Male, Female, Giver, Receiver and Money Economy

Lots have been going on and I haven't had time to think about blog posts for a while.  I've had quite a few visitors staying with me, lately.

Ried, Cap, & Spirit

I talked about Ried in my last post.  He came back here from Boulder, Colorado with two more young, wandering moneyless chaps, called Cap and Spirit, and they camped with me for a week or so with their two dogs.  They were grand fun (except for the dogs, I must admit).  They seemed very committed to living without money and plan to continue their moneyless venture on the road.  They went to their respective families for the holidays and then plan to hitch to the international Rainbow Gathering in Palenque, Mexico.  It'll be interesting to see what happens with them.

Lynn

After they left, a 40-something woman named Lynn came from Maryland, and has been camping with me until yesterday, when we started house-sitting.  She is more Bible-oriented than most who come, so we've been discussing Bible more.  That's something I don't get to do often with people.  It's hard to find folks who like to discuss the Bible and are, at the same time, not narrow-minded.  Hard-hearted is the Bible's own word for narrow-minded.

The Guru

Thinking about Ried, Cap, Spirit, and Lynn, I feel deep down that everybody who comes my way is my teacher, my guru, that guru-ship is actually a two-way process.  If it's not, it becomes ego, idolatry.  There is no such thing as one person on earth, ever, being a Guru.  This is the misunderstood enigma of Guru-ship.  The Guru is always between two or more people, and no Guru can exist as a single person, except as a realization that All are One and No Other.   A single person as a Guru is a worthless, meaningless, useless icon, as the figure of Jesus has become.  Jesus himself says, "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there, I Am, in the midst."  Jesus is between two or more people, right here, right now (the same yesterday, today, and forever) but the deluded mind thinks he is a single human who lived 2000 years ago.  No human who ever walked the earth can be worshiped except by the deluded.  But we must bow to everybody in total reverence in the present.  We bow to the Love between us.  Love cannot exist, except between two or more people, and Love is the Only Guru.  There is no other.  And Love is the Name above all names, and it matters not what you call Love.  There is absolutely nothing higher than love.  Love ultimately cannot be spoken, only lived, between two or more folks. 

Bear with me, because I'm continuing the same principle here, and show how it relates to male-female relations, economy, money, and commerce.

Male, Female, Giver, Receiver and Money Economy

While Lynn has been here we've been discussing the idea of the Giver and Receiver, which brings me to the concept of the Feminine Side of God (alluded to in Mark Sundeen's book), and how it relates to the moneyless life, are crystallizing.  It's all coming together!

For anybody who read the The Man Who Quit Money, you might remember the epiphany I had, when I was young, questioning why females are veiled in many cultures, finding the Feminine side of God as I read the passage in the Proverbs in the Bible, here is how I normally saw it, as most people see it:

Is your focus on the Snake
 or on the Rock?

There are three things which are too wonderful for me, 
Yes, four which I do not understand: 
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent on a rock, 
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea, 
And the way of a man with a maiden. 
(Proverbs 30:18-19)

It dawned on me that we don't get it, because we focus only on the eagle, the serpent, the ship, and the man, and we overlook the air, the rock, the sea, and the maiden!  We don't realize that the power is in the air, the rock, the sea, and the maiden!  We focus on the male, not the female!

There are three things which are too wonderful for me, 
Yes, four which I do not understand: 
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent on a rock, 
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea, 
And the way of a man with a maiden. 
(Proverbs 30:18-19)

Incidently, the Hebrew word for maiden is עַלְמָה  [`almah], whose root is עָלַם [`alam], which means "to conceal, hide, be hidden, be concealed, be secret"!

Lao Tzu states this principle:

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon 
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it 
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
(Tao Te Ching 11)

Lao Tzu

The spirit of the valley never dies.

It is called the mysterious female.

The gate of the mysterious female

Is called the root of heaven and earth.

(Tao Te Ching 5:6)

The large country is like the lowest river
The converging point of the world
The receptive female of the world
The female always overcomes the male with serenity
Using serenity as the lower position
(Tao Te Ching 61) 

Not shown, therefore apparent,

Not asserted, therefore known,

Not boasted of, therefore of worth,

Not contentious, so enduring. 

It's because the wise do not contend

That no one can contend with them.

When the ancients said:

‘Bowed down and so preserved’

That was no empty saying.

 (Tao Te Ching 22)

Any Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist will recognize this as the heart of their own religion.  If they don't, they don't practice their own religion.
 
Yes, I saw the philosophy of the East (feminine) as the heart of West (masculine)!  That which we have devalued and even called evil for thousands of years is the very heart of our own religion!

Now, how on earth does this relate to money and commerce and it's off-shoot, institutional "charity"? 

Who Gets the Credit for Giving?  
Who Gets the Debt for Receiving?

We think of the Male as the Giver (e.g. of semen) and the Female as the Receiver (and conceiver of the seed).  So it appears.  So it appears!  But it dawned on me not too long ago that every True Interaction in nature is absolutely Equal Barter, and it is Unconscious Barter!   For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Exactly simultaneously.  Physics 101.  What appears to be one-sided Giving and Receiving in our culture is absolutely not so!  In True Giving, the Giver is the Receiver!  The True Giver is Between the Giver and Receiver!

By obvious appearances, the Giver is Dominant and the Receiver is Recessive.  Recessive is receptive.  We even name the genes in our DNA as dominant and recessive.  The male Y Chromosome is dominant while the female X Chromosome is recessive.  When the Y (male) and the X (female) are together, it is called male, because male is dominant.  When there are two together, XX (female), and there is no male X with it, is it called female, because the female is recessive.  In our genetics, YX is male and XX is female.  In our traditional culture, the male and the female together are called by the male's name.  This isn't just invented culture and religion, but a reflection of our biology.  Male and Female together are called Adam, in our biology.  And for this reason, because we became superficial pricks, we began to think the one who gets the attention, the male, is the superior one.  Little do we realize that the X is the life of the body, while the Y is more of a marker.  The human body absolutely cannot live without the X chromosome, but it can live without the Y.

