WESTERN CULTURE AS A BIPOLAR DISORDER

What we call ‘normal’ is a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms of destructive action on experience.”  — R.D. Laing

Not every culture SPLITS into two opposing polar opposite views of ‘reality’ of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’.  That’s because not every culture makes EGO and the power of LOCAL SOURCING the cornerstone of its concept of ‘reality’ as WESTERN CULTURE does.  In culture’s where TRANSFORMATION serves the foundational role in ‘reality’, there is no polarizing BIPOLAR DISORDER, neither of the overt ‘conservative’ – ‘liberal’ BIPOLAR DISORDER variety where the polarizing division is over the question of the presumed LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments (is it ‘one-to-many- sourced? … or is it ‘many-to-one sourced’), or the introverted psychiatric-clinically defined INTERNAL splitting of the psyche POPULAR version of BIPOLAR DISORDER.

WESTERN CULTURE has become blind to its inbuilt, pervasive BIPOLAR DISORDER that manifests as the conservative – liberal split as to how one should understand the process of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments; i.e. does it take a whole community to raise a child, … or does one bad apple spoil the barrel?  Which way does LOCAL SOURCING work?   Does the whorl in the water source the flow and movement of the water, … or, does the flow and movement of the water source the whorl?

Among WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, this question splits the populace into two polar opposing groups.  The ‘conservative group’ maintains that the individual sources the stirring of society into action while the ‘liberal group’s maintains that the social collective (society) sources the stirring into action of the individual.

WESTERN CULTURE, on the other hand, along with modern physics, contends that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “LOCAL SOURCING” of actions and developments, … that that is abstraction deriving from the DOUBLE ERROR of language and grammar (Nietzsche), the first error being NAMING to impute local thing-in-itself existence, conflated with the second error of GRAMMAR to impute the power of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and development to the NAMING-instantiated thing-in-itself.

EAST CULTURE and MODERN PHYSICS do not get bogged down in the BIPOLAR DISORDER that arises from ‘taking sides’ on this question as to the ‘true nature of LOCAL SOURCING’ since there is no such thing as “LOCAL SOURCING” in the understanding of reality in the EASTERN and modern physics Weltanschuang, … there is only TRANSFORMATION which is relational and INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.

BIPOLAR DISORDER BELONGS TO US WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, arising form our imputing of a reality based on LOCAL SOURCING, an abstract (double error of grammar-based) conceptualizing of reality that ‘does an end run’ around the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT reality of the all-including transforming relational continuum aka ‘the Wave-field’ aka ‘the Tao’.  In other words, ‘transformation’ is ‘everywhere-at-the-same-time’ and that is the basic reality as accepted by modern physics and by EASTERN CULTURE adherents (indigenous aboriginals, Taoists/Buddhists and Advaita Vedanta).  As Wittgenstein points out, the fact that language and grammar have to rely on DOUBLE ERROR based constructions (i.e. ‘things-that-do-stuff’) does not mean that we have to accept  such language and grammar as directly and explicitly ‘capturing reality’, as WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are doing, … we can employ language as a ‘tool of inference’ to trigger in us an INTUITIVE LEAP to understanding beyond the reach of explicit language and grammar constructs.

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)

He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

7.0 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. (“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen”),

–Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

What Wittgenstein is addressing is that reality is TRANSFORMATION which is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT, so that in order to come up with a language-based articulation, we must avoid the EXPLICIT and use INFERENCE to infer that which is IMPLICIT (the continually in-flux transformation).

OK, it is not my intention to ‘re-write’ the essay in this introduction since WESTERN CULTURE AS A BIPOLAR DISORDER is the central contention of the essay.  The reader can think of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ as two opposing POLES of a magnet as in the case of a magnetized compass needle.  NOTA BENE: The analogy being made here is between the magnetized compass needle and the BIPOLAR DISORDER in the human psyche.  If the compass needle (the human psyche) has been STRONGLY polarized, it will always move swiftly and point in one of two opposing directions (a conservative will orient strongly and swiftly to one understanding, while a liberal will orient strongly and swiftly to the polar opposite understanding).  But if the compass needle (the human psyche) is only WEAKLY polarized, not only will it not move swiftly and surely to its particular polar orientation, it may dawdle undecidedly between the two choices which often involves going into a spin instead of going into a firm alignment in one or the opposite BIPOLAR orientations (conservative or liberal).

