Where To Begin?

Introduction

The most obvious answer to the question Where to begin? is Begin here and now. Of course, we can only ever begin here and now. And our here and now, is when I write and when you read.

Either way, you get the idea. There’s only here and now. So then, let’s begin. In response to our last entry a friend of PRC recently asked, When it comes to real books and Western Civilization, where should we start and why? Since I’ve been asked this question, in one way or another, a number of times in my twenty years in Argentina, and since I’ve heard this question asked many more times before, during, and after my college years while living in NYC, and, of course, since I’ve asked that question myself, more than once, I thought today would be a perfect time to offer an answer. So, here goes. Keep in mind that this is simply one answer to a very interesting and extremely important question. The best place to begin for an understanding of Western Civilization is the opening chapters of The Book of Genesis.

Why?

Well, that’s obviously a question with many answers. So, for now, in our never-ending attempt to simplify any complex matter as best we can, let’s just say, Because its myth of paradise and paradise lost was to become the West’s great organizing symbol, and still is. The value of learning about this myth is that, as we said in the previous entry, like any great book it connects us with the past, and not just any past, but an important part of our civilization's past. But, it also connects us to the present. How?

Through our recognition of the fact that both the matrix and patterns found in The Book of Genesis are still with us today.

Namely, the matrix of blind obedience to authority and the patterns of behavior found in and subsumed by that matrix.

Toward the end of today's entry we'll offer some answers to such questions as Why read the story about Adam and Eve? Who gives a shit? What's it got to do with me?

For now we'll just say that you can see the influence of this myth any time an individual or group in any social-institution insists on imposing, by coercion and force, a final answer to life’s most complex problems and then guilt trips or punishes those who disobey. Though, as we shall see, even more is involved. But, before continuing, a word on how we'll approach this story.

Part I

There are two ways to look at this famous myth. One is to look at it as a sacred text, the other is to look at it as a work of art. Or, the theological way and the literary way. Not surprisingly, the results are as different as the methods. The theological way is the way of the drive toward belief, or, the drive toward orientation, or, to put it yet another way, the drive toward one's belief in a salvation system. The literary way, however, is the way of the drive toward reality. The theological way looks at how a story, any story, but especially this one, can serve a belief. The theological method of interpretation supports a belief-system, or orientation.

Note. This is true not just of all theologies, but of all ideologies as well. Ideologies are, from this perspective, secular theologies. A fact that a glance at current events makes perfectly obvious.

The literary way, on the other hand, looks at the story as a work of art. It shows how art, by complex ironies, drives to expose assumptions and break down orientations, giving us new eyes and ears and a new way of looking at the world. But it also exposes the matrix and its patterns. In doing so we expose the matrix itself as a pattern of behavior that is subsumed by our matrix. And exactly what is our matrix? Our matrix directs attention not just to an explanation, whether the one found in The Book of Genesis or our interpretation of it, or even our explanation of the world in general or the work we do with our partners in particular. No.

What our matrix does is explain Explanation itself.

Consistent with our work here at PRC, in an educational context, this is how the attributes of wisdom are developed. Developing the attributes of wisdom are how paradigms are broken. Breaking paradigms is the beating heart of Cultural Transcendence. And an example of that cultural transcendence is found in our slogan Beyond Technology. This is what we are talking about when we say that The meaning of life is your response to it. Not bad, eh?

The value of all of this would be to put those attributes of wisdom into practice so as to make more room for reality, freedom of choice, personal growth, and the possibility of fully functioning social-institutions in a reasonably healthy culture. In short, just about everything we don’t have today anywhere (except here).

Which is why not a few people have suggested that we’re moving fast toward a New Dark Ages. It very well may be. In fact, looks like we're there now. So, in our effort to be our own heroes of a culture crisis, for today’s entry and in answer to our friend’s question, we’ll look at the story as if it were a work of art.