Giver and Receiver are One

The root of a plant, unseen, under the ground, is the plant's power, and survives through winter and summer.  When the root is exposed, the whole plant dies.  When giving is done in secret, it is powerful.  When seeds are hidden in the ground, they grow into full glory.  When prayer and meditation are done in secret, they are our power.  When we hide our evil deeds, they, like seeds in the ground, grow and overpower us.  When we expose them to the light, confess them, they die.

This is bothersome in a culture that values the dominant and devalues the recessive, that values the male and devalues the female.   A culture that devalues the recessive devalues and destroys nature.  But, as Taoist philosophy shows, it is the recessive feminine that holds the power.   It is the empty space that makes the cup or the house useful.

In our deluded culture, we give credit to the giver and debt to the receiver, not realizing that the receiver is the deeper giver, that both are equally giver and receiver, and that the True Giver is between the "giver" and "receiver" and deserves all credit, all praise, all price.  In our deluded culture, we value the "rich" and devalue the "poor", not realizing that those who do so live in the true poverty, poverty of self.

There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing;  
And one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches.
(Proverbs 13:7)

Picking,
without sense of credit and debt

 If I'm sounding too abstract, and you're getting lost, let's look at an example:

Stark Evidence: the Example of Nature 

I'm always bringing up the model of the raspberry bushes in Alaska, where I realized the true nature of nature's economy.  On my trek, I noticed the raspberry bushes near the trails were plumper, redder, and sweeter than those in other parts, meaning the bushes actually wanted creatures to take their berries.  And the berries I camped near and ate from became plumper, redder, and sweeter than other berries.  They literally were telling me, "Eat me!"  So what's really going on between the raspberry ("giver") and me ("receiver")?

This was my epiphany I will repeat again: the berry bush demanded nothing of me for taking its berries and I took with zero sense of debt toward the bush or toward anybody.  How does the bush get what it needs in return?  Is there an accountant sitting by keeping tabulations of who owes what to whom?  All of nature works this way, and it is balanced.  Our accountants obsessively keep tabs, we have PhD economists, and, after all this, what nation on earth can balance its budget?

Any bicycle rider, tight-rope walker, dancer, or marshal artist knows that if you even think about balance, you lose balance.  Balance only happens when you stop trying to balance, when left stops worrying about right, and vise versa.  Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.  Walk, right-left.  Breath, in-out, without control, without possession of air, share the atmosphere freely, else it is not healthy breath.  Thought of credit and debt is knowledge of good and evil, our fall, our separation from the Grace of Nature. 

Pay-It-Forward or Barter Economy... 
Or Both Simultaneously?

Balance Happens,
without our Control

Now I thought of this as a Pay-It-Forward economy, meaning, the bushes "give" to me, and  I "take" from them.  I digested those berries, pooped them out later somewhere else, meaning I later "gave" poop food to micro-organisms in the soil as well as planting new raspberry seeds, propagating new plants!  For the longest time, because I was looking only at the obvious Giver (male) and the obvious Receiver (female), I could not see Giving and Receiving happening simultaneously.  Until recently, I saw nature only as a Pay-It-Forward economy, where the service and the payment for the service are delayed.  In other words, you pay me, then you get paid later, and I pay something to somebody else later.   

But when our eyes are tuned into the feminine recessive, not just the masculine dominant, we see that Giving and Receiving are One.  It's both pay-it-forward and exact, simultaneous, unconscious barter! 

How so?  By taking the raspberry, I am providing a service to the bush right as I take the berry!  And I am receiving a service from the bush right as I take the berry!  If I see a "homeless" man and feel pity and give to him thinking I'm helping him, I am living in delusion.  But if I give to him as an equal, and my giving is sharing, not really giving, then we are both receiving a service absolutely equal, an absolutely equal barter in the same moment: then I am living in Reality, not delusion!  This is why "charity" has gotten a bad name, because it is delusion.  Our "charity" is condescension, not equal sharing.  In true charity (charis, grace, gratis) there is no giver and receiver, really; there is nobody who deserves credit, really, except the Giver Between Us.  All Credit, all Praise, all Price, all Glory to the Giver Between Us, the Unseen Throne between the Two Cherubim!

Balance Only by focusing on the Center.
Stray not to the Right or Left.
When one Covering Cherub takes focus off the Center
and worries about the other Cherub,
he falls from Heaven.
He is Lucifer becoming the Devil:
Father of World Commerce
[See Pre-Christian Judaism's, Roman Catholicism's and Protestantism's 
traditional Biblical passages on the fall of Lucifer (Heylel):
Isaiah 14:12 & Ezekiel 28:13-18]

In sum, the Law of Nature:
the Infinite, Moneyless World

Creating without claiming,

Doing without taking credit,

Guiding without interfering:

This is the Primal Virtue.

(Tao Te Ching 51)

Walk away from the delusion of commerce (Canaan)

and Give credit where credit is due:

All Credit to the All:

Hallelu-Jah 

      

 

Why Religion?

I made it to Salt Lake City and back, and it all went very well.  But let me back up a couple weeks.

 Ried

A 23-year-old named Ried from Minnesota hitched into town.  He had read the book and decided to come camp with me for a while.  He's a total joy, a shining light, making me and everybody I know smile.  My friend Arlen also started camping out with us off and on, making for sublime music and conversation around the fire.  While I went to SLC, Ried decided to hitch to Boulder to meet up with new-found friends.  He says he plans to come back here in a short while.  But you never know where wind will blow.

SLC

Last Friday, my friend Chris picked me up hitch-hiking and took me all the way to Salt Lake City, and I stayed at my friend Lin's.  Lin has a huge drum and we percussed and discussed, the perfect preparation for the next day.

Mark Sundeen's and my KCPW interview the next day with Jennifer Napier-Pearce went very well, and the audience was sublime.  The KCPW interview is on podcast now (I haven't listened yet since I lost my dumpstered earphones).  [On the last post I mistakenly said the interview was through KUER, not KCPW.  Napier-Pearce was formerly with KUER but now is with KCPW].

