POLITICAL EROS

Part One

First a few facts: America is not a democracy, but a plutocracy (rule by the rich); the people are not free, but controlled and manipulated (by the rich); it is not a secure society because the safety-net is weak or non-existent, and our food, air, and water are dangerously poisoned or polluted; gross inequality of wealth makes a mockery of justice, and it is not a good society that aids and assists poor people, but an Empire that is responsible for more suffering and death around the world than any civilization in the history of the human race. In short, America is not a democratic, free, secure, fair, or good society, and it is certainly not a society of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and indeed the American people, in general, may be the unhappiest people on earth - except for victims of a war zone, or an earthquake or tsunami, or a plague such as HIV.

How do we account for these hard facts about American life? In a word, I answer, Capitalism. For five hundred years, modern humans have been following the capitalist model of development that makes the pursuit of money or (more precisely stated) profit the basic driving force in society. Today, America is the strongest capitalist power in the world and along with being number one in this sense goes the worst symptoms of this economic disease.

The overwhelming majority of Americans, including the most progressive activists, journalists, writers and filmmakers believe, following the Founding Fathers, that we can rationally control and regulate the capitalist machine, but that is an illusion or a myth because an economy that runs on self-interest and money-making always has, and always will, give rise to a group or class of individuals who take over and force the laws and institutions (including the media) to serve special interests. In other words, an economic system that permits and encourages the unlimited accumulation of wealth in private hands enables the strong, the winners, the rich to govern for their own good rather than the common good, and history shows that this is in fact what has happened. And it will continue to happen (no matter how many “revolutions” re-establish, or try to bring back Jeffersonian Democracy). Why?

It is simply not realistic to expect that people brought together and organized in the workplace for the purpose of augmenting the bottom line of their businesses, companies, or corporations can then put on another hat, so to speak, and become true representatives of all the people. The capitalist economy creates a personality type of narrowness and selfishness that makes people unfit for public office. Whoever wins, rises to the top, gains power, is not the kind of person who is good at putting the general good first (even if there are some exceptions here and there, now and again).

Capitalism is a type of economy, and democracy is a kind or form of government, which makes Democratic Capitalism an unsustainable and self-defeating society because it sets up a contradiction in human nature: on the one hand, the citizen is taught/told to be competitive and selfish in the workplace, and on the other hand, s/he is told/educated to be concerned with the common good on the political level, but people will not behave one way in the workplace and another way in Government. Democratic Capitalism is an oxymoron, a myth, a lie because a capitalist economy inevitably corrupts and destroys democracy, as it does freedom, safety, justice, goodness, and happiness.

We need a new economy and a new Constitution because the U.S. Constitution was designed to secure a legally free path for the growth of Capital - and that is precisely the underlying problem.

Part 2

Why is Capitalism, especially Democratic Capitalism, still so widely embraced as a social ideal, even among the best and brightest Americans? My answer, in two words, is sexual oppression. Sexual oppression has so retarded and distorted the American personality that the vast majority of us are incapable of higher rationality, i.e. incapable of creative thinking that transcends the given Capitalist Culture that so limits us. How?

When people are sexually oppressed, they become stupid, which is different from being ignorant. Once an ignorant person is presented with facts and evidence, then s/he internalizes this information, and begins to change and grow. However, no amount of facts and evidence will transform or evolve a stupid person because s/he is unable to process this information. The human brain is an organ, and it functions properly only in communication with the central nervous system, the human body as a whole, and the rest of Nature. The more we regard sexuality as dirty, shameful, exploitative, or hostile, and the more we turn away from it or imprison it, the more we lose or reduce communication with our own bodies, with other people, especially the opposite sex, and with the rest of Nature, and the less deeply we think.

In other words, there is intelligence in Nature, or wisdom in the Universe, that is the innate birthright of every human being. This cosmic intelligence extends itself into humans, first, as physical vibration, then as sexual desire, then as love, and finally as Reason. If the natural/normal development of a person is not seriously damaged by the socialization process, then the child matures into a feeling, desiring, loving, and thinking political animal. However, in America, sexual desire (the second dimension of human existence) is not recognized, respected, and rewarded as Divine Inspiration, Creative Intelligence, or Instinctual Wisdom, which blocks the flow of natural wisdom, and so we fall out of balance with the universal harmony and cannot reach visionary rationality to see beyond capitalism.