Part II

The first most obvious and interesting fact of this story is how many explanations have been offered for why Adam and Eve get the boot. You'd think one belief would have one explanation.

Not that a story having multiple explanations is a bad thing. On the contrary, it's what makes any story more interesting, and the conclusions one might arrive at as a result more reliable. But that's if it's looked at as a story, as a work of art, not as a belief that calls itself the truth that one must obey, or else.

Of course, instead of fighting and killing each other over what explanation of any belief is “true” we might see the value in any belief-system generating more than one explanation, because it would increase the realm of moral choice. Which is why we’re looking at this myth as a work of art and not as the absolute truth.

Be that as it may, another aspect of the story worth mentioning is that everyone only seems to remember the famous tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the one with the apple. But there are actually two trees. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Isn’t it interesting that so many people ignore the tree of life so as to focus exclusively (obsessively?) on the question of good and evil? A question that comes with a ready-made answer that serves a belief - not life. Another interesting fact no one ever seems to mention is that, though God tells Adam that if he eats of the tree of good and evil he will die, the snake denies it and, as events unfold, the snake turns out to be right.

So, God’s answer to the question Where to begin? was, not Let there be light, but, Let there be lies. Or, to put it in question form,

Did God start things off by lying to man?

What do you think?

Not only that, after Adam and Eve get the boot, God tells Adam

that he’s being kicked out of paradise because he disobeyed. But God also tells others (others?) “Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”

The sentence remains unfinished. Apparently, God was so beside himself with fear he couldn’t even finish what he was saying. And what was he so afraid of? What do you think? Exposure!

In other words, God had a meltdown. The way any power-hungry person might if they thought they were about to lose the power they hunger for and depend on, not just because that power is where they find their freedom and comfort (a freedom and comfort denied to those who must blindly obey), but because that power is the very source of their sense of identity and value.

This is a very common and easy to identify pattern of dictatorial behavior that is itself subsumed by the matrix of blind obedience.

It's also found in all systems that are dependent on Scapegoating, starting, of course, with the family. In fact, they go together. Both the scapegoating family and the political dictator fear exposure.

This story ought to be enough to convince us all that anyone whose behavior resembles that of the character God should never be allowed to hold power. But, of course, they do. They’re just not called “God.” That’d be too obvious. But let's not tempt them.

Anyway, so, God pulls himself together long enough to serve Adam and Eve their eviction notice. In short, as it says in what believers refer to with no irony as “The Good Book”, “he drove out man.” The important thing for us to consider in this entry is that the motive God presented to Adam was one of just punishment. But the motive he presented to his invisible friends was fear. See the value of looking at this like a story we can question, instead of a sacred text we’re expected to believe?

Note: The public would do well to keep this in mind while reading anything from Identity Politic's stable of hacks and charlatans like Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Robin D'Angelo.

By looking at this as a work of art we can see right through the principal character of the story, God. But, by believing it as true we fail to get to the bottom of what has caused us all so much trouble ever since. In short, we fail to see ourselves for who we are, ie; people capable of believing anything, especially if it isn’t true. Or, people who shame those they're responsible for so as to conceal their irresponsibility. From this perspective, God didn't have anymore sense than Adam. But, unlike God, Adam can be forgiven on the grounds that he didn't know what he was doing.

In fact, stop for a moment and consider whether or not you have ever known a parent, sibling, teacher, politician, boss, or anyone else, who fits the description of the character God in this story, ie; a bullying, deceptive, fearful, and self-righteous narcissist, ever ready to make you pay for what they can’t face about themselves.

Note: From a more contemporary perspective two examples could be found in the main political parties of the USA. The DNC = Demonic Narcissistic Communists. The RNC = Really Never Cared. Both the Right and Left emerged from the same 18th century Enlightenment metaphysic, the belief that the perfect adaptation of the individual to their environment (group) is properly speaking the basis of all intellectual and moral decisions. It's exactly this belief-system that has laid to waste almost everything it's touched and now itself lies in ruins. Just look around. Given what we know about human behavior today, the belief in perfect adaptation is not just a fatal conceit, it's an insanity.