Westwater Canyon

On Sunday, Mark and his fiance, Cedar, took me on a river trip through Westwater Canyon (between Colorado and Utah) with seven other Moab friends, and it was stupendous.  Then on Tuesday night Chris (the one who had picked me up hitching), took me to a drum circle (or more like an oval or trapezoid) jam in a culvert with some other Moabite friends.  Now that jamming I can't even describe, it was so beyond-imagination-extraordinary.

Why Religion?

I've had a burr in my pants these days.  You might have noticed the blog entry before last was burr inspired.  

I've got myself on a line between the religious world and the secular world, and sometimes find it either pisses off both or inspires both.  One side keeps warning me I'm slipping over to the other.  The razor's edge.

Lately I've been saying that all I care about is that people be true and just.  Whatever motivates people to be true and just, I support.  I simply don't care whether or not they are called Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Pagans, Atheists.  As the Dalai Lama said, "My religion is kindness."  My saying this really upset some of my friends and loved ones who consider themselves Christian.  But I can't deny what I see.  Good fruit is good fruit.  Know them by their fruit, not their talk, not their vocabulary.  There are a few secular folks who get turned off by my vocabulary, too.  It's like I'm on a tightrope, balancing between both sides, translating language between both sides.  

I keep saying that if we erase all money and simply look at reality, we see truth so simply an infant understands.  In the same way, if we erase all words and simply look at reality, we see truth so simply an infant understands.  Let go of the imagination of your mind, and you see Truth.

How do deer and ants and coyotes eat nutritious, balanced diets?   They do it without books or manuals or school!  They know how to eat because they have no words to deceive them!

Ironically I find that non-religious people, including self-proclaimed atheists, are more accepting and comfortable with Jesus' teachings than self-proclaimed followers of Jesus.  I guess it's always been that way, the religious persecute their own prophets and then worship them when they're good and comfortably gone.  And Jesus himself states more than once he finds more faith outside his religion-nation than inside it, which is why he hung out with non-religious people.  That got him crucified.

Lately I've had several conversations with Evangelicals about Jesus' teachings.  Every single one of them has an explanation why Jesus' teachings are not for us, or Jesus didn't really mean what he said, or else they find clever "salvation-by-grace" loopholes, or "dispensationalist" loopholes, to cancel out Jesus' teachings.  I've personally witnessed many even call me evil and going to hell if I even suggest keeping his teachings!  They put incredible amounts of energy into diverting attention away from Jesus' teachings with distracting doctrines and scripture-quoting rather than simply admit they don't believe in their own Jesus!  I was impressed by some sincere Evangelicals a few months ago.  They simply admitted they didn't believe, but they wanted to.  The first step to believing in Jesus is to admit that you don't.  The first step into being able to practice Jesus' teachings is to admit that you can't.  Religious AA!  This is the paradox of all spirituality.

The only way to acting truth is by admitting truth.
Admitting you don't believe truth is truth, and makes you truth.
Lie that admits itself as lie annihilates itself and resurrects as Truth.
If Satan admitted he were Satan, he would annihilate himself and resurrect as God. 

A few weeks ago I was reading notes by Charles Ryrie from the Ryrie Study Bible on the Sermon on the Mount.  Ryrie's notes pretty much encapsulate Fundamentalist, Evangelical doctrine, and are popular with Fundamentalists.  The hallmark of Fundamentalist doctrine is that the Bible must be taken literally.  Genesis Creation: literal.  The Flood: literal.  The Red Sea parting: literal.  Armageddon: literal.  If you even question the literalness of these stories, most Fundamentalists would call you non-Christian!  But things change when we get to Jesus' teachings.  Jesus' teachings have to do with doing, taking personal, active responsibility, Here and Now.  If it's about past (Genesis) or future (Apocalypse), which have nothing to do with personal responsibility, it's literal.  If it's about present, which means changing our behavior, then it's mysteriously not literal.  

Ryrie states that the Sermon on the Mount, nice as it is, simply cannot be taken literally, unless we want all churches and Christian schools and institutions to collapse.  After all, he says, what institution could survive giving to everyone who asks?  What organization could exist if it gave up all it owned to the poor?  What will happen to our rich donors if we talk about camels squeezing through needle's eyes?

I repeat: Evangelical scholar Ryrie says that the Sermon on the Mount simply cannot be taken literally, unless we want all churches and Christian schools and institutions to collapse.

Collapse!  Hallelujah!

If everyone practiced the core principles of their own religion, religion would go obsolete, just as money would go obsolete.  Collapse.  The Law would be written on our hearts, as it has been from the beginning, and we would stop worshiping scriptures and dogmas.  When the Law is on the heart, there is no more need to talk about God, as the Prophet Jeremiah prophecies (Jeremiah 31:33-34).  No more ranting about how God is taken out of schools and congress.  We would no longer be under law (scriptures) but grace.  We would simply be ourselves.  

It's written that the religious people, in deciding what to do with Jesus, said,  "If we let him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation."  So they opted to crucify him.  Christendom would lose its place and its empire if it followed its own Jesus.  But our institutions, our dogmas, our scriptures, are more important to us than love and justice and simplicity.  Religion, Money, and Nationalism are the Unholy Trinity.  Separate one from the other, and watch the religious dogmatist go ballistic.

Crucifixion of All that I THINK I am

I had an epiphany a few weeks ago:
 
To say, "I am Christian" is to say "I am righteous."

No righteous person can say "I am righteous."

Only an egotist can say "I am righteous."

No Christian mind can say, "I am Christian."

Only an egotistical mind can say, "I am Christian"
or, "I am Buddhist" or "I am Muslim" or "I am Hindu."

This is why the Bible forbids calling yourself a Christian (1 Cor 1:12)
or whatever religious label.

Both Christ and Christian mean "Annointed One," Messiah.

No Christ can say, "I am Christ."
Only ego can say, "I am Christ" or "I am Christian".