The WESTERN CULTURE BIPOLAR DISORDER that is most OVERT and accepted as ‘part of the WESTERN CULTURE MAKE-UP, is the polarization into ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’.   But since we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have come to accept this WESTERN CULTURE BIPOLAR DISORDER as NORMALITY, we no longer see it as a DISORDER and have made it part of the NORMAL CONDITION of being a WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT.   But we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, whether we are of the conservative BIPOLAR DISORDER strain or the liberal BIPOLAR DISORDER strain, will agree that the individual that goes into an indecisive spin IS THE ONE THAT HAS A “BIPOLAR DISORDER”.

Here, it is useful to recall the polarized Liliputians and Brobdignagians satirized in Gulliver’s Travels who argued over which ‘pole’ of a hard-boiled egg should be used to gain access, the pointy end or the roundy end.  This satirical mockery was aimed squarely at the conservative – liberal BIPOLAR DISORDER.  However, since having one or the other of those ‘polarities’ is considered by the WESTERN CULTURE social collective as NORMAL, … what gets classified as ABNORMAL is when the compass needle is only weakly polarized and keeps going into a spin without LOCKING ON FIRMLY to EITHER one polarity (e.g. conservative) OR the opposite polarity (e.g. liberal). NOTA BENE: these polarities are psychological and run deeper that political alignments; Ask yourself if you prefer to believe either that ‘continents drift’ or ‘the seafloor spreads’.   In trying to make this EITHER/OR choice, you (your psyche) is on the cusp between EUCLIDIAN flat space and NON-EUCLIDIAN SPHERICAL SPACE.  If the sphere is entirely fluid so that continents can subduct and extrude, you do not have to make an EITHER/OR choice between ‘continental drift’ and ‘seafloor spreading’; i.e. you don’t have to succumb to BIPOLAR DISORDER, you can understand the reality in terms of purely relational TRANSFORMATION.  By ‘purely relational’, I mean that in TRANSFORMATION, “everything is in flux” and there is no need to make the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR to represent such dynamics in terms of ‘things-in-themselves’ with ‘their own powers of sourcing actions and developments: i.e. ‘continents that drift’ (male pole of the BIPOLARITY) or ‘seafloors that spread’ (female pole of the BIPOLARITY).

HOW DID WE GET INTO THE BIPOLAR DISORDER MESS?   We got there through the need to ‘effable-ize’ the ineffable (TRANSFORMATION which is inherently INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT), however, unlike the EAST, which employs the reduction to EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT as a ‘Wittgenstein ladder’ or ‘tool of inference’, we have used the reduction to EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT as our OPERATIVE REALITY, and that is a CRAZY-MAKER by way of BIPOLAR DISORDER.

No-one would argue that the sacrifice of reduction needed for the tool of language to be born is not warranted, the EAST/WEST issue here is that while the EAST and modern physics employ reduction of the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT to EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT as a disposable ‘Wittgenstein ladder’ or BOOTSTRAPPING DEVICE, the WEST is employing the reduction to EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT …. AS THE OPERATIVE REALITY.

What results is that when we say; ‘The area of farmland that I have cultivated has grown from 2 acres to 160 acres, we acknowledge this as ‘real GROWTH’ and we know that our system of economics assigns real value to such GROWTH.  But what happened to any acknowledgement of the SHRINKAGE of the Wilderness or in other words, the GREATER REALITY of TRANSFORMATION?   What if we have an ‘economy’ that recognizes GROWTH without acknowledging TRANSFORMATION?  The rewards for GROWTH could result in TRANSFORMATION goes unaddressed, like a loose sheet flapping in a gale.

