VIVE L'ÉVERGÉTISME
N. #Casaux

#RadioFrance — la radio d'État — toujours là pour défendre le bon #capitalisme. Le capitalisme de gauche. Celui qui produit de gentils riches. Des riches philanthropes.

La philanthropie n'existe que parce que le capitalisme existe (impossible d'avoir la première sans le second). Bien sûr qu'il devrait être honteux d'être riche. Parce que les inégalités sont honteuses et qu'il n'y a des riches que parce qu'il y a des pauvres (et inversement).

« Comme on fait la guerre avec le sang des autres, a noté le poète André Suarès, on fait fortune avec l'argent d'autrui. » Le sociologue Alfred Sauvey remarqua, lui, que « la #charité a toujours soulagé la conscience des riches, bien avant de soulager l'estomac du pauvre ».

Il n'y a pas de #philanthropie sans #capitalisme. Et il n'y a pas d'argent propre, comme il n'y a pas de capitalisme équitable. L'argent, c'est un produit de l' #exploitation des êtres #humains et de la destruction de la #nature.

Que des riches utilisent leur argent pour pallier un peu le désastre social et écologique ambiant, c'est bien, mais ça ne devrait pas être perçu comme un acte hautement louable, signe d'une grande générosité. Ça devrait être perçu comme un minimum, une sorte de décence élémentaire.

L' #évergétisme désigne « la bienfaisance ostentatoire d'un riche notable (appelé évergète) en faveur d'une communauté », exprimée sous forme de dons et de bienfaits (appelés évergésies). Considéré comme un acte quasiment obligatoire dans l'empire romain, l'évergétisme consistait par exemple à offrir des événements publics comme des spectacles, des banquets, voire même des bâtiments publics. Il s'agit d'une composante millénaire de la #domination sociale. Pas d'un moyen de l'abolir.

This Dystopia Would Never Be Accepted Without Extensive Indoctrination

I am not a politically complicated person. I think #genocide is bad. I think #peace is good. I don’t think anyone should be struggling to survive in a #civilization that is capable of providing for all. I think we should try to preserve the biosphere we all depend on for survival.

To me these are just obvious, common sense positions, no more remarkable or profound than believing I should refrain from slamming my nipple in a car door. I do not think these views should put me on the political fringe. I don’t think they should cause me to be seen as some kind of radical. It’s not outlandish that I hold these views, it’s outlandish that everyone else does not.
But that’s the kind of society we find ourselves in today. The obvious is framed as freakish while the freakish is presented as obvious. Health is framed as sickness while sickness is presented as health. The moderate is framed as extremism while extremism is presented as moderate.

We live in a twisted, backwards #dystopia where everything is the opposite of the way it should be, and we’re conditioned to think it’s normal and acceptable. It’s not until some degree of insight dawns in you that you look around and realize you are living in the nightmare of a madman. Until then you spend your time here thinking, speaking, voting and behaving as though the demented status quo we are living under is the moderate and expected reality.

All our lives we are trained to believe this hellscape is the healthy and expected circumstance for our species. Our parents and teachers tell us that it’s normal for things to be this way. Our pundits and politicians assure us that there’s no other way things could be and that we are living under the best possible system.

A big part of it is just growing up in a society that’s been diseased since long before you were born, being raised and taught by people who also grew up in a society that’s been diseased since long before they were born. We show up here, we don’t know anything, and then the big people teach us about war and money and jobs and politics, and assure us that our initial horrified reaction to the things we are learning is just immature naivety to something fine and normal.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to explain war to a child, then you know how insane this civilization looks when perceived by a pair of fresh eyes. I’ve never had to explain the genocide in Gaza to a young child, but I am sure it would be met with even more shock and grief. Kids have a natural, healthy revulsion toward such things, and it is only by sustained indoctrination that we are able to twist their minds into seeing them as normal.

It takes a lot of education to make us this stupid. Our minds require a whole lot of training to accept this horrific dystopia as the baseline norm. That’s why the empire we live under has the most sophisticated domestic #propaganda machine that has ever existed.

In order to have clarity, we need to learn to look with fresh eyes. Uninitiated eyes. Eyes that have not been educated out of their initial healthy impulse to weep at what we are doing and how we are living here. We need to get in touch with that intuition within us which rejects the sickness of our society as though it was meeting it for the very first time.

Learning to meet life afresh in each instant is good practice anyway; it makes living a lot more enjoyable and beautiful, and it helps us move in a much wiser way since we’re not constantly reacting to old patterns and expectations in an ever-changing world. But as an added bonus it also peels away the tolerance we have built up for the backwards lunacy of this empire we are living under.
The less healthy this civilization feels to you, the healthier you are getting. Everything about this nightmare looks appalling through clear eyes.

C. #Johnstone

caitlinjohnst.one/p/this-dysto…

Stufen

von Hermann Hesse, Mai 1941

Wie jede Blüte welkt und jede Jugend
Dem Alter weicht, blüht jede Lebensstufe,
Blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
Zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muß das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
Bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
Um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
In andre, neue Bindungen zu geben.
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben.

Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
An keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
Der Weltgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
Er will uns Stuf‘ um Stufe heben, weiten.
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
Und traulich eingewohnt, so droht Erschlaffen,
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
Mag lähmender Gewöhnung sich entraffen.

Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
Uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden,
Des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden…
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!
(4. Mai 1941)

You know nothing about them.

notesandsilence.com/2025/03/21…
#zen #meditation #silence #prayer #psychology #illusions

Let’s Stop Creating Illusory Worlds

It is very liberating to note, through meditation practice, the abysmal gap between the content of the reality occupied by individuals in our mind and the out-of-mind reality of these individuals. …

^{Notes & Silence}