Only an honest person can refuse giving herself religious labels, and have trust enough to say, "what does my life and works say?" (John 2:24)

I am not labels,
I am who I am.

If I am good, it will be self evident.
If I am bad it will be self evident.

It's not for me to say,
but only my life.

I can't be anything else but who I am,
so why try?

Only my actions can bear witness to who I am.

The Quran states that, at the Judgment Day,
all of us will be silenced, unable to speak on our own behalf.
Only our bodies will bear witness to us.

Erase all words, and Truth is revealed.
 
There is no higher name, no greater power, no God but I am who I am.

The world's institutions always want to know what authority sent you.
What government, what nation, what institution, what religion?
What degree?  What certification?  What identification?
What credentials?  What credit?

If you refuse to go to war by saying, "I am Christian', "I am Brethren", "I am Mennonite", "I am Quaker," or even "I am Buddhist", your refusal will be respected, legally.  But if you say, "I refuse to go to war under no authority but my conscience.  No authority but I am who I am," you'll be imprisoned and persecuted.  [Nov 8 CORRECTION:  jbkranger commented below: "since the 1960's the US military has allowed for non-religious conscience objection."  He's right. I didn't do my homework: see Conscentious Objector]  If you are completely sincere, if you can say, I am who I am, the Name above all names, Word beyond all words, you will find that those who are actors (those who refuse to be themselves) will pick up stones to stone you.  The Greek word for actor is hypocrite.  I am who I am: there is no other way, no other truth, no other life.  Anything more or anything less is not love, not real.

A word, a thought, a symbol, is something that represents something else.  It is not the thing, but represents the thing.  If a word, a thought, or a symbol, represented itself, it would vanish from sight, from hearing, from mind.  A rose speaks for itself, because it has no words but itself.  Even called by any other name, a rose is a rose.  Imagine not imagining!  Think what it would be to not think!  To see everything as it is, as an infant!  Zen mind! 

Reality speaks for itself, having no words but itself as one never-ending Word.  In the beginning is the Word, and the Word is with Reality and the Word is Reality.  In the realm of time, the Word became not reality, separated from Reality, and only represented reality, to dwell among us who are unreal.  No thought becomes thought in order to lead thoughts back to no thought.  The Buddha leaves Nirvana to become a boddhisattva to lead lost thoughts back to Nirvana.  All we like sheep have gone astray.  All we thoughts have wandered away from Reality.  And Reality becomes not reality, the shepherd becomes a sheep and searches for lost sheep to lead them back to Reality.

There is nothing like reality.  Reality is itself and nothing else. 

As both the Bible and the Quran emphasize, there nothing else like God.

Funny how we don't consider this.

"Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness (Genesis 1:26)

To be yourself is to be the Image of God, like no other.
To try to be like anybody else is to not be True.

"I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your Likeness." (Psalm 17:15)

For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me (Isaiah 46:9)

The only way I can be the Image of God is to put away likenesses that I think I am, to put away all that I think I am: thoughts, images, labels, and simply Be Who I Am.

I am who I am, the only way, the only truth, the only life.
There is no other way to Reality
And there is no Heaven but Reality,
No God but Reality.

There is no power greater than
I am who I am.
I am who I am,
right here, right now,
in the flesh.

Any action (spirit) that
does not confess
that I am who I am,
right here, right now,
in the flesh,
is Anti-Messiah.


   












 

Sundeen and Suelo in SLC this Saturday

I have lots to blog about, but it'll have to wait.

Ok, I haven't done so well at letting folks know of events I'd be at, so I'm now telling you I'm hitch-hiking out of Moab tomorrow to Salt Lake City for an event:

Mark Sundeen and I are scheduled to be at 
the Main Library in downtown Salt Lake City,
Saturday, October 27, 3p.m., for 
a discussion with Jennifer Napier-Pierce through KUER (Utah's public radio).

It's part of the
Utah Humanities Council Book Festival. 

Find it on Facebook, too. 

If you can't be there,
 KUER is also rebroadcasting our RadioWest interview (from last March) with Doug Fabrizio this Friday, Oct 26.
It's on podcast, too, if you miss it.

and I'm assuming Saturday's event will be aired, but I'm uncertain about that. 

See some of you there?

Ode to The Holy Invisible Hand of the Free Market

Ode to The Holy Invisible Hand 
of the Free Market

Oh Holy Invisible Hand of the Free Market, we adore Thee above all,

and we sacrifice all our values and all that is life to Thee!

We are the Righteous Right of Evangelicals, LDS, Catholics, Jews, and Atheist Libertarians and rabble-rousing Tea Partiers!
How is it that we have put aside all our historical differences and come to perfect agreement?
We exceedingly rejoice, for we have found the reason! 
Yes, we have found the one god  we all have in common, through His Holy Profit, Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name).
Thou art the god who trumps all our core values, who trumps all our differences:
Thou art the Invisible Hand of the Free Market, and anything that stands in Thy way we call evil!

Thy wisdom in calling Thyself the Invisible Hand of the Free Market is awesome.  For thy holy sake we hide the fact that "Free Market" is an oxymoron.  For Thy sake we hide the fact that only that which is not owned and cannot be purchased is free.  But Oxymorons fool the simple-minded and glorify Thee, and for that we praise Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market!

Yes, we sacrifice the very foundations of our religious traditions and the foundations of our American democracy and thousands of years of moral evolution to Thee with thy holy oxymoronic lingo!  

Even as we Righteously Right Evangelicals, LDS, and Catholics mouth praises to Jesus, we sacrifice him and all that he taught on Thy Altar of Profit, Oh Invisible Hand! 

We have found, like our Holy Prophet Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name), that Jesus and laissez faire Capitalism are utterly incompatible. 

But, because of our unwavering devotion to Thee, Oh Invisible Hand, we deny this blatant contradiction, we pretend to serve and praise Jesus.  What better tactic to feign devotion to the most popular guy in history in order to promote Thy Cause, oh Thou beloved Mammon, our god above all gods!

