THE FINANCIAL PHILOSOPHER

The Decline of America Part II: The Crisis in Consciousness

"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The world is more connected today than ever but it is also more fragmented. People around the planet have an incredible capacity for connectivity. However we form figurative islands that separate and categorize, sharpen ideology and dichotomy; and thus we create more stark divisions of financial, social, political and religious groups, which often evolve into interpersonal and international conflicts.

As I touched upon in The Decline of America Part I: What Consumes the Consumers?, humans have a natural desire to be in progression, to do more with less.

But once the progression reaches and passes the level of "enough," the utility of these physical items begins to diminish. In different words, needs shift to wants; more is not needed to fulfill basic needs although more is still desired; the progression continues but silently evolves into regression; it is the diminishing marginal utility of wealth. 

Rather than say we consume ourselves, it may be a more accurate statement to say that the outer world that mankind has created tends to regress rather than progress at some point. To be prudent, we may assume this point of regression has ocurred or is ocurring now. A prime example is at the center of the time in which we now live, The Information Age. Consider this quote, which I have referenced several times here on TFP:

  "... in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes.  What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.  Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it." ~ Herbert Simon

Our outer-world progression is evolving into an inner-world regression; civilization is at the point where more begins to turn into less. As Jiddu Krishnamurti described in the 1970's, at the same time Herbert Simon was making his points about information consumption and bounded rationality, we have entered a crisis in consciousness.

As the outer world is mastered the inner world fails. When it is no longer necessary to search for, find and consume one's own information, it is the information (and the technology that produces it) that consumes the attention of the individual; and because one's attention is the essence of one's mind and the mind is the gateway to spirit and authenticity, the individual'ls mind is thus consumed and spirit fades. 

Individuals are what make up the social organism, the civilization. In metaphorical terms, the light, the essence, the authenticity of the individual fades without attention, without awareness; and thus the light of the world fades.

"What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you. You are always a slave to what you are not aware of. When you’re aware of it, you’re free from it. It’s there, but you’re not affected by it. You’re not controlled by it; you’re not enslaved by it." ~ Anthony De Mello, Awareness

But these are not deterministic, pessimistic observations. And they are certainly not unique to America. It is simply the job of the philosopher to provoke critical thinking, to wake people up. Stay tuned...

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Related: The Decline of America Part I: What Consumes the Consumers?

The Decline of America Part I: What Consumes the Consumers?

"Paradoxically, what keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn’t work:  The ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more, keep buying, keep consuming." ~ Eckhart Tolle

There was a time in history when humans only consumed what they needed to survive and reproduce. However, humans have "evolved" to mindlessly consume much more than is needed. In nature, at least as it is explained by humans (science), living things can be either a producer (makes its own food), consumer (gets food from other living things), or a decomposer (breaks down other living things to get nutrients). Human beings are consumers.

But what consumes the consumers? Assuming humans are at the top of the "food chain," the only thing that can consume us is ourselves. And this occurs as a direct result of unconsciousness--the lack of awareness (ignorance). This consumption is not just a physical one; it is also mental, emotional and spiritual.

This post will serve as the first in a series of three or four posts that philosophically observes the decline of Western Civilization, especially in America.  Here are some initial points to provoke and prepare your and my thoughts:

• Humans consume information but information consumes attention. The wealth of information that exists today equals a poverty of attention. The mind is the gateway to authenticity, productivity, spirituality and thus the mind is the enabler of the overall well-being of individuals. But without attention, the mind is not awake. Therefore the decline of attention translates into an increase in entropy--an increase in useless energy--and thus the figuritive light of the individuals that make up the society fades... and thus the society fades...
• The term consumer is not just a scientific one. It is most commonly known today as an economic one that refers to the end users of products and services in economic and social systems. These consumers and their collective economic activity make up the vast majority of the economy, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Therefore the vast majority of economic energy is spent keeping the consumers well-fed with food, money, and media messages to continue their growth and thus the growth of the economy. However, this effort translates into the interior deterioration of the economy itself over time, much like the body, mind and spirit of the consumers (individuals in society) deteriorates..
• The increase in the capacity to connect people together has paradoxically divided the world into tiny cultural segments. Connectivity is diminishing into segmentation.
• The increase in the availability and accessibility of luxury and convenience makes bodies and minds lazy. Therefore we grow physically overweight, mentally weak and spiritually dim.
• When people grow accustomed to illusion, they require greater illusions to be satisfied. Therefore only a "better illusionist" will succeed in this environment. This partially explains why politicians have evolved to be more magician and less leader in recent decades.
• The need to be satisfied cannot be fulfilled if the appetite for satisfaction can grow without limit. Consumption increases the appetite and thus there is no means of "satisfaction" in absence of consciousness.

