I speak from a heightened perspective concerning much of mainstream Western culture -- since I was not born within this culture (and certainly not the mainstream of anything much) and so find a lot of behaviour that others would consider to be 'natural' to be alien and worthy of interpretation.
In terms of this, I have made it my goal to understand a particularly unattractive phenomenon of Western culture. I say this is "Western" because it does not in any way relate to any ideology that was around me when I was growing up. The phenomenon is as alien to me now as it was the day I arrived in the West in 1984. The only difference, now, is that I've learned to anticipate it everywhere, and to be ready to maintain a much greater psychological distance from Westerners than I was earlier inclined to do.
The aspect of Western culture I am referring to is the ideology of "Your freedom is my unfreedom." The complementary sense of this notion is "My freedom is your unfreedom." I wasn't brought up with it -- and if you were to ask them directly, most Westerners would say they weren't brought up with it either. All the same, actions and behavioural practices belie claims concerning which ideologies one has or hasn't been brought up to believe in, implicitly. The idea that my gain is your loss is part and parcel of late capitalist thinking, whereby for me to get the promotion, it is in my interests to make you look particularly bad. Reaganomics and other pernicious ideologies -- take, as an example, Ayn Randism -- give the Westerner a particularly unpleasant odour about him. One is advised to stay at least three feet away from him at all times. The important point about all this is that such an attitude betrays the higher mind, and brings 'lizard brain' -- a regressive part of the human mind -- into predominance.
The problem with this approach to life I've been describing -- besides the fact that it keeps women away in droves -- is that is lacks egotism. Yes -- you heard me right. For "lizard brain" never has our real, long-term interests in mind. Rather, it is all for the feeling of domination in the moment, and devil take the hindmost (the hindmost being, ultimately, you -- for nothing is more assured in an amoral world than you luck running out and others moving in to eat you.)
The idea of living without ego seems glorious to some -- but Ayn Rand misunderstood how her mind was functioning when she fell for the criminal type, believing him to be a superior kind of human in his amorality. She was just doing what women who lack understanding of depth psychology can occasionally do -- projecting features of her own higher mind onto the lizard brain of another, and so giving it the appearance of complexity and personality that it was otherwise lacking. Those qualities she attributed to it do not pertain to amoral lizard brain, itself. She was attracted, therefore, to her own ideas about the criminal, and not to the criminal as he really was. So much for the idea that women are attracted to 'bad boys' -- rather, we should understand that a limited number of women, (indeed!), are attracted to their own illusions.
Lizard brain is not attractive to the majority of women because it lacks the qualities of personality that make a biological male into a human. Personality is a feature only of the neurological structures of the higher mind. For someone to be operating primarily from the basis of their lizard brain is a signpost that they have tragically regressed.
We can never really know exactly why the regression occurs.
Something could have happened to deform them as children, or maybe the pain and brutality of the world got the better of them, causing their real personality to retreat inwardly.
The consequence is that 'lizard brain' gets to take charge, and it is inclined to express its fury. Attitudes and behaviours of blaming women for one's problems, or lashing out against the weaker members of society, are all signs that lizard brain has got the upper hand over the higher mind. The lizard brain is that which splits the consciousness of the upper mind to the point that one is convinced that all the pains and difficulties of the world come from the outside of oneself. Lizard brain is quick to perform the disassociation between oneself and any notion of inner badness -- thus a convenient scapegoat is found. That scapegoat is usually "women" -- although it may just as easily be a particular woman. Lizard brain, being amoral, is not too fussy, but will latch onto the scapegoat that is most convenient; somebody local and present in the victimiser's environment will do just fine.
Lizard brain will do almost anything at all to facilitate its feeling of survival, since survival is the name of its game. When one falls into reliance upon lizard brain and its powers, one is giving off the evolutionary signal that one is running out of resources in terms of making it in the world. Maslow's pyramid of needs is worth considering here, because safety/security issues are at a level of need almost as far as you can get from the heights of self-actualisation. In evolutionary terms, reliance upon lizard brain and its ways of 'thinking' means that you are down there, at the bottom of the human pile, having substantially regressed due to fear or pain or cowardice.
And women -- unless they are a little crazy, or like Ayn Rand -- do not find this condition to be at all attractive.
Woman want someone who is brave enought to be self-actualising. A different kind of "bad"-- for sure.
In terms of this, I have made it my goal to understand a particularly unattractive phenomenon of Western culture. I say this is "Western" because it does not in any way relate to any ideology that was around me when I was growing up. The phenomenon is as alien to me now as it was the day I arrived in the West in 1984. The only difference, now, is that I've learned to anticipate it everywhere, and to be ready to maintain a much greater psychological distance from Westerners than I was earlier inclined to do.
The aspect of Western culture I am referring to is the ideology of "Your freedom is my unfreedom." The complementary sense of this notion is "My freedom is your unfreedom." I wasn't brought up with it -- and if you were to ask them directly, most Westerners would say they weren't brought up with it either. All the same, actions and behavioural practices belie claims concerning which ideologies one has or hasn't been brought up to believe in, implicitly. The idea that my gain is your loss is part and parcel of late capitalist thinking, whereby for me to get the promotion, it is in my interests to make you look particularly bad. Reaganomics and other pernicious ideologies -- take, as an example, Ayn Randism -- give the Westerner a particularly unpleasant odour about him. One is advised to stay at least three feet away from him at all times. The important point about all this is that such an attitude betrays the higher mind, and brings 'lizard brain' -- a regressive part of the human mind -- into predominance.
The problem with this approach to life I've been describing -- besides the fact that it keeps women away in droves -- is that is lacks egotism. Yes -- you heard me right. For "lizard brain" never has our real, long-term interests in mind. Rather, it is all for the feeling of domination in the moment, and devil take the hindmost (the hindmost being, ultimately, you -- for nothing is more assured in an amoral world than you luck running out and others moving in to eat you.)
The idea of living without ego seems glorious to some -- but Ayn Rand misunderstood how her mind was functioning when she fell for the criminal type, believing him to be a superior kind of human in his amorality. She was just doing what women who lack understanding of depth psychology can occasionally do -- projecting features of her own higher mind onto the lizard brain of another, and so giving it the appearance of complexity and personality that it was otherwise lacking. Those qualities she attributed to it do not pertain to amoral lizard brain, itself. She was attracted, therefore, to her own ideas about the criminal, and not to the criminal as he really was. So much for the idea that women are attracted to 'bad boys' -- rather, we should understand that a limited number of women, (indeed!), are attracted to their own illusions.
Lizard brain is not attractive to the majority of women because it lacks the qualities of personality that make a biological male into a human. Personality is a feature only of the neurological structures of the higher mind. For someone to be operating primarily from the basis of their lizard brain is a signpost that they have tragically regressed.
We can never really know exactly why the regression occurs.
Something could have happened to deform them as children, or maybe the pain and brutality of the world got the better of them, causing their real personality to retreat inwardly.
The consequence is that 'lizard brain' gets to take charge, and it is inclined to express its fury. Attitudes and behaviours of blaming women for one's problems, or lashing out against the weaker members of society, are all signs that lizard brain has got the upper hand over the higher mind. The lizard brain is that which splits the consciousness of the upper mind to the point that one is convinced that all the pains and difficulties of the world come from the outside of oneself. Lizard brain is quick to perform the disassociation between oneself and any notion of inner badness -- thus a convenient scapegoat is found. That scapegoat is usually "women" -