Tar Sands Mining in Canada

We sacrifice all that is life to thee: our water, our air, our earth and all the living creatures depending on these things.
We will gladly sacrifice all life, including our own, to extinction for Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market.  We even sacrifice our dignity and rational thinking and all Reality to Thee!  We love Thee that much, and we are all yours! 

Yes, it's because of Thee and Thy Profit Ayn Rand  (Blessed Be Her Name) that we Righteously Right Evangelicals, LDS, Catholics, Jews, and Atheist Libertarians and Tea Partiers miraculously see beyond our seemingly irreconcilable differences, joining in Perfect Harmony as One Mind!

For decades, we condemned atheistic regimes.  We hated the USSR, claiming it was because of its atheism.  But now we find that we adore Red China, because Red China, though its government still claims strict atheism, and still commits unspeakable acts against human rights, has bowed in devotion to Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market, and serves us with its sweatshop slavery! 

Thou, Oh laissez faire Capitalism, art our Righteously Right New World Order, even as we belittle, call naive, and witch-hunt any real love, compassion, and authentic cooperation and ecumenical-ism as the evil "New World Order."  How beautiful are thy Orwellian and oxymoronic ways, Oh Invisible Hand!

We especially adore how Thou denounceth Big Government even as Thou art the source of all Big Government and Tyranny!  How sexy is Thy tyranny!

We praise Thy Holy Name, laissez faire Capitalism, and we denounce as Anti-American and Anti-Christian anything that stands in Thy way, even as we sacrifice our very US Constitution and our most basic Christian values to Thee!  We adore Thee that much! 

All that stands in Thy way is collectivist and altruistic.  And we know thy Holy Profit, Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name) said that anything collectivist or altruistic is evil.
Yes,  anything collectivist is contrary to Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market.  Collectivism is moochism.  How dare we fall into the barbarity of Northern European and Canadian socialistic ways, when we could uphold the real man values of Somalia, a beacon of no government regulation!  African Americans and Children had secure jobs, privileged to work sun-up to sun-down, in the old days before government regulated greed!

Yes, Thy Profit Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name), imparted to us amazingly profound principles and tweaked them to Serve Thee, and Thee Only, Oh Invisible Hand.  She claimed that to serve the self is in the best interest of society, but to act altruistically is evil.  How we nostalgically return to our black-and-white, wonderfully adolescent, humorless reasoning as we follow Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name). 

What a genius she was to reject the "collectivist" part of the Soviet system she escaped from, yet how she kept the Soviet black-and-white, humorless adolescent thinking that made the USSR the great empire that it was, throwing out the thousands of years of moral evolution with the bathwater.  It was this black-and-white throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater thinking that was Ayn Rand's (BBHN) genius in appealing to generations of adolescent thinkers of whatever theistic or atheistic dogma.  For these are Thy Disciples and Thy Power, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market!  

How oxymoronically beautiful that she denounced mysticism, just as fundamentalists of all religions denounce mysticism, even as her mystic devotion to Thee went beautifully beyond all rational thought and reality!

Ah, yes, Collectivism is Evil, saith the Holy Profit (Blessed Be Her Name).  This is why we, Thy Disciples, denounce all that is life, all that is real, because all of life, all of reality, is Collectivist.  And Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name) knew, like us, that reality stinks and fantasy rocks!

We must privatize, because privatization, ownership, is an illusion of fantasy, is Thy Holy Character, oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market, Oh Grand  Illusion!

Yes, collectivism, sharing, is evil.  Every single bit of sunlight, all air, all water, and all earth are collectivist, shared by all, shared by just and unjust alike.  This is why we must not stop until all nature is destroyed!  How can anything without a money value, not under ownership, be worthy to exist?  We know that Thou art a god of fairness, which is why Thou hatest nature and all that is natural, because we all know nature is unfair.  Sun shines and clouds rain and the earth sprouts food freely for the undeserving.  How dare mooches get sunlight and rain!  Yes, collective air fills the lungs of lazy moochers.  This is why we must choke out the sun and poison the air with toxic emissions, why we must destroy our wild rivers and our land and forests and bring all under ownership.  We must privatize everything, even selling water in bottles (whooodeverthunkit?), so that only we, the deserving, who work for money, can afford it.  We are the only creatures that have to pay rent to lay our heads down on the earth, because we are the superior ones, Thy servants.  We must destroy all who break Thy Holy Law, Oh Invisible Hand!

Common sense is no fun, which is why we must destroy common sense.  Common sense and our dictionaries tell us anything under ownership, possession, is not free.  This is why we have oxymoronically given glory to Thee and declared that what is not free is free in our Holy Crusade to bring every single atom in the universe under private ownership!  How beautiful and glorifying to Thy Name to call purchased slaves free!


Quotes from Thy Prophet Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name) and her devoted disciples:

"It is precisely the 'greed' of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking, which is the un-excelled protector of the consumer."  (Alan Greenspan)

"It is the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product."  (Alan Greenspan)

Ayn Rand and her Disciple,
Alan Greenspan,
in Gerald Ford's Oval Office

Alan Greenspan so graciously spread the gospel of Rand's ideology, even as he deregulated the banking industry and sacrificed the American Economy to Thee, Oh Dearest Invisible Hand of the Free Market.  Today, many Randians claim Alan Greenspan went against Randian philosophy, willfully ignorant that, at Rand's bidding and blessing, Greenspan entered the Federal Reserve and continues as her unwavering disciple to this day.

Yes, we worship and serve Thee above all, Oh Mammon, Oh laissez faire Capitalism!

