Philosophical Dialogues XXVIII
Essence & Existence XXVIII

By   Franz J. T. Lee

January 20, 2000.

IDEOLOGY, THE ABSOLUTE AND THE RELIGIOUS MIND

( S c e n e :  P h i l o s o p h y   S e m i n a r )

(The Seminar begins. Coseino gives a brief introduction, with reference to Ideology.
Then he welcomes the class to present any contributions. Karl wants to comment
something about the previous class, concerning The Absolute and Religious Mind Control.) 

Karl: I offer the following premises, which exemplify how rejection of absolute truth can help people understand the relationship of reality and consciousness.

Albert: What do you mean by "reality"? Is it composed of objective  a n d  subjective reality, of an external  a n d  internal world? Or is "reality" only "objective reality", the object of Natural Sciences, not related to "subjective reality", the subject of Social Sciences? Is perhaps "consciousness" that what you understand by "subjective reality"? Are the relations between this "reality" (objective) and this "consciousness" (subjective) one-sided or multifacetical? I ask this question, because of the previous discussions about our understanding of Relations between Nature  a n d  Society. In the Patria, only a one-sided relation was developed, Society towards Nature, which in Philosophy is valid for Idealism as well as for Materialism; this we called Alienation, the Labour Process. The other multi-relations between Nature  a n d  Society are simply wiped under the ideological carpet in everyday bourgeois capitalist life. Only as such, in the Patria, economic exploitation, political domination and social discrimination could bear generous fruits and maximized profits.

Karl: Albert, a reality exists independently of consciousness; or else consciousness couldn't interact with it. However, each individual human, animal and plant consciousness creates a different form of that reality.

Coseino: Karl, could you give us an example?

Karl: For example, a stone statue with big feet is a given reality. One human thinks it's a work of art, another, an eyesore; one animal may find it's a good hiding place vs. predators, another, sharp edges that cut its skin; one plant may find it's a good place to grow, another, a poor place. Different individual, different form, different consciousness, different truth.

Patricia: But, this is exactly what Prof. Coseino had explained about the essence of "Absolute Truth" in our previous class. Could you please elaborate your statement historically, perhaps, with regard to literature, drama or plays?

Coseino: Yes, it's true. I agree with what Karl has just stated. Please, proceed!

Karl: Since the dawn of civilization, plays have enabled actor and audience to resist absolute truth, even though the sponsors intended these for mind control. In a play, actor and audience can assume different roles, transcend and transform themselves, and explore different versions of truth. For example, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, aristocratic senators personally assassinated Caesar, and took responsibility for it. Presumably, this prevented the resulting Civil War from destroying the Empire. They didn't hire drugged lower class hit men and patsies. Whether Caesar was assassinated in this manner is unknown, but it was a novel concept.

Coseino: Yes, Karl. You just stated the problem. The feudalist objective "reality" of
Caesar and his historic task and the subjective "reality" of Shakespeare and his social order are probably not related directly. In the first case, Julius Caesar is an intrinsic part of the Roman Establishment, of agricultural production, of feudalist production relations; in the second case, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is a subjective "reality" of a certain critical consciousness towards absolutism and the upcoming disastrous capitalist money economy. I'll quote for you all, to see, in which context Shakespeare's Caesar has to be seen:

In Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, you could read his degree of consciousness, about the "subjective reality", which had produced the play Julius Caesar:

"Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold?
No, gods, I am no idle votarist:
roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black white; foul fair;
Wrong right; base noble; old young; coward valiant.
... This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions; bless th'acurrst;
Make the hoar leprosy ador'd; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;
... Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that putt'st odds
Among the rout of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature."

And later, in the same poem, Shakespeare refers to the golden source of the "Caesar-Killers", to the ancient and feudalist Illuminati assassins, to "Mind Control"
and to the future Mars Space colonizers:

"O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
Twixt natural son and sire! Thou bright defiler
Of Hymen's purest bed! Thou valiant Mars!
Thou ever young, fresh loved and delicate wooer.
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
... O thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue
set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire!"

This is the novelty, the literary genius of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar;  the "real", objective "historic" assassins of Julius Caesar, as history did verify,  strove to "have the world in empire", in a "Roman Empire". Certainly, more poignantly, Karl Marx and Vladimir I. Lenin could not have expressed the nature of money and capital.

Karl: But, Prof. Coseino, as I said: "rejection of absolute truth" can help people to understand the relationship between objective reality and subjective consciousness. This includes the understanding of the relationship within our Diagory, between Nature  a n d  Society.

Coseino: Correct. I agree with you.

Indira: But, then, what do you mean by "reality exists independently of consciousness"?
Firstly, there is a problem with the verb "exist" which is derived from "Existence", and not from "Essence". Secondly, "reality" exists here, and "consciousness" there. Is this really so, or are these just mental products, for the sake of definition, of identification? Can something exist, without being something? Can something be, and don't exist? Karl, I assume that your statement has to do with identification, and that its meaning falls within this realm. Now, concerning rejection of "absolute truths" and thereby resisting Mind Control, I agree that it is a fundamental method towards emancipation; it breaks down the absolute walls and allows relations, that is, to inter-relate the myriad of individual, of "relative truths". It allows different opinions, different views and perspectives.

Karl: This is exactly what I mean.