In any event, the principal protagonist, God, deceived man not once, but twice. His practice was deception, but, his motive was fear. Fear of what? Fear that man "become as one of us, to know good and evil", not just by knowing both good and evil, but by also becoming immortal, like “us.” The important thing that should capture our attention is this: The West chose to remember God’s punishment, not his fear. It’s understandable that back then they saw the story as a truth they had to believe in, or else. After all, we were a long way off from separating myth from reality, fact from fiction, thought from feeling, and opinion from fact.

Today, however, there’s no excuse. But it continues just the same. The only real difference is that the discernible patterns of behavior have simply shifted from religion to politics, that’s all.

Part III

Returning to our story, not only did they focus on God’s punishment instead of exposing his fear, ever since Adam and Eve were not so gently removed from paradise, endless ingenuity has been expended by learned theologians in trying to reconcile the various conflicting aspects of the story, as well as trying to explain the mysterious “us.” The explanations, though endless, are, without exception, logically unsatisfactory.

Note: Same thing the mainstream media does today on behalf of the hostile elite it shills for.

The essence of the story is this: Adam and Eve are placed in paradise on the unspoken condition that they accept unquestioningly what is in fact a lie. Sound familiar?

Sure, you could say that they did eat of the tree, that they were kicked out as promised, and that they do die, as God said they would. Fair enough. But, that’s not a telling argument.

Since it was the other tree that granted immortality, presumably they would have died anyway. From that point of view the snake is telling the truth, they won’t die – and is lying – they do die; and God is telling the truth – they will die – and is lying - they are going to die anyway. What’s the takeaway from this tangle of self-contradictory statements? Simply this: It was impossible for Adam and Eve to understand what had happened to them. It might have been impossible for them to understand, but, happily, it’s not for us. Not anymore it isn't.

Seen as a work of art we could say that this is a story written a long time ago by a very wise and cynical man who was trying to dramatize something of vital importance about human experience as it was understood when the writer committed his thoughts to paper, or whatever they wrote on back then. Two of the characters in this story are forced to consider the garden, a world of perfect order, value and identity, and the outside world filled with pain and suffering. And exactly what is the garden?

The garden is not just a place of beauty and order (utopia) where Adam and Eve are the perfect match and Adam even knows the names of all of the animals (where’d he learn that?), it’s also a place filled with secrets neither one of them are allowed to know.

Ah! Now we're getting somewhere. In short, it’s a place filled with lies and deceptions. And, since we like to ask questions at PRC, here’s one for this story. Who made the snake?

Remember that line from The Usual Suspects? The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

No it isn’t. The greatest trick the Devil ever played was convincing the world he was God. He didn’t make the snake. He was the snake. Of course! Since he made the world and everything in it, how could he not be? That's why he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because God didn't want them to find out how evil he is.*

*This pattern has continued from past to present, from families to governments, and everwhere in between. In short, wherever self-focused, low character people occupy positions of power.

If this great myth were an ordinary story it’d be impossible to imagine anything more cruel and bitter. Why? Because, in the world of real ugliness the believers continue to worship the power that created the deceptive beauty of paradise and the real ugliness of the world. And make no mistake about it, the author of this myth saw the world as ugly, and not just him.

Not only that, but everyone in this story is required to worship, even if, like Abel, they're permitted to be killed if they do believe and, like Cain, are not only allowed to live if they don't believe, but are permitted to live under divine protection and even have a wife and descendants, one of whom is the inventor of music. It's hard to blame people for thinking that this must all be historically true, since nothing made up could make so little sense.

Of course, the one person who can make sense out of all of this is the Family Scapegoat. Provided the family scapegoat survives the experience, gets into recovery and ultimately goes No Contact.

Part IV

And now, as promised, we'll offer some answers to the questions asked in the Introduction: Why read the story about Adam and Eve? Who gives a shit? What's it got to do with me?

