Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[Eric the Green]

(12-28-2018, 12:52 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

Quote:The Enlightenment has been recognized as an 18th century movement out of which the USA was born. It was correctly seen in the recent second turning, however, as inadequate and superficial. It has been modified and added to, first by an expansion as brower mentioned as "social democracy that extends liberalism to the ideal of equal opportunity to its fullest." Second, by the greenpeace and spiritual revolution of the sixties, The Enlightenment was seen as a disenchantment of the world, robbing it of its deeper dimensions of meaning and reducing it to a shallow rationalism. The New Age alternative sees some revival of esoteric traditions from the Renaissance and ancient philosophy and from the Oriental religions, plus aspiration of human potential and new methods of self-transformation. Whereas The Enlightenment eventually reduced the view of humans to automatons miraculously endowed with reason who need to subdue a stupid universe, the New Age sees humans as conscious spiritual beings first, connected to a superconscious cosmic consciousness revealed to many people through revival of the ancient traditions and experience expended through psychedelics. This greenpeace view also includes a new respect for Nature as alive and not stupid, and the necessary foundation of life of which we are a part rather than something to be subdued by technology to serve rational beings miraculously emergent from the stupid mechanical universe. These are the greens.

The New Age has much cultural baggage, and I must advise you (Eric) that the Millennial Generation does not go along with it. That generation is too rational to accept something that does not process easily. Occam's razor compels us to seek the simplest explanation for natural phenomena and historical patterns. Let's remember that after the callow hedonism of the latest Third Turning,  the rise of the Religious Right, the Tea Party, and the Trump Presidency the cold application of reason will solve much. Morality is all that keeps some of us from using rational power to do horrible things to people, but even religion can go awry when (and I am speaking of the political proclivities of evangelical Christians on the whole) self-righteousness comes with neither empathy nor scruples.

The historical  cycle has an unsettling way of making cultural baggage irrelevant. The Millennial Generation probably sees the environment differently than you do. It does not consist of druids who see consciousness in trees, flowers, and ants. It sees Nature as a refuge from the ugliness of consumerism, urban sprawl, and bureaucratic organization. This said, the Religious Right and the Tea Party are losing people other than core support itself aging. Don't count on people in their sixties today like ourselves having anything more than a fossil relevance thirty years from now.  

I see things differently, because those of us in the Green meme and Yellow Meme, as it's called in spiral dynamics, see beyond the Enlightenment physicalist worldview. I also see that many in the Millennial Generation have lost contact with the Awakening, except perhaps for the cultural baggage that the dominant powers have made them see as its only legacy. It won't matter whether those young Millennial physicalists and Occam Razor users of today see us green new age boomers as irrelevant or not. That won't matter in the slightest. The current Millennial fall-back to the old views will become irrelevant in turn, and the wheels will turn. The more-advanced view will come back around, rising up during the next first turning, with more pioneers reviving the awakening wisdom, and it shall break out strongly in the next second turning as it did in the last. 

The Awakening is less relevant now, I agree; that's necessarily true in a time when secular needs for a renewed political, social and economic system and leadership are needed by all of us of all ages. But the cycles will keep turning, and needs will change again with the times.

Remember brower, in our culture, Awakenings are periodically suppressed, and we are programmed to live within narrow views that satisfy our technological commercial culture's need for rationally-trained mechanics and machine tenders. But Spirit rises above these limits, and as I said, American society is not sustainable if it merely rests upon a rational, physicalist view. NO society can survive on that basis. The Awakening of Spirit must become an ongoing foundation of society, replacing both the outdated, throwback fundamentalist religions and the narrow scientisms of physicalism and the technocracy. Our cultural evolution will continue. It will not stall just because most millennials have lost track of it today. Nor because many Boomers and Xers have lost it too, or never got it to begin with. The American Spirit seeks more than bread; it seeks roses too. And those who were awakened in the 1960s and 70s counter culture and human potential movements and the New Age in the 80s will continue to practice and promote Spirit, and some will latch on to it who are younger too. Our society is diverse, and home to many cultures and worldviews. The Millennials are not monolithic any more than Boomers and Xers are, nor are the next younger generations.

A new Occam's Razor (or rather the perennial one) will be found again, for there is really nothing more simple than awareness of spirit, and yet it's the fount of all creativity, morality and wisdom. That is the meaning of the New Age; that Spirit is to be infused permanently into our society on an ongoing basis, and if on the other hand, Gen X and Millennials have now turned their back on this new revelation, by focusing only on the baggage, that will only mean it comes back stronger than ever, because the need will determine the next Awakening, which clearly will be the fulfillment of the previous one according to all cycles I can see, and will establish all its goals. And clearly, the alpha wave prophets will look back upon what we who today are in our sixties 70s and 80s (and/or already passed on) did in our Awakening (mostly in our 10s, 20s and 30s), as well as what previous prophets and artists did in their awakenings, and revive it as has always been done in previous Awakenings of Spirit in 2nd turnings. And by the time of the next 2T, some sensitive younger pioneer Millennial leaders and artist Gen Z Homelanders will help guide and revive it too. The wisdom is perennial, and was what Jesus and Buddha and all teachers of wisdom taught, and what the best leaders of the recent Awakening taught as well.

It shall be so. And happy new year of Spirit! May we realize that the God within all things and all beings is always present and can always be called upon. We can each be more than we have been, and better, with Spirit's help and guidance. May it be so!