Mastodawn

Rev. Johnny Healey Mar 10

I think this post has been in my drafts folder for about three years, occasionally being reworked, and finally – FINALLY – I've finished it. Joni Mitchell, Jello Biafra, and Peter Thiel all feature. Warning - it's REALLY LONG.

https://www.ianbetteridge.com/zen-fascist-wi/

Zen fascists will control you...

In 1979, a punk band from San Francisco recorded a song about the Governor of California. It was a joke, mostly. Jerry Brown was a Democrat, a Buddhist, a man who dated Linda Ronstadt and discussed limits and simplicity at a moment when America was in no mood for either.

Ian Betteridge

@ianbetteridge I really enjoyed that. It all fits.

"Californian ideology" really does seem to be affecting us more than it should, and there's definitely that thing of thinking about and "improving" yourself all the time. From transcendental meditation to the quanticised self, it's like there's a concerted effort to stop us from worrying about each other rather than ourselves.

Val Packett 🧉Mar 10

@ianbetteridge didn't feel long at all, and the reference to one of the songs ever made me click instantly. One of the best and most important things I've read in a long time, bravo!!

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@valpackett Oh gosh thank you!

Well done, glad you've got that out here.

Bet you love being graded.
But it's 9/10.

Then the Appendix adds another two marks.

#LandmarkEducation #AlexanderTechnique #FeldenkraisMethod #Atheism #OriginalSin #Skepticism #RandomControlledTrial #RCT

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@skua Oh hell no. I refused school for a year. Hated everything about graded learning and still do.

Dave W Smith Mar 10

@ianbetteridge I hope you're not finished with it just yet. This feels like a down-payment on a longer piece.

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@dws Someone asked “when’s the book coming out?” to which my response was “about 2047 at the speed I write”

grrl_aex Mar 10

I read it.

What i got: 1)Humanity is innately hierarchical. 2)*Any* ideology/philosophy we come up with eventually leads to authoritarianism and oppression. 3)The current version on the rise (some sort of ayn randian fueled billionaire-ism) is particularly heinous. (but probably only because it is arising during this particularly "global tech/money" period of late-stage capitalism.)

So the takeaway i got: Humanity is fucked whatever we do.

what am i missing here? Any hope?

Teun 🌏 ❤️ 🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦 🇵🇸Mar 10

@kitkat_blue @ianbetteridge

What in the piece makes you think that humanity is innately hierarchical?

This is all culture we're talking about.

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@kitkat_blue Really good questions, thank you for asking them. I need to have a proper think, but my quicker take is no, humanity isn’t innately hierarchical. I don’t think people are innately much, except “messy”!

Cultures (and sub-cultures) are what I’m talking about. And I guess the key point is that cultures which involve an “attainable perfect” inevitably veer towards authoritarianism, because inevitably someone has to decide what perfection is, which gives them huge amounts of authority.

Humanity isn’t fucked. But any politics which says you can be a perfect individual if only you follow these rules is worth being wary of.

grrl_aex Mar 10

A lot flows from the answer to the question of innate hierarchy.

I'm trying to think of any persistent human group, past or present, which isn't hierarchic. And i come up empty. Shamans, headmen/headwomen, elders; even hunter-gatherer cultures, a basal social form, have hierarchy. Any human activity that is skill-based will also possess a hierarchy, from the flint chipper to the programmer. It seems hard to escape the universality of hierarchy within humanity.

Or...?

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@kitkat_blue Most hunter-gatherer societies were non-hieriarchical, and sometimes have strong cultural norms designed to stop people getting "too big for their boots" and assuming dominance. The !Kung, for example, practice "shaming the meat", where, a hunter gets to think of himself as above others, they literally insult his hunt. There's quite a few societies with levelling mechanisms like that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_mechanism

Leveling mechanism - Wikipedia

grrl_aex Mar 11

That practice speaks more to conflict avoidance than hierarchy.