There is no such thing as GROWTH, unless you live on, and ‘grow your farm’ on a flat plane of infinite extent so that there is no reciprocal REDUCTION of Wilderness inextricably bound together with GROWTH so as to point out the greater (real) reality of TRANSFORMATION.   We don’t acknowledge TRANSFORMATION linguistically because it is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, but just because it is INEFFABLE doesn’t mean it is NOT REAL.  It is REAL and the EAST and modern physics treats it as the PRIMARY REALITY, while we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have elevated the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT to the status of OPERATIVE REALITY, and abandoned the embrace of reality as the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT (the Wave-field, the Tao), as is the understanding of THE EAST and of modern physics.

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WESTERN CULTURE AS A BIPOLAR DISORDER

How and Why we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS EFFABLE-ized the INEFFABLE

 

Indigenous aboriginal cultures and modern physics both point out that the reality we are included in is “the transforming relational continuum” aka “the Wave-field” aka “the Tao”, aka “the FLOW”, thus one cannot speak of a “DIVERSITY” of things in a flowing reality, … there can only be a DIVERSITY of forms in the FLOW that  are continually gathering and scattering.

One needs a different type of logic as in EASTERN CULTURE, aka “quantum logic” to speak of this fluid reality; i.e. the BOTH/AND logic of the INCLUDED medium wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE as with the ‘boil’ in the ‘flow’ in a fast-flowing river.

Our WESTERN CULTURE “standard logic” is the EITHER/OR logic of the EXCLUDED medium wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO as where we (wrongly) perceive the boil as a separate thing that is “moving through” the flow (there is ambiguity in this case as to whether the boil is sourcing the flow or the flow is sourcing the boil.  The ‘conservative’ view is that the individual boil is sourcing the collective flow while the ‘liberal’ view is that the collective flow is sourcing the individual boil).   This Zen paradox has a simple answer; i.e. there is no such thing as local SOURCING, there is only nonlocal TRANSFORMATION.

Since the EAST understanding of reality is in terms of NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION, the LOCAL SOURCING AMBIGUITY does not arise and there is no conservative – liberal BIPOLAR SPLIT

A KEY DISTINGUISHING OBSERVATION is that in the reality of the EAST, mitakuye oyasin applies, wherein all things are related within the transforming relational continuum aka ‘Wave-field’ aka ‘the Tao’.  Thus DIVERSITY IS NOT REAL.  It is only a NAMING based distinction as with “Canadian”, ‘Mexican”, “American”, thus …

Diversity Is a Linguistic Dis-Order

As NIETZSCHE has pointed out the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR employs NAMING to impute LOCAL thing-in-itself existence and conflates this with GRAMMAR to impute the power of sourcing actions and developments to the NAMING instantiated ‘thing-in-itself’.  This gives us LOCAL SOURCING of ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENT.

The DOUBLE ERROR based concept of LOCAL SOURCING overcomes (by way of language sourced intellectual abstraction) the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT by substituting the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT.  This in turn sets the stage for the notion of LOCAL OPTIMIZATION aka ‘SUB-OPTIMIZATION’.

As systems scientist Martine Dodds Taljaard has pointed out in ‘The Name of the Devil is Suboptimization’, this intellectual language-based fragmentation of reality, taken literally, is a CRAZY-MAKER.

‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘Indigenous Lives Matter’, ‘LGBT Lives Matter’, are initiatives that presuppose a DIVERSITY that does NOT physically exist.  DIVERSITY is a Linguistic Dis-Order that is based on the expedient but fictional substitution of the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT for the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, … the LOCAL particle-ular pseudo-reality for the NONLOCAL Wave-field reality.

We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are screwing ourselves up with this delusion.

p.s. The WESTERN CULTURE DELUSION manifests as well in the conservative – liberal BIPOLAR DISORDER.