Five hundred years of facts and evidence show clearly the destructive path of capitalism, yet the people remain blind to the facts that overcoming Capitalism would do more than anything else to solve our worst problems. More and more research, information, dialogue, and documentation is not going to enlighten the American people because the truth (of a completely different, qualitatively better way of life) is hidden, hindered, or blocked from coming to awareness by a culture of sexual oppression that is particularly damaging in childhood.

Some Americans know that we have an ecological crisis, a financial crisis, a social crisis, a political crisis, and a psychological crisis, but very few know that we also have a sexual crisis. Unless we address and heal the sexual crisis, then I don’t see how we are going to solve the other enormous problems we face because sexual sickness makes people unresponsive or under-responsive to global warming, Enron-scale corruption, torture and war, and it eventually makes people deranged and hateful, as in the case of the rise of the Political Right in America (not to forget the rise of Nazism in Germany).

Never before in history have people been so over stimulated and under satisfied on the sexual level, and this tension is responsible for a good deal of the unhappiness in America, which fuels the capitalist economy of endless substitute satisfactions. The-powers-that-be have a vested interest in preventing people from gaining insight into what is of true value in life, and they have been perfecting the art of culture deception and distraction (now effectively done through advertisement that offers everything but the real thing) for a long time, but the tension, unhappiness, and violence in America will continue to grow along with the GNP, propelling us toward Total Disaster or Exterminism.

Part 3

Americans are directly preconditioned for capitalism by 300 years of Puritanism, and indirectly preconditioned for it by 500 years of Protestantism, and 2000 years of Christianity. Religion, with its anti-sexual message and preaching, is a big reason why many Americans cannot get beyond capitalism, but it is not the only reason. An older and deeper problem than the over-restriction of human sexuality by religion is 10,000 years of monogamy. Why?

The harmony, beauty, and evolution of celestial bodies is not imposed by any outside influence or power (in contrast to what those who believe in a personal god the father say), but is the result of self-balancing, dynamic interaction and communication between everything. Human society, in order to be in agreement with Nature, needs to follow this heavenly model of association and growth, which means that human communities should be free associations of individuals who find their own balancing points with one another on all levels of their existence, including sexuality.

In other words, free love belongs to the natural order of things, which is a truth contained and conveyed by sexual desire, or instinctual knowledge, but also unfortunately a truth that has become a casualty of sexual oppression in America (and throughout the modern world). In order to heal ourselves, and go beyond capitalism, we must lift the limitations imposed by monogamy, both as an institution and as morality.

The best and brightest people in America have designed and articulated various Utopian societies: semi-autonomous regional communities using bikes, electric cars, solar power, locally grown organic food, and so on, but none of these excellent models will be realized on earth if monogamy remains firmly in place because the jealousy, competition, frustration, and aggression that are inextricably bound up with it will continue to undermine and destroy human relationships, even among the best and brightest individuals. More important than all the outer changes we make, or attempt to make in our lives, is the inner work of freeing ourselves from monogamy because this is the value that enforces exclusiveness and isolation. It breaks down human connectivity, communication, community, and collective consciousness.

If we don’t put our sexual lives in order, according to cosmic principles, then we can’t build progressive communities for social change, even among the best and brightest people, and so real change will never come to America as a whole. An unwillingness to address and deal with the sexual crisis in America is why progressive movements and organizations fail; they are fragmented or broken by jealousy, competition, and monogamy, like society at large. If we don’t accept the universal truth about human sexuality, then no theory and activism will work because nothing (except free love) will hold us together for very long, and nothing will move anyone (enough) to do anything (enough). My suggestion is sexual liberation from religion and monogamy, not in isolation from ecological, social, political, educational, and psychological tasks and struggles, but as an integral part of building a progressive movement.

In sum, sexual oppression prepared the way for the rise of capitalism and now it blocks the way beyond capitalism. Anyone who thinks that the capitalist economy (that puts money-making at the base of society) is the best that we can do in the 21st Century lacks vision, and this lack of vision is rooted in a Culture of sexual oppression that makes people stupid and hateful by denying or over-restricting sexuality. Awareness that another world is possible is not achievable through intellect alone, no matter much how much information is available on the internet or elsewhere, for the answer comes partly and originally from Nature, which requires sexual openness and freedom if it is to reach the human mind.