I grew up reading Ayn Rand, and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff.  
(Paul Ryan, quoted in Daily Kos 2012-09-04 01:30:00)

The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government.  
 (Mitt Romney)

I made a lot of money. I’ve been very successful. I’m not going to apologize for that. 
(Mitt Romney)

What I have, I earned. I worked hard, the American way. (Mitt Romney)

Laissez-faire in the beginning

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."  
(Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead)

...the person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him. 
(Ayn Rand, Fountainhead) 

The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power-that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.  
(Ayn Rand, Fountainhead) 

Laissez-faire yesterday

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.  
(Ayn Rand, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal) 

Laissez-faire today:
Direct product and backbone
of US capitalism

When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.  
(Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness)

I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. 
(Ayn Rand)

--------------------------- 

Quotes from the Mormon Enemy of the Invisible Hand of the Free Market

Right wing Evangelicals, who have always loathed Mormons, now, all the sudden, adore Mitt Romney.  Why?  Because just as right wing Evangelicals have sacrificed the core values of their very own Jesus to the Invisible Hand of the Free Market, so Mitt Romney has sacrificed his own core LDS values to Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market!

It's pretty damned obvious what the Bible says about accumulation of riches and oppression of the poor and basic sharing 101 (see The Way of Christianity and The Way of Judaism).  But, even so, the Holy Christian Right, in their unwavering love for Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market, can still deny the very Bible they love to thump and their very own human dignity for Thy sake!

But what about the Book of Mormon and other LDS scriptures and scholars?  They must be totally capitalistic and pro-greed, right?  Think again.

Because of prominent Mormons like Mitt Romney, Orrin Hatch and droves of LDS leaders who wallow in wealth and serve Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market and Thy Prophet Ayn Rand (Blessed Be Her Name), most people don't have a clue what the LDS scriptures really say.  To know our evil anti-capitalistic enemy, lets take a look at their own LDS scriptures and Mormon scholars that are completely opposed to Thee, Oh Invisible Hand of the Free Market, and against Thy Holy Profit (Blessed Be Her Name):

But wo unto the rich,
who are rich as to the things of the world.  
For because they are rich
they despise the poor,
and they persecute the meek,
and their hearts

are upon their treasures:  wherefore,

their treasure is their God. 
And behold, their treasure shall perish with them also.
(Book of Mormon, 2Nephi 9:29)

But it is not given that one man 
should possess that which is above another, 
wherefore the world lieth in sin. 

(Doctrine and Covenants 49:20)

But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion;

For if they labor for money they shall perish.

(Book of Mormon, 2Nephi 26:31)
 

 
Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just --
But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.
For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?  . . . .
And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another. 
And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.
I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world. (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 4:17-23)


...and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings 
because of their exceedingly great riches, 
yea, even unto great persecutions;
For there were many merchants in the land, 
and also many lawyers, and many officers.
And the people began to be distinguished by ranks. . . .   
And thus there became a great inequality in all the land 
 (Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 6)


Yes, the Book of Mormon is a Socialist conspiracy against Thee, Oh Invisible Hand:

And they had all things common among them; 

therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free,

but they were all made free,

and partakers of the heavenly gift. . . .

There were no robbers, nor murderers,

neither were there Lamanites,

nor any manner of ‘ites;

but they were in one,

the children of Christ,

and heirs to the kingdom of God.

(Book of Mormon, 4Nephi 1:3,17)

Now let's expose Thy Enemy, the late Hugh Nibley, 
one of the foremost scholars of the LDS church:

Hugh Nibley

The idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer has always meant that the idle rich shall not eat the bread of the laboring poor, as they always have.
– Hugh Nibley

All my life I have shied away from these disturbing and highly unpopular—even offensive—themes. But I cannot do so any longer, because in my old age I have taken to reading the scriptures and there have had it forced upon my reluctant attention that, from the time of Adam to the present day, Zion has been pitted against Babylon, and the name of the game has always been money—"power and gain." . . . .  Babylon and Zion cannot mix in any degree. A Zion that makes concessions is no longer Zion.

--Hugh Nibley ("What is Zion?" CWHN 9:58)

Closing Invocation For Guitar
(to the Tune of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", words re-written by me)

v.1
{G} WHAT A COMPETITION,

{C} WHAT SWEATSHOP TOYS ARE MINE!
{G} LEANING ON THE MARKET'S 
{D} INVISIBLE HAND!
{G} WHAT A LIP-SERVICE,
{C} CALLING JESUS MINE,
{G} LEANING ON THE MARKET'S 
{D} INVISIBLE {G} HAND!

chorus
{G} LEANING, {C} LEANING,
{G} SAFE AND SECURE TRUSTING 
{D} AYN RAND!
{G} LEANING, {C} LEANING,
{G} LEANING ON THE MARKET'S 
{D} INVISIBLE {G} HAND!

v.2
{G} WHAT A FEAT TO HOCK
{C} ALL THAT'S FREE AWAY!
{G} LEANING ON THE MARKET'S 
{D} INVISIBLE HAND!
{G} WE KNOW WE'RE ON THE RIGHT RIGHT PATH
{C} SELLING SOULS DAY TO DAY,
{G} LEANING ON THE MARKET'S 
{D} INVISIBLE {G} HAND!

v.3
{G} WHAT HAVE I TO DREAD?
{C} WHAT HAVE I TO FEAR?
{G} LEANING ON THE MARKET'S 
{D} INVISIBLE HAND!
{G} UNREGULATED GREED,
{C} MY LORD MAMMON NEAR,
{G} LEANING ON THE MARKET'S 
{D} INVISIBLE {G} HAND!

Common Sense

I returned to Moab yesterday, camping out in the heat last night.

The Peace Corps reunion in San Diego went really well.  My Peace Corps friend, Stephanie, drove me there from Colorado, and, of course, it was splendid getting to know her better.  We were both so happy we overcame our reluctance to go. It was the first I'd seen most those folks in 23 years, since we were in Ecuador together.  I was actually really surprised to see how little everybody had changed.  Joe Griffith (I think voted the "sexiest" in Peace Corps training), who had disappointed his fellow female volunteers (and some male :-)  by marrying an Ecuadorian, pretty much organized the whole event.  His Ecuadorean wife and sister-in-law even cooked up a gourmet Ecuadorean feast for us, which brought back a flood of magical memories.

On returning to Moab, I got to spend time with Carolyn and her new boyfriend, Thembe, who had dropped into the area for a couple weeks.  They then brought me to Fruita, Colorado, to visit my parents.