Of course, all three questions could be asked sarcastically. The person asking the questions might ask them assuming there's no answer. If so, then there's obviously no point is answering.

But let's assume the questions are sincere, that the person asking them is genuinely interested in an answer. In that case, lets begin.

Why read the story about Adam and Eve?

The story is worth reading for anyone who wants to know about a way of thinking documented in the past that is still practiced in the present but doesn't have to be.

To do this one would need to look beyond the surface differences of both the past and present (important as they are) long enough to see the connection between the two. To do that at all well would require that we read the documents with as much emotional detachment as we can muster. Why? Because without emotional detachment there's no intellectual insight. That's why.

Who gives a shit?

The sincere and polite form of this question would be Who can use this story today? Or, How is this story useful?

This story is of use to anyone interested in social systems, social interaction, social management, scapegoating and innovation.

What's it got to do with me?

Again, another way to ask this quesiton would be, What is the relevance of this story to me? Or, How is this story relevant?

Of course, these questions direct attention to what PRC is all about. Because the question we always ask our partners is, Is what we're talking about relevant and useful? The follow-up question is If not, why not? If the answer is affirmative we continue our work together. If it isn't, we either attempt to persuade them that it is and succeed, or we don't persuade them and are kicked out of their garden paradise like Adam and Eve.

But have we failed? The great football coach Vince Lombardi was quoted as saying "You never lose. You just run out of time."

Interestingly, in paradise there is no time. So it's not a real world to begin with. It never was. That's the whole point about the difference between beliefs and reality. Or, to be more precise, the beliefs of any salvation system and the reality it's imposed on.

It's exactly because utopias aren't grounded in reality that when they're imposed on the real world they do more harm than good.

That's why the French Revolution went from a political utopia to a bloody dictatorship without a catch in the thorat of its believers.

In any salvation system, in any religious or political utopia, the beliefs remain the same. But reality never does. And reality doesn't care what we believe in. That's why it's often so hard to live in it. It's also why a great many people would prefer not to.

But instead of killing themselves, or instead of learning how to live in reality by acecepting its often gritty recalcitrance, fanatics simply and irresponsibly convert their beliefs into truths and immediately set about punishing anyone who won't blindly obey.

Once again we see the relation between a matrix and its patterns.

So, if you were kicked out of someone's paradise because you asked questions about ideas and actions having to do with social management, you did not fail anymore than Adam and Eve failed when God gave them the boot. No. You didn't fail. You learned.

Adam and Eve left paradise because paradise is impossible. Just as it is impossible to work for any social-institution run by people who think they have all of the questions and all of the answers.

Why waste time on an impossibility? Wouldn't it be better to confront the difficulties? What better way to become who you are while working toward acquiring the attributes of wisdom?

But, to do that is to challenge yourself and allow yourself to be challenged. And to do that you need to have your wits about you.

That's the value of developing the quality of self-awareness while acquiring the attributes of wisdom. Of course, the most important method for obtaining those qualities and attributes is learning.

The kind of learning that requires experience in life and the experience of reading real books, the kind of books that teach you about yourself, your society, culture, civilization and life itself.

And now we're back to the relevance and usefulness of the story of Adam and Eve. Because, when Adam and Eve were forced out of paradise, when they left home, so to speak, they had to change the way they think. They had to innovate. Like I did. But, Adam and Eve were characters in a story written thousands of years ago when innovation was seen as something bad, as something humans had to do because humans were considered "bad." And exactly who was it that considered them bad? Their creator!

Again, sound familiar?

Of course it does. Because it sounds exactly like the shaming parents of dysfunctional families and the self-focused, incompetent leaders of our failing countries and social institutions. Both of whom not only make the insane demands to be placed above criticism, loved unconditionally, and blindly obeyed, but who, unlike their scapegoats, actually have the power to effectuate those insane demands. And, since life is dynamic, not static, and we're imperfect, not perfect, those demands are insane, as are the people making them, and their enablers as well.