The !Kung do have hierarchy and it is evident in the elevation of the *elders* of the band in conflict resolution (common in H-G societies). Also, ownership has a role. Large game is divided based on the ownership of the arrow of the "fatal strike". The arrow owner is the one who is privileged to divide the kill--which goes to hunting party members first and then to their families, and then to the rest.

Dr. Juande Santander-Vela Mar 10

@ianbetteridge great article! Really insightful, had never thought there could be any relationship between Peter Thiel and the ‘60s… and it also tracks with TESCREAL ideology, as they are the ones that can make the hard decisions, as they are enlightened to the future of humanity.

Jonathan Schofield Mar 10

@ianbetteridge thanks. Great piece

Chip Butty Mar 10

@ianbetteridge never trust a hippie

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@otfrom That would have been about 3,850 words shorter, but yes.

Chip Butty Mar 10

@ianbetteridge I enjoyed reading the longer version with references

You S Blues Mar 10

@otfrom @ianbetteridge Ha. I don’t even trust myself.

@ianbetteridge brilliant.

Made me think of Hogg's Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Maybe someone's already written it, as it seems we are overdue a 21st century version of the billionaire prince arriving from abroad to corrupt the self-appointed elect to horrendous crimes.

Steve Williams Mar 10

@ianbetteridge
Fantastic read. Definitely a book in the making.

Rolf Gardiner (father of the singer punching Conductor) was the perfect embodiment of that blood and soil type.

I made a short film about his part in the organic movement, and, in so doing, ran into his nazi health & efficiency past.

He ticks all your boxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Gardiner

Rolf Gardiner - Wikipedia

Slash909uk Mar 10

@ianbetteridge well that was quite the ride, thank you!

Evil Jim O’Donnell Mar 10

@ianbetteridge Elements heavier than iron are made by supernovae. Gold is rare because a star has to die to make it.

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@eatyourgreens It's a beautiful thing (and I do love that song very much)

Mikel Forcada EA5IYL / N7EES Mar 10

@ianbetteridge Oh, Joni Mitchell lied in her song. Damn.

Grug the Bush Partisan 🌻Mar 10

@ianbetteridge FYI for Jello :( https://sfba.social/@historyofpunkrock/116202724792898687

Punkrock History (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Get well soon, Jello. The world needs you...🍀🙏 Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys co-founder and Alternative Tentacles Records founder, suffered a hemorrhagic stroke on Saturday, March 7, caused by high blood pressure, according to a statement on the Alternative Tentacles website. He is hospitalized but stable. All appearances have been canceled.

SFBA.social

Ian Betteridge Mar 10

@brendanbertko Oh man, that is sad news :(

SarcastiCat Mar 10

@ianbetteridge Thank you for this. I have been trying to better understand what you call the wellness to conspiracy theory pipeline for a while, and your essay helps some. I'm still struggling with the mechanism of this at scale, and occasionally find myself tempted to consider some variant of lizard people:

You want to be generally healthier? Great.
You want to be less reliant on big pharma? Good.
Homeopathic? Ummm...
Vaccines are mindcontrol mechanisms? WTF -- have you been lizardized?

(dubious) opinion haver

@ianbetteridge I resented this article very much

But also you have some good points

I don’t think there’s particularly wrong with being a yoga guru with crunchy granola ideologies. Unless you wanna sell it. I think we should condemn the selling part.

The problem is when people make their entire personality a business venture or a thing to be justified.

Nevertheless I enjoyed reading the whole thing. So yeah, thank you?

Dana🗽Love Globally Mar 10

@ianbetteridge thank you

@ianbetteridge You've got something there, but I feel like there's a distinction to be made between belief systems that allow for *anyone* to improve themselves on some scale, and fascism which tends to be rooted in the idea that "others" can't make themselves non-Jewish, or non-black, or non-disabled, or non-queer, etc.

Otherwise school/college is fascistic 'cos it's based on a hierarchy that some people know more than others, and requires someone to decide who's done enough to "graduate"?