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( For those who aren't picking this up from ishmael mailing list: this critique was created as part of an argument I was having at ishmael.org guestbook - there are some references to earlier stuff discussed at the list but the rest should be self-explanatory to the unintiated. see also the rest of the site [content.html] )

My thoughts on the website (www.mshadow.com) 'Rethinking the World'

I read the whole site through. The site goes on and on and on about things vaguely related to Quinn's ideas and issues, which is of course good for someone who hasn't changed their mind. For others however all this just stinks of self-gratification - about how clever they are to know all these secret hidden truths. At no point does the site want to abandon it's parroting and move on to invent new ideas. I will demonstrate: extracts from the site follow. They are all of course ripped horrible out of context but I don't care!

"Mature trees afford huge savings in energy costs. Windbreaks can lower home heating bills by up to 30 percent."

Up to 30 percent! Wow, i didn't know that - lets have lots of windbrakes on our urban sprawl...

"30 Days of Earth Day includes a wide variety of topics ranging from recycling, local food production, green building, cleanups, wildlife, hiking, community activities, electric vehicles, ecology, landscaping, voluntary simplicity, and many others."

30 days! But I have to go to work on monday - could we just have this thing on weekends?

Recycling - yeah, lets recycle our Play Stations and SUVs - how original!

Local food production - Lets have the monocultures next to our communities, although today of course the monocultures would also have to be 95% organic - they can have 5 percent toxic/nuclear stuff because of the fallout, and be genetix-free by origin - they can have genetix stuff as long as its pollinated from the field next to them.

Green Building - so we can have our urban sprawl green now?

Cleanups - Exxon Valdes! here we come. How exiting!

Wildlife - Food

Hiking - animist hunter-gatherers hike I lot do they?

Community Activities - murals on the walls of the recycling depots powered by endless wildmill farms?

Electric vehicles - Electric bulldozer, chainsaws, diggers and SUVs all powered by endless, endless vast fields of monocultures of wildmills and hemp.

Ecology - what is this doing here?

Landscaping - for fuck sake!!!

Voluntary simplicity - looking at all the above this must mean the mental kind.

The author of the site goes on to say that it "It offers those in our community who support the environment theoretically, but are unsure of what they themselves can do..."

Who are these people who support the environment theoretically? Retarded?

"...an opportunity to learn about topics which are of interest to them and have fun at the same time."

Yeah, I guess that's what they do in mental institutions...

"campaign finance reform"

la la la la la

"Environmental Consequences of Using Electricity"

What! How about the environmental consequences of having even the concept that allows people to think of questions like the environmental consequences of using electricity.

"The Last Great Wilderness, a multimedia slide show about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)"

That's what's gonna be left of it, a multimedia slide show, if these people are our only hope...

"Why should we "Rethink the World"? A valid question, but perhaps a better one might be, "Why didn't we rethink things a long time ago?"

No comment needed here - just taking it out of context is enough.

After describing the environmental catastrophies caused by our civilization the author goes on to say: "I believe that most of us intuitively recognize that there is something perilous in maintaining cultural and individual practices which permit the sort of things described above to occur."

I wonder if the author is British - I have never seen such an understatement!

"Mahatma Gandhi said, "You must become the change you seek in the world.""

Little as it is quoted Mahatma Gandhi also said "We are free from today! There is no British rule over our country! Paralyse the country, you are your own leaders. Do or Die!"

Now, the following is the only bit on the whole site I can take seriously...

"We don’t need to “protect the planet” – we need to transform our culture from our worldview out. We may choose to do some protecting along the way, but changing minds must be our focus if we’re to have any hope of succeeding."

Ok, leaving the EF!/ELF direct-action argument aside for now, lets look at how we can change minds. I have been suggested the following.

There are those who keep repeating over and over again that it's all to do with the individual. The individual has to change his mind. The change has to come from inside him. This is not new. The Religious sects and ideological regimes have been doing this for millenia and it actually very supportive of civilization because it keeps the disfunctional off the streets. There are those who want to built alternative communities where again people change from within and perhaps maybe somebody from the outside might even see it as an example and join in.

In fact the most radical thing these people can think of is to write something and put it on the internet.

Changing minds enmasse is a far cry from anything any of this can achieve.

Why are people then stuck to these conformist and harmless methods. Because anything that might actually be successful is considered suspect and by any means necessary rejected as 'evil'. Let me give you an example as a test what mental structures in your mind inhibit you from thinking dangerous thoughts.

Hitler didn't spread his vision by changing from the inside as an individual. He wrote a book which was a failure. He didn't stop there. He set up an organization with an intricate propaganda machine based on the concepts of Archetype and Symbolism by Carl Jung. These concepts in mind he made up this vision of the third reich and some fake history to go with it in order to manipulate people. It was easy for him as he just wanted power.

For you to even consider that the history of the nationalits socialist party and its propaganda methodology might be useful even as an intellectual exercise is made impossible by your conditioning by the culture of our civilization. The Nuremberg trials and the subsequent hysteria about of the Nazi attrocities wasn't propagated to every nook and corner of the world just because it was the humanitarian thing to do to stop something like that happening again. No, it was to stop anyone looking into how such a stupid party with such stupid ideas could have gained ninetyfive percent approval rating within the German public. Even with the special psychologic conditions in place at the time due to the recession and the war the German had just lost, it is unheard of for a political party to gain such universal approval. Only religious parties in highly religious countries have been able to get anywhere close to that.

I know full well the argument against this kind of thing. It is the principle (among hippies and enlightened liberals especially) that humans should not be manipulated. They should understand the consequences of their actions. And it is just because of this that such attrocities are commited under religious and hate regimens.

Now, hate wasn't the only thing they based their propaganda on. No, they had a vision, a vision of the third-reich (or whatever). OK, so it was an evil vision, but a vision nevertheless that people identified with and dreamed of. Now whether you like it or not this animist vision by Quinn is equally just such a vision. Now, to say that the Nazi vision wasn't rational where as the animist Quinn vision is, is naive. Scientists and famous intellectuals all over the world supported the Nazi vision with few reservations. It was the thing to do - it was cool!

In the history of human kind there has never been an intellectual argument that would have counted as a vision. There have only been emotional arguments that appeal and thus manipulate the mind. Quinns vision is one and so is the visions embodies by the animist hunter-gatherers. To claim that we shouldn't use manipulative methods to spread it around is insane. I know the Nazi analogy doesn't actually help my argument here and I could have equally presented just Jung's theses on the Archetypes and Symbols in our subconscious but I like to insult people. It keeps away the hippies.

If you are going to change minds you cannot do it with intellectual arguments. You have to appeal to the emotions. You have to create a story, an Archetype, as Jung would call it that with it's symbolism appeals to peoples subconsciousness. People cannot 'embody' such a vision until they can love it with passion. It has to be something they can relate to and dream of.

This is what sets the people in this ishmael list apart from the ELF type people. The ELF types love their vision with passion and thus are able to embody it and what they do makes sense to them. Ishmael people just end up arguing intellectual semantics among themselves and do nothing (except set up websites and 'schools' where they can argue intellectual semantics some more). They have no passion and life within them. How can such people even talk of a vision?

If you can't come up with an argument just call me a fashist! :P

feedback to namelesswildness@subdimension.com