This general WESTERN CULTURE-wide BIPOLAR SPLITTING is the strong version of the BIPOLAR DISORDER as with the strongly polarized compass needle.  In the case of a weaker BIPOLAR DISORDER, the orientation can fall into a spin due to ITS lack of strong polarization while being immersed in a mixed assemblage of strongly polarized others.

Neither of the BIPOLAR DISORDERS that plague the WESTERN CULTURE; i.e. NOT the conservative – liberal polarization and NOT the so-called individual bipolar disorder are a problem among EASTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS.

WESTERN BIPOLAR CONCEPTS such as PRODUCTION(CONSTRUCTION) and DESTRUCTION(CONSUMPTION) usurp the real-world experience of inclusion in TRANSFORMATION; i.e. the WESTERN BIPOLAR DISORDER has us talking about “reality” in BINARY POLAR terms of PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION as if that “captured reality”.

SORRY!  PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION are a BINARY pair that fail to convey TRANSFORMATION, the real going’s on.  WESTERN MAN “grows” his production by increasing the land under cultivation which is, at the same time reducing the Wilderness which is NOT COMPREHENDED in “the GROWTH of PRODUCTION (these two effects together imply TRANSFORMATION).

In other words, there are no such processes as “CONSTRUCTION” and ‘DESTRUCTION” and the real reality is instead, relational “TRANSFORMATION”.

There is a psychological problem here in that “CONSTRUCTION” and “DESTRUCTION” have been invented because they are EFFABLE-because-LOCAL and EXPLICIT, while relational “TRANSFORMATION”, the ‘real dynamic’, is, as a Wave-field is wont to be, INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT.

“TRANSFORMATION” as in the Wave-field is “everywhere at the same time”.  While “TRANSFORMATION” is the primary reality, it is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.  In other words, we are experiencing inclusion in TRANSFORMATION but in order to EFFABLE-ize it, we must reduce it by substituting an expression which is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT.  CONSTRUCTION and DESTRUCTION are thus used as substitutes that are EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT for the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT relational TRANSFORMATION.

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ADDENDUM: OBSERVATIONS

 

-1- The NON-REALITY of LOCAL SOURCING:   — Because language cannot capture the reality of real-time TRANSFORMATION that is all including and thus includes the observer/experient who is all the while transforming  together with the forms in the flow he is observing (i.e. FIGURES and GROUND are ONE), … reductions in the conceptual capture of impressions of reality are necessary in order the render the INEFFABLE (TRANSFORMATION) because NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, in terms that are EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT.  The DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR that sets up the notion of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments deserves our attention, in the respect that by CUTTING IN to the transforming relational continuum aka ‘the flow’ aka ‘the Tao’ aka ‘the Wave-field’ we come upon the LIMITATIONS OF LANGUAGE in respect of its inability to directly capture TRANSFORMATION.

HERE COMES THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE-INJECTED AMBIGUITY because in order for us to dodge the issue of NONLOCALITY (and thus infinity) as troubles the objective of a language-based representation of the transforming relational continuum, we have to come up with our own (human intellect based) contrivance of imputing LOCAL incipience to reality to PIECEMEAL the capture and representation of the unending Tao, and we have answered this need for piece-mealing with the DOUBLE ERROR approach of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  The DOUBLE ERROR constructs the expedient falsehood of locally incipient action and development which engenders, in turn, the abstractions of CREDIT and BLAME for the abstract LOCALLY SOURCING actions and and developments which leads to EGO-inflating and EGO-deflating, in association of whether the LOCALLY SOURCED action and development is deemed to be CONSTRUCTIVE or DESTRUCTIVE, BENEFICIAL or HARMFUL.  In reality, there is no such thing as LOCAL SOURCING, it is the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR, but we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS treat such DOUBLE ERROR abstractions as if they were ‘reality’.  Here is an example of the complications that arise from this use of the DOUBLE ERROR construct in the instantiating of CREDIT and BLAME as if it were ‘reality’;  (Watch out!  here comes EGO inflation and deflation).

