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On Fri, 22 May 2009 18:36:00 GMT, pm <...@pm.pm
This is total fucking Bullshit!:
Why I have a Problem With the
Church of the SubGenius
The following is an abbreviated list of my main "issues" with people the
Church, addressed in the second person:
You claim to mock elitism, while representing a clique based on
intellectual superiority, paradigm dominance, and spiteful stereotypes of
a number of groups in our society. The justification for this is that
your club "could, and should," include just about everyone; it's only a
few sad cases that could never make it to your level of realness.
Apparently, some people are just too dense to realize that fascist
materialism is the definitive religion of the next millennium.
You assume that cleverness is an indicator of understanding. You believe
that there are two extremes for how people go about life: one can be
smug, clever, and strong, or alienated by a pathetic insistence on
pursuing "insignificant" questions.
You follow an actual pseudo-religion based on finding targets for mockery
in any non-materialistic paradigms. You run these attributes through your
propaganda machine, and the end result is a brilliant job of spin-
doctoring designed to give people simplistic, pigeonholing beliefs about
everyone who doesn't follow your own brand of Western Materialism. This
ongoing cultural narrative presents the selected attributes as a single
stereotype, disregarding any diversity in the belief systems you attack.
Most of you are smart enough to know that all of this is happening, but
you're also self-deceptive enough to think that all of this doesn't taint
the ideal of honesty guiding your culture.
You mock cultish societies and beliefs, yet you:
* ..Immerse yourselves in an environment of people who constantly
affirm each other's acceptance of the Church dogma;
* ..Orient all of your thoughts about certain subjects toward
bolstering basic tenets. You seem to believe that you've come upon this
"truth" collectively, when the fact of the matter is that the basic
opinions are handed down a pyramid by people who claim to know what "We"
all think. You might consider reexamining the word "They."
* ..Mock others' lack of objectivity, but assume that you've hit upon
a multitude of Ultimate Truths about everything from society and
political ideals to the nature of reality. Your culture's emphasis on not
questioning these meta-narratives is largely justified by the belief that
you "don't follow any religion." Oh no, you just agree on certain non-
Truths that would be obvious to anyone with a normally functioning brain.
It probably wouldn't do any good for me to point out that enough non-
truths about religious subjects form a solid, almost fundamentalist
foundation for how you view human existence.
You consider yourselves so "real.." yet, despite pretensions of
confidence that you're strong and reasonable, you have to continually
affirm the idea of your worth and righteousness. You do this with an
endless stream of spiteful talk about people who you regard as inferior
to yourselves at an almost inherent level. (sound familiar?) In other
words: if you're so sure of yourselves, why can't you seem to shut up
about it for a day or two? "Bob" forbid you should stray from your
internal censors without the affirmation of your peers...
You have certain implicit beliefs which you think represent some kind of
innate human wisdom; for example, "if it we feel good enough about it,
there must be something real going on," or "if enough of us all agree on
something at the same time, the truth of that idea is confirmed." My own
take on this is that you're pursuing an almost religious mission of
perpetuating attitudes which have historically subverted objective
thinking in society.
Among other people, you mock those who are openly passionate about their
ideas (as opposed to your own tendency to conceal opinions in convoluted
masses of self-affirming, propagandistic dialogue). You seem especially
bent on making parodies of those who oppose the suppression of social
knowledge--by institution , or simply by convention. Maybe you do this
because your own culture emulates many of the patterns through which
institutions, or society, can work to subvert objective thinking. The
Church teaches people that it's OK to bask in the feel of a "power in
numbers" bully complex--that Unity excuses subordination. I tell ya, you
people have really got the human spirit all figured out.
You frown upon taking an individualistic sense of passion and inspiration
about developing one's understanding. Instead, you emphasize an almost
fascist mind-set toward forming one's beliefs and attitudes. You attach
mottos such as "No Doubt" or "Question Questioning" to what's basically
in-group conformity. Dogma by any other name...
Your culture's unity relies heavily on antagonism toward a host of
designated "enemies." The only real difference from other warmongering is
that everything is worded as an endless joke. Malicious, sardonic wit
always helps out when you feel a bout of doubt. Still, you do have an
underlying sense of seriousness, and a clarity of purpose, which I sort
of respect... despite the slight odor of zombie-like zealousness.
Contrary to popular belief, the best kind of Zombie is the kind that
really knows how to laugh--especially when they find themselves taking an
"incorrect" thought too seriously.
You set up your dialogue--internal as well as external--such that ideals
of true objective thought are always cast in opposition to your lauded
"real" values. Objectivity about your own dogma is depicted as the enemy
of every vague but stirring ideal from "knowing what's really what" to
"being there for each other." For some reason, I don't always see the
connection; it must be because I lack the intelligence to realize how
utopia can only be realized through homogenous viewpoints and immutable
explanations.
