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CONSCIOUS

                                               August 4, 2008

     There are people who are Conscious
     (or who say they are), meaning that
     they are:

         ecologically conscious
         socially conscious                Consider this a loose synonym
         spiritually conscious             for "politically correct" if
                                           you like, but that doesn't
                                           capture the "spiritual" angle,
     The claim here is that there          the interest in non-western
     is an elite, a class (to use          religions and new age beliefs.
     words they would reject) of
     people who are Conscious, as
     opposed to the unthinking
     mass of sleepwalkers.

       In this taxonomy, the sleepwalkers
       *think* that they're in touch with
       reality, but they live a small bore
       existence of simple greeds and lusts;
       and they often seem to be no good to
       themselves, let alone to anyone else.       Think "Gangsta Rap"
                                                   vs. "Conscious Rap".
       The Conscious are presumed to
       live a wider ranging existence,               PAN_DOMESTICATED
       in touch with beauty and spirit,
       a greater sense of ethics, a
       desire to do good in the world.

          It would not be difficult
          to make fun of this notion,
          particularly if you look at           Needless to say, no one
          some of the people who                talks about being
          claim to be Conscious:                Conscious unless they
          there's many a pretentious            regard themselves as a
          new age twit with a weak              member of the club.
          grasp of reality who'll
          shaft you in an instant if                        (Except for
          it's necessary for their       Most ethical       me of course.)
          "spiritual development".       rules come
                                         down to some          (Well, okay,
               If you attend             from of "the          not really.)
               a Conscious               golden rule",
               event you may             which means
               find a number             that they
               of palm readers           rely on an
               and astrologers           individual's
               hanging around:           acceptance         If you're convinced
               a mind so open            that they are      of your own
               that it welcomes          in some sense      cosmic significance
               anything is not           ordinary.          it follows that
               quite Conscious.                             these rules don't
                                                            necessarily
                                                            apply to you.


                                               There's a similar
                                               problem among the
                                               converse category: those
                                               convinced that they lack
                                               significance, and
                                               further that everyone
                                               lacks significance.

                                               Any "golden" ethics
                                               then seems like nonsense.
                                               Why worry about a bunch
                                               scum like myself?

                                                  He who gets away with
                                                  breaking the most rules
                                                  wins.





      I'd like to take the
      more difficult side:
      "the conscious vs. the
      sleepwalkers" makes
      sense on some level;
      even if it's difficult
      to impossible to
      reliably categorize
      human beings as one or
      the other.

         I do tend to go on rants
         about "sleepwalkers" and
         so on are pretty common           As is typical with
         throughout these pages.           me, I prefer the
                                           negative form.
              SLEEPWALKERS_LIBRARY
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