In Fruita, I discovered a group of new friends (Kyle and Jeanine, Ken and Rachelle, Cullen and Veronica), and a rad, artsy center they'd created, called Cavalcade.  They wanted to jam in Cullen's woodshop (he also makes harps and guitars), and I figured I'd join these refined musicians with my rookie guitar skills.  There were a bunch of woodsaws hanging up, and somebody jokingly asked if anybody played the saw.  I said, "yes," and sawed some tunes with them.  They convinced me to stay longer and play saw in Cavalcade's variety show with Kyle Harvey.   

Meanwhile, I've been reading a book my Missoula friend, Kate, gave me, "The Spell of the Sensuous", by David Abram. At first I'd thought it was just another nice nature book.  The title kind of throws you.  But it is utterly profound, with revolutionary ideas.  Maybe if it had a different title, and not classified as a nature book, it might be more well known, in fact revolutionary, to scientific, as well as theological and philosophical, thinking.  It's helping me crystallize ideas developing for decades in me.  I hope to write them out sometime.  Meanwhile, here's some musings it inspires in me:

COMMON SENSE

All physical reality is sensual.
All physical reality is known only by the senses.

The senses are the prophets, the seers, the sent,
bearing witness to Unchanging Consciousness.

To repress the sensual is to deny physical reality,
To deny the sensual is to deny compassion,
to deny the Word in the flesh,
Consciousness in the flesh.

Paradoxically, to repress the sensual is to be a slave to the sensual,
to express and share the sensual is to be served by the sensual.
To express and share passion is compassion.
How?

Passion is sense.
Shared sense is common sense.
Common sense is common passion.
Common passion is compassion.

Senses hidden, senses not shared,
Passion hidden, passion not shared
are our slaveholders,
are our destruction.

Compassion is Omni-pre-sence
Omnipresence is God in everyone,
One Consciousness in everyone.
Compassion is Common Sense.

All physical things are sensed.
To share all things is to commonly sense.
To share everything is common sense!
Common sense is concensus.

To think we own anything
is to deny common passion,
to deny common sense,
is to deny omni-pre-sence!

To breathe is to share,
air common to all.
To breathe is to be alive.
To breathe is to sense.
To breathe is to make sense.

To breathe is common sense!
To breathe is to respire, inspire,
be filled with the Spirit,
To realize all life
literally is One Breath,
One Spirit,
Whole Spirit,
Wholly Spirit,
Holy Spirit.

Can you possess air?
can you own breath for later? 

To deny this common sense
is to deny Omni-pre-sense.

Possession means possessed.
Possessed means not free.
Not free means bought and sold.
Only slaves and prostitutes
can be bought and sold,
Slaves to our senses,
because we repress our senses.

Free means priceless.

Free Market is an oxymoron!
Free literally means free!

Market is price institution.
Price institution is pros-titution.
Prostitution is commerce.
Commerce is common market.
Common market opposes common sense.
Common sense is com-passion.
Common sense is consensus.

(In Hebrew, commerce is canaan.
All the world has become Canaan).

Mammon is delusion.
Delusion is idolatry,
mistaking illusion for reality.
Compassion is reality.
Reality is omnipresent.
Omnipre-sence is common sense.

Either love Mammon
and hate Reality
or vise versa.
It 's impossible to love both.
Can you simultaneously love
both the Prostitute of Babylon
(Queen of Commerce)
and the New Jerusalem
(Queen of Grace, of Gratis)?

If life cannot share
how can it be life?
To buy and sell life is to deny life.
Every particle in the Universe is life.
Universe means omnipresence.

To not share is to reject all the Universe,
to repress your own senses,
to not sense the senses of others,
to reject compassion,
to not make sense,
to reject common sense.

Compassion is the Spirit
breath, sense,
Spirit confessing the Word in the flesh,
beyond words.
Any spirit that does not share
denies the Word made flesh.
Because any spirit that does not share
is in a lung that does not breath,
not speaking the Word beyond words.

Common Breath
Common Sense

I said in my heart, 
"Concerning the condition of the descendants of Adam, 
God tests them, 
that they may see that they themselves are animals."
For what happens to the descendants of Adam 
also happens to animals; 
one thing befalls them: 
as one dies, so dies the other. 
Surely, they all have One Spirit*.
Adam has no advantage over animals, 
for all is emptiness.
All go to one place: 
all are from the dust, 
and all return to dust.
(The Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:17-20)

*Hebrew, Ruach, meaning Spirt or Breath.

  

To Find Lost Manhood

I'm often told my posts are positive and optimistic.  This one might seem cynical and dark.  But it's about truth we must face, and I hope you see the optimism behind all truth.

..................................................................................................................................

I made it to Denver from Vermont.  I'm staying at the house of my friends, Joan, Sokha, and their daughter Charya.  Now I have to find a ride to my friend Stephanie's in Pagosa Springs in southwestern Colorado.  She plans to take me to our Peace Corps reunion in San Diego at the beginning of August.

My new friends, Sara and Torri, with their children, Ian and Marta, brought me to Denver from Vermont.  Ian (age 9) and Marta (age 7) were a joy to me.

I've gotten to see my friends Cody and Jesse, and Tim and Cherry and their son Daniel, while in Denver.  (Cody, Jesse and Tim are in the book).  Cody just had a dread-cutting party, which I missed, and is now bald.  He had me cut off one of his dreads beforehand, though.

Cambodian Abode

It's interesting staying with Sokha.  Sokha's native Cambodia was devastated by Pol Pot's genocide, on the one hand, and Henry Kissinger's genocide, on the other.  Sokha lost his entire immediate family and many friends to the ravages of genocide and starvation caused by politics.  He keeps telling me about the joyful simplicity of his native Cambodian culture, and can't help but see how ridiculous the rampant materialism and absurd complexity of life in the US has become, even as he is grateful to be here.  He tells me of the generosity and hospitality of Cambodian culture, how anybody can drop in at anybody's house un-announced and be fed, no matter how poor.  And here, in this nation of wealth, you often go away hungry after visiting somebody.  And you can't visit many folks in the US without calling ahead of time to make an appointment, as if you're dealing with a business, not people.  He observes, also, the irony that the more people have, the less they can share. He says, in his Cambodian culture, people don't need accountants, because "never go in debt, spend only what you have only on what you need, and keep only possessions you need, and work only as much as you need" are all you need to know.  