Martina: I just visited your Delphi Forum this morning, and I read the article of Phil Hansford  on "MAGICK 11 -- PSYCHIC ENERGY", posted on your Web Site. There the relation between Nature  a n d  Society was confirmed. I quote:

"We have seen in the theories of magick, that there is a definite
 relationship between the 'inner' and 'outer' worlds. We saw this
 in the theory of the microcosm and the macrocosm; in the four
 worlds; in the theory of correspondences; and also in the Cabala
 and Tree of Life. This relationship between inner and outer is
 very important. And it means quite simply that success (or lack
 of it) in one world (inner or outer) influences success (or lack
 of it) in the other. Therefore developing of magical ability is
 more than meditation and magical practice, for it implies mastery
 of the four worlds. The developed magician is not only master of
 the inner worlds; he is also master of himself. "

Karl: That's true. Thanks for visiting my Web Site!

Coseino: Let's now begin to analyse Ideology, a quintessential element of Mind Control. We could start with some general information. Any experts in ideological affairs around?

William: I'm not really an "expert", but I'm trying! In fact, I have no interest in becoming one at all. As far as I can recollect, and memory is a dangerous device, the term "Ideology" comes from French, from Idéologie , from a French philosophic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Idéologues analysed ideas, and they viewed the simple sensory elements of Étienne Condillac's sensationalism as the originators of the totality of psychic and spiritual sentiments, and therewith also of social, moral, and political feelings.

Jeffrey: Who else were famous members of this movement?

Rosemary: I'm a newcomer, but I think that it was actually Destutt de Tracy who coined the concept "idéologie"; other honorary members were the Marquis de Condorcet, Maine de Biran, and Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis.

Coseino: Let's look at Ideology in early political philosophy. Any comments? Martina, last year you prepared an excellent Long Paper on Machiavelli, please, tell us something about his conception of ideology.

Martina: Oh, Professor, don't remind me of that academic torture. I still feel the after effects in my bones. Anyhow, on the one hand, Niccolò Machiavelli was one of Savonarola's most tenacious critics; on the other hand, just like him, he was a precursor of modern ideologists.
Remember Rousseau classified his work, The Prince, as a "handbook for republicans." And, across the globe, today still we have hundreds of republics. He was probably the first social politician who linked ideology with political terror; however, having been a  political scientist, he did not enact the role of an ideologue. Nevertheless, to understand at best Illuminati Ideology, just close your Holy Bible and the "Origin", and open "The Prince". Adam, I suggest this work as compulsory night literature before you dose off to Alice's Wonderland. Please, don't cheat, I do not mean "The Little Prince".

Adam: Could anybody inform us about early Russian Ideology? Karl, you love the East European thinkers, any Russian ideologue?

Karl: Yes, I will. What about Tzar Nicolas I. His feudalist views fitted his personality really to full perfection.  He presented the Russian Right Wing of European Reaction; his government fostered the "Doctrine of Official Nationality", which was based on three principles: orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality. Autocracy meant the maintenance and the affirmation of his own absolute power; orthodoxy referred to  Religious Mind Control, exercised by the official church, the guardian of ethics and ideals that gave the life of the serfs and peasants a "purpose" and "meaning"; narodnost (nationality) described the
specific "mentality" of the Russian people, its "Volksgeist", which incorporated the unselfish defence of the reigning autocratic order. These three elements formed the base of Russian ideology of that epoch.

Alfred: What connotation did "ideology" have in the epoch of Hegel and Marx? Why did Marx and Engels write "The German Ideology"?

Patricia: Ever since the intellectual hatred, launched against ideology, during the Napoleonic era, the term "ideology" acquired a "negative" taste, a pejorative meaning. As such it entered Hegelian and Marxist philosophy.

Rosemary: Is "ideology" not that what Engels had called "false consciousness"?

Patricia: Yes, Rosemary.

Max: Well, if "false" consciousness exists, then consciousness is not worth a dime. Imagine the terms, a "wicked" God or a "holy" Satan. False correctness and correct falseness? This surely has nothing to do with philosophic stringency.

Patricia: Hegel was of the opinion that common human beings were simply dumb figures on the chess-board of world history, they did not know where they came from, nor did they know where they were going to. In other words, they were directed by forces that they couldn't control. Only philosophers (ideologues of the State) could understand things as they were.

Critics, especially Marx and Engels, attacked Hegelian Philosophy, and saw it as an attempt to produce a perfect ideology for the status quo, because if individuals really were only pawns or ciphers on the world stage of history, then they could never emancipate themselves, simply because they would eternally be dominated by outer reality, by external political, economic and social forces beyond their control.

Elvis: I read the early works of Marx. To me his concept of ideology, although "negative", is very ambiguous. Is that so?

Coseino: It's true. You are doing fine, Elvis.

Patricia: Our contemporary "Neo-Marxists" even speak of Marxism itself as an Ideology.

Coseino: They are completely "right", but that's another story, a theme for our next seminar. We have to terminate for today. Take Care!

(Coseino leaves the class. He sees Adam closing the Bible, taking off his "rosary", and begins to flirt with the newcomer, Rosemary. William shakes his wise head; is this a belated "Sexual Revolution"? Coseino nods his head, voicing in this way his surprise concerning the rapid turn of events, of the turn of the millennium.)

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