These are just some of the themes that will be addressed in this series of posts that I currently foresee as my next book project (the current one is near completion, which provides excuse for my light posting lately).

I hope you'll join the conversation as we work to awaken ourselves, our friends, our families, our nations and the world. This may sound a bit grandiose in nature but such is the nature of a "crisis in consciousness," as Jiddu Krishnamurti so aptly labeled the modern sickness of society.

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Related: The American Awakening

A Reflection: Shedding Light on Darkness

"My life has been full of terrible misfortunes--most of which have never happened." ~ Michel de Montaigne

Having written in this blog for more than 6 years, I have the opportunity to look back and revisit what I had observed about the world during interesting times. One such time was 4 years ago, in March of 2009, when the stock market was at its lowest point following the Great Recession. Stock prices had fallen more than 50% from the high point set in October of 2007.

Today, those "losses" have been erased, as stocks now stand at new records on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rewarding patient investors willing to look through the challenge.

To look back at posts published 4 years ago, I keyed "March 2009" into the handy search tool at the top-right of the TFP blog site. Here are some observations I was making at that time:

March 2, 2009, on the post, All We Have to Fear is Fear Itself, I wrote:

Either we are not students of recession history or we are giving too much attention to media reports.  If the media weren't telling us "how bad things are," would we really perceive things to be as bad as we do?...

If I can make my tiny contribution toward a brighter future, I will ask anyone and everyone to stop watching, reading and listening to mainstream media.

March 9, 2009, on the post, Finding Beauty in Ugliness, I wrote:

In essence, the greatest human fear is that of the unknown. We would prefer to see something ugly in plain view than to feel and see the nothingness of the dark--and often the picture painted by one's imagination is an extended and magnified version of whatever emotion one is currently experiencing.

For example, in "bad times," as we are experiencing now, one's imagination will likely fill the empty spaces of information (unknown) with extreme pessimism and horrific images. Similarly, in "good times," one's imagination will likely fill in any existing empty spaces with over-confidence and positive images.

On March 18, 2009, in the post, Are Financial Plans Illusions?, I wrote:

While there is nothing inherently wrong with using the past to make certain assumptions about the future, financial plans become increasingly illusory when these assumptions are made in the presence of extreme emotion...

We can not change the past so there is no use in complaining or despairing over it; and much of our future success depends upon how we learn from our past mistakes; therefore it makes perfect sense to consider examples of faulty assumptions (illusions) made in the past that are colliding with reality now...

"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse." ~ Benjamin Franklin

I summarize with a point: This exercise in reflection is not one of ego but rather one of humility. The presence of fear and panic in late 2008 and early 2009 was palpable and it certainly was not popular to say, "Things are not as bad as they seem."

Some of the greatest mistakes, both in finance and in life, are making faulty assumptions about the future based upon pattern recognition and emotion today: "If bad things are happening to me, there must be more bad things coming next." Equal and opposite, a string of fortunate events is no guarantee of more good things to come.

The greatest virtues in this regard are humility and contentment. When you realize that you do not know the future, and when you can be content with what you have now, you will not look into darkness and imagine either a treasure or a monster. In fact, you won't even look there because you have no desire to know; you reside in the light of the present.

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Related:

Quotes on the Unknown

Quotes on Contentment