You claim that "scientific logic" forms the basis for every unequivocal
statement you adhere to; you don't seem to notice that also thrown in the
pot is a medley of presumptuous inferences, sweeping generalizations, and
many dubiously unsupported assertions. Your faith in the righteousness of
this "logic" is closer to that of a religious zealot, who eats up any
"facts" that his supposedly omniscient god throws out, than that of a
true scientist.
...Of course, that's not to say that you're wrong about everything. To
assume that you're "not wrong" about everything, however, doesn't quite
seem to capture the essence of scientific thinking.
You work to continually downplay the impact of the beliefs which really
make up your cultural paradigm. The constant barrage of attacks on
"subgenii" obscures the ways that your leading figures have laid out a
whole world view. The technique is simple: tell people you're not asking
them to believe anything, but give them so many things not to believe
that you establish a whole paradigm without ever saying any of it
directly. The "subgenius foundation" has created a veritable religion, by
leading people to put their faith in "non-beliefs" about politics,
biology, the human spirit, trans-material realities, and "non-ideals" for
social interaction, personal ethics, and so on.
(Along the same lines..) You use the most extreme examples of non-
materialistic philosophies, and refer to the most outrageous kinds of
people from the mystically inclined segment of society. The fallacy here
is that you connect these laughable images to everyone who falls under
the non-materialist umbrella. Considering the diversity of beliefs among
all those people, it seems that your propaganda's stereotyping is
deceptive--a Beavis and Butthead dialogue justified by your dire mission
of "spreading skepticism." It's a good thing all you brilliant skeptics
don't turn your scrutiny back on your own assumptions; you might actually
doubt something.
Granted, there are a slew of flaky New Agers and UFO cultists out there,
but a person doesn't fall into this category simply by virtue of living
in a Western country and not accepting all the Materialistic notions that
society expects people to follow. Sorry, guys; I know you have a lot
invested in this stereotype, but things just aren't that simple.
Many people under the umbrella of non-materialism have gotten where they
are largely because they are skeptical. They don't buy into all the dogma
of their self-stereotyping cohorts, but neither do they accept the most
widely upheld perspectives on trans-material: that it is either a
pathetic fantasy, or a mysterious reality that we have to die to
understand. They aren't trying to be an alienated minority, unlike those
who take pride in an elitist or martyred separation from most of society.
Thanks to the diligent efforts of people like yourselves, however, it is
becoming impossible to be a non-materialist and have most other people
respect this. A large part of your mission, as I'm sure you know, is not
only to point out the alienation of certain groups, but to actually
engineer it. You might tell yourselves that you're just helping along a
natural process of "natural selection" in our society, but it's more like
Manifest Destiny.
Rampant stereotyping of non-materialists ensures that an increasing
number of people are so biased to begin with that any sign that a person
has non-materialistic beliefs will set off a buzzer in people's heads;
some stereotype activates itself, and the person knows they're dealing
with another "flower child" or "dangerous crackpot." Through such
machinations, groups like the Church protect the integrity of "Normalcy"
in our society, while working to suppress any social openness to
alternatives. And all in the name of getting people to see things
clearly...
You define your social attitudes as the antithesis of the "hive
consciousness" which you attribute to "subgenii," as if all it takes is
caring about your friends, having a sense of humor, and having lots of
fun. All these things are great (hey, I actually like 'em too), but there
is a little more to it than that. Dogmatism takes root in associations
that we form in the background, while we're doing other things. You can
be a drone in a group mind at some level, while also being a happy,
creative individual; it's a little trick called compartmentalizing.
It seems that a lot of people in the Church believe that they can't take
the best aspects of their culture--the part that encourages imagination,
caring, and having fun--without also accepting a slew of other beliefs
and values. The truth is that most of the time the other stuff is only
related to those core values by association; you don't need one to have
the other. To throw the Church's proclamation back in its own members'
faces: "Wake up; you could find joy and fulfillment without your
religion."
My biggest problem with the Church of the SubGenius is probably the way
it does things that have historically worked against a society achieving
freedom, awareness, and genuine peace, while convincing people that it's
the ultimate champion of those qualities.
Basically, you're incredible hypocrites, and most of you never stop
condemning others' hypocrisy long enough to catch the irony. The Church
of the SubGenius may be the pinnacle, to date, of a social mentality
which directly subverts the ideals which humanity's wisest thinkers and
mystics have explained.
As to why I even insist on making these observations... I guess I just
figure that someone has to. A total lack of critical discourse can be a
dangerous thing. (if you disagree, I could mention all the historical
examples that illustrate this point.) I'd rather that a lot of people
were doing this with me--discourse was meant to be social--but that
doesn't seem to be the way the deck's stacked, so here I am...
It gets back to a certain basic division: I believe that people should be
able to form their beliefs themselves, and the Church believes that
people can be happy and creative and open-minded, but should also conform
to a basic foundation that it determines. Think about all the times in
human history when similar war-lines were drawn; which side do you root
for?
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