The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world.”Just under one-quarter of the world’s prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies.  — The Growth of Incarceration in the United States Exploring Causes and Consequences (2014) Consensus Study Report

We envision a nation-state such as the ‘United States’ or really any NAMING-instantiated thing-in-itself as having the power of SOURCING actions and developments (this comes from the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR) .   Instead of acknowledging the ‘real reality’ of relational TRANSFORMATION, which is inherently NONLOCAL-because-relational, … because that which is NONLOCAL is INEFFABLE, we impose the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR to reduce the INFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT to something that is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT.  In this case we blame the ‘criminal’ for SOURCING actions and developments that are harmful and destructive.  WE MUST DO THIS FOR LOGICAL CONSISTENCY because we are elsewhere attributing responsibility for LOCAL SOURCING of beneficial and constructive actions and developments to our local heroes and favorites.   The more inflated is our local EGO and the more it lays claim on LOCAL SOURCING of beneficial and constructive actions and developments, the more we are pressed to ‘balance’ the LOCAL SOURCING books by assigning responsibility for the LOCAL SOURCING of harmful and destructive actions and developments.   The bigger the egos, the more praiseworthy the heroes and the more despicable the villains.

HERO and VILLAIN are the artefacts of the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  As Bohm, Nietzsche and others have pointed out, LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments is abstraction coming from the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  INCLUSION in NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION is the reality of our actual sensory experience, but this is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, and if we want to come up with something we can EFFABLE-ize and LINGUISTICALLY SHARE, we have to reduce it to something EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT, and that’s where we get to; The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world.” because it has to parallel the attribution of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments to appear logically consistence with the general pretense of LOCAL SOURCING.  Once we lock on to LOCAL SOURCING, we have to invent villains to match our inventing of heroes.   If we are more modest about our SOURCING and say things like, … oh well, we live in highly relationally connected world-dynamic wherein it is impossible for me to claim LOCAL SOURCING, as is natural for indigenous aboriginal cultures, then it also follows the that SOURCING of harmful and destructive actions and developments have a similarly blurry origin; i.e. where there never is any EXPLICIT CREDIT and BLAME as in the transforming relational continuum.

The EASTERN and indigenous aboriginal, Taoist/Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta ethic that is in place of LOCAL CREDIT and LOCAL BLAME is the cultivating of relational harmony and the subsuming of relational dissonance.  In this case

In conclusion, the NON-REALITY of LOCAL SOURCING is accepted in modern physics and in EASTERN CULTURES, however, in our WESTERN CULTURE, we continue to employ DOUBLE ERROR abstraction of NAMING and GRAMMAR based LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments as our OPERATIVE REALITY.  The NON-REALITY of LOCAL SOURCING thus becomes, in WESTERN CULTURE the basis of the common OPERATIVE REALITY.  This false pseudo-reality is supported by EGO, since EGO draws from the DOUBLE ERROR used in the supporting of the notion of LOCAL SOURCING of CONSTRUCTIVE and BENEFICIAL actions and developments, the PLUS side of the BIPOLAR DISORDER coinage of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments.  Since fair is fair in the binary balance oriented psyche, those EGO based CREDITING of LOCAL SOURCING of CONSTRUCTIVE actions and developments must be ‘legitimized’ by giving equal but opposite treatment in the CREDITING (i.e. BLAMING) of LOCAL SOURCING of DESTRUCTIVE actions and developments.  The bigger the collective EGO that claims CREDIT for the LOCAL SOURCING of beneficial and constructive actions and developments, the bigger the corresponding requirement for attributing BLAME for the LOCAL SOURCING of harmful and destructive actions and developments.

In EASTERN and indigenous aboriginal, Taoist/Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta cultures, since LOCAL SOURCING IS NOT ASSUMED (the DOUBLE ERROR is not given ‘reality’ status), there is no sense that ‘THE BUCK STOPS HERE” as in the WESTERN CULTURE DOUBLE ERROR based assumption of LOCAL SOURCING.

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