stop being the be-all and end-all. Our houses might shrink back to the > size they were in the 1950s, but creativity, social service, and the capacity > to express and receive love - politically as well as personally - would reign > supreme. > > That world is possible. But Professor Gordon isn’t going to bring it about by > making logical, economic arguments in favor of it. They’re nice to have in > our quivers. But such arguments have been there for decades. When I did the > research for New Age Politics in the 1970s, there were all sorts of > economists and other social scientists - many of them as prestigious as Dr. > Gordon - who were making logical, “respectable” arguments in favor of > changing over to a post-materialist society. E. J. Mishan, Fred Hirsch, > Edward Goldsmith, René Dumont, Tibor Scitiovsky, William R. Catton, Walter A. > Weisskopf, Herman Daly, Warren Johnson, Robert Theobald - most of them are > forgotten today. > > Do you see where I’m going with this? Telling us that we “should” do > something is a non-starter. The heart will do what it wants to do, not what > it must do or “should” do. What political activists need to do is launch a > cooperative, evolutionary, transformational movement that will prefigure a > post-materialist New Age society (or whatever we want to call it now). We > need to make our goals and our everyday processes seem so compelling, so > life-affirming, and so sustainable, that people will want to live in that > world even if it means they’ll have to drive smaller cars and accept that > everyone on Earth needs and deserves to be Number One. The entire last > section of New Age Politics is devoted to showing what an evolutionary, > transformational movement might consist of. > > One of the wonderful things about living a long life is that I’ve been able > to watch this society move, more rapidly than I could ever have imagined, to > dealing with the Prison within and its institutions without. It hasn’t been > pretty, and there’s no organized political movement to frame our activities, > so we haven’t really known what we’ve been doing. But I really do think that > the blueprint for change I laid out in New Age Politics - a blueprint based > on the writings and activism of hundreds of good people who came before me - > is being acted out before my eyes. We are laying the foundations for a > post-materialist, New Age society, even if we don’t yet have a movement to > coordinate our efforts, and even if we don’t yet have a better name for it > than New Age. > > Rick: Do you meditate? Have you meditated in the past? If so, how have these > experiences affected you? > > Mark: I do mediate, and I’ve done so for decades. Learning to meditate > actually opened me up to the ideas I synthesized in 1976 in New Age Politics. > Doing the research was not sufficient to get me there, and at age 27 I’d had > almost no life experience (though that wasn’t how I saw it then!). Somehow, > meditation gave me the depth and discernment I needed to cut through the > Marxist and anarchist predilections of my cohort and ask the questions that > really needed to be asked. > > I began doing your standard breath meditation in the early 1970s. I was > helped along in part by a men’s consciousness-raising group - yeah, I really > did participate in a lot of the things I was calling for in New Age Politics. > But breath meditation didn’t really suit my temperament. By the mid-1970s I’d > discovered Vivekananda’s writings on Karma Yoga, on making work itself a > yogic practice. The sweetest passages in New Age Politics and in my > subsequent Washington, D.C.-based political newsletter, New Options, were > written “under the influence,” so to speak. (The most relevant issues of New > Options are now online, just Google “New Options Newsletter - by Mark > Satin.”) Today I find great sustenance in the writings of Krishnamurti, who > urges us to meditate while doing the dishes or walking around. > > One thing I have noticed over the years is that some of the most dedicated > meditators I know are also some of the most aggressive, manipulative, and > competitive people I know. My feeling is that these individuals are using > meditation as a substitute for psychotherapy, and it can’t be used that way. > Meditation helped open my mind to the vision and insights in New Age > Politics. But Rogerian therapy taught me to forgive my parents, love myself, > and be open to and respectful of all others. Even Marxists and anarchists! In > other words, meditation made it possible for me to conceptualize and write my > book. But therapy made it possible for me to live by its beautiful philosophy > ... at least most of the time. As New Age Politics itself might say - you > could call it its mantra: We need both! > > > > Sent from my iPhone > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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