So, according to this belief as truth, the human race is "bad" because Adam and Eve were guilty of sin. And why were they were guilty of sin? Because they disobeyed their creator.

It's understandable why two characters in an ancient myth made the mistake of falling for the lies and deceit of an authority figure, but it's no long necessary for us to. Because now we know that the learning, change, and growth that goes with innovation is exactly what has enabled us to convert that sin into a virtue.

The greatest innovation possible today is found in moving Beyond Technology and toward Cultural Transcendence.

Why? Becaue of the immense value of cultural transcendence and the very real danger to us all of technological dependence.

When it comes to defying a tyrant's authority there is no such thing as guilt. There is only the freedom to choose and act. And that freedom has to come from us. It can never come from them.

After all, have we really come this far just to surrender our lives to those who clearly don't have our best interest in mind? Not me.

Part V

History is not about events of the past. It's about documents read and interpreted in the present. What the reader has been offered here is simply a present-day interpretation of a document from the past. As such it is open to question. What is certain is that, as a document of cultural history, the story of Adam and Eve is the first story we have about the formation of a culture of blind obedience to the authority of a ruling power that did not permit itself to be questioned, at all, ever. Happily, between that story and today emerged in the West, especially in the last 500 years, an alternative culture, a culture of individual conscience. One based on the premise of learning, change, and growth, exactly because it accepted life's dynamism and human imperfection.

The culture of the West is the only culture that innovated the use of continuous feedback and correction as a technique of social management, so as to make the social-institutions of that culture more flexible and adaptive, while offering the people who occupy and run those institutions an opportunity to experience the single greatest by-product of the work required for those social institutions to survive, succeed, and grow, the by-product of a genuine and lasting happiness, based on the idea of daily renewal.

It is this culture that is being threatened now by an elite even more hostile than the Old Testament God. And today's hostile elite is rightly considered more hostile than an Old Testament God exactly because we know a lot more now than we did then.

The hostile elite of today are far more dangerous than any elite in the past exactly because today's elite has so much more to suppress, so many more people to oppress, and exactly because the people they are oppressing have so much more to lose. But, above all, the elite today are so dangerous exactly because they are so immature, mediocre, unimpressive and incompetent.

Note. Read Jack Dorsey's tweets. He not only writes like a child, he runs his company like one too.

Treason against the hostile elite is loyalty to humanity.

Now we get to the heart of the matter and the real relevance and usefulness of the story of Adam and Eve. Like all great stories it helps us understand ourselves, then and now. And the more we know, the better. Knowledge Is Power and The readiness is all.

But many people are not ready, at all. As such, they're powerless and subject to the powerful who are ready. They're ready to crush not only the powerless, but anyone who questions their power.

And the reason many people are not ready is because they don't know what's happening to them. For this reason, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe them as being, in this regard at least, almost pathologically naive. This might explain why they seem willing to put up with so much. Sure, it’s all well and good to say

You get what you put up with.

But to leave it at that is to grasp the situation while totally missing the point. And the point is, many of us do not really understand the nature of the situation we're in, in as much as we can't fully explain it. So, maybe it’s time we learn how. A good place to start would be the opening chapters of The Book of Genesis. And the best time for us to start would be now.

Concluding Moral

And that I hope is the moral of today's entry.

We can always make a new start.

In fact, strictly speaking, we're always making a new start, because no one ever does exactly the same thing twice. And when we do start again, that beginning is always here and now. For all of our many differences, the one thing we all have in common is that we can only ever begin here and now. And our here and now is when I finish writing and you finish reading. Until next time.

Note: Peckham's Beyond the Tragic Vision: The Quest for Identity in the Twentieth Century (the greatest book of cultural history ever written) offers an interpretation of The Book of Genesis from the point of view of orientation and culture. Obviously I have depended heavily on it in this entry.