Que Mall 

Joan and I got into a heated discussion about mega churches in Denver - a whole franchise of them - which we've both visited several times.  The churches look like malls - because they are malls, with coffee shops and bookshops in foyers, cash registers and all.  You can't get into the sanctuary without walking through this merchandise department.  And, once you're in the sanctuary, you get to see high tech video screens everywhere with hip bands playing hip music.  To me it's a no-brainer, "Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!", you know, what Jesus said as he wielded his whip.  No matter from what angle I look at this, and whatever argument for it I hear, I simply can't help but feel utter disgust.  But there are really nice people in those churches, doing good things, donating lots of money on really nice programs helping lots of people. And the preachers give good, insightful sermons (which, surprise, never ever happen to include Jesus' basic teachings, like about money and possessions, except on rare, rare, rare occasions, only for the sake of explaining them away).  Nice people and nice programs and nice words and the "Gospel" make the pill go down smooth.  I hope to write a full-fledged essay about this for the website.  This is very important, because we're talking a big political force here, not an inane, offbeat religion.  We're talking about a force behind American world policy.

Book Readings I Missed

Mark Sundeen is doing book readings in Albuquerque (Monday the 23rd) and Santa Fe (Tuesday) and invited me to participate, but I couldn't get my act together to hitch hike in the heat out of Denver, which would mean hitching back to Colorado again for my ride to San Diego.  Too much traveling is getting to wear on me.  

mass grave of massacred Cambodians

Which Mass Homicide Do You Prefer?

Most folks have heard about the next mass shooting that happened in the Denver area since I've been here.  We keep thinking these killings are isolated, random, freak events.  But they keep happening.  And they will keep happening, more and more, as certainly as the cause-and-effect laws of physics.  

Mass killings are a guaranteed symptom of a sick society.  

The President with his
future Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
proving their lost manhood

Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize, even after he and Richard Nixon master-minded the mass bombings of millions of innocent men, women, and children in Cambodia and Vietnam.  What if the whole nation looked on in horror over Kissinger's acts as it does over James Holmes' killing of 12 people and wounding 58?

"How Many Mass Killers Were Women?"

Columbus' first project on Hispaniola:
proving lost manhood.
The founding seed of America.

My friend Whitney brought out a glaring fact in Facebook: "How many mass killers were women?" She asks. "And violence is overwhelmingly male (both perpetrators and victims). Time to start talking about how to reach young men and help them learn to stop this cycle."  And she references this article by Erika Christakis: 

The Overwhelming Maleness of Mass Homicide  

Some men brought up the fact there are isolated instances of women serial and mass murderers, too.  But that doesn't erase the obvious, that the overwhelming majority of killers have been males.

Whitney's comment:  "I'd like to see a much more open attitude toward mental illness. We should make it not only possible, but acceptable to say 'hey, I'm hearing voices in my head]' or 'Mom, Dad, I'm really pissed off and want to shoot someone' and know that while these things are not normal, they're nothing to be ashamed of, and that there are ways to help and feel better."

"Hmm... I'm dazed and confused...
after all that,
I still can't find my manhood!
I guess, to be a man, you have to
be like Kissinger & Columbus,
and massacre thousands or millions!

Another fb person explained it by saying it's due to lowered levels of testosterone, brought on by bad diet, lack of exercise, and environmental toxins.

I agree with both the above, and add my own observation as a male who went through suicidal clinical depression. Self destruction.  I'll dare find the rage that I felt in myself and shed some light on this.  Here was my response to the conversation.  This is not about excusing the mass murderers.  We're each responsible for ourselves.  Yet we can never be responsible until we realize the whole society is ourselves:  

"It's pretty damned obvious males don't feel useful and feel emasculated in a control-freak society obsessed with security and fear. Boys don't play in the woods any more, don't explore, don't experience the natural dangers of life that we all need (yes need, like we need air) and learn how to cope with challenges. 

It's a principle of biology. Don't allow your body to naturally deal with illness and pain, popping antibiotics & painkillers at the drop of a hat, and our immune systems get weak, and our bodies start attacking themselves. Auto-immune diseases, cancer and mental illness are more rampant than ever before. 

"I have no doubt about my masculinity,
and I'm  not even a man!
Maybe if I stop cockfighting petty individuals
and dabble in massacre,
I'll become a man!"

Socially, this is true. History and biology show us males are, generally speaking, the antibodies of society. It's in their genetics to protect, and this is repressed. Is a rooster stupid for being "cocky," or is this its biology? Now they begin attacking their own selves, own societies. The more males get bashed for being male, the more their repressed anger boils. How long does a cap stay on a pressure cooker that has no release? 

In physics this is true. Can we eliminate negatives when for every positive there is an equal and opposite negative? Won't the negatives backlash in violence? Instead of fighting and denying what will never, ever, ever go away (night, winter, violence, anger, aging, death) why not just accept it all as natural and then finally live with it in balance?"

I often hear how it's such a wonderful thing how civilized we are from our barbaric tribal days, and how we continue to civilize barbaric tribes the world over.  But does the barbarism of the Yanomamo and head-hunting Juarani in the Amazon even begin to hole a candle to to the incessant mass genocide and perpetual, prolonged suffering promoted by commercial civilization?  But we wrap our mass murders in methodical, civilized morality, even as we are appalled at splinters in the eyes of "barbarians." And what a pretty wrapping it is, huh?

How can we be happy dealing only with the symptoms when our system itself is flawed to its very foundation?  There's often no better way to see a system for what it is than to step outside of it.  To find a real man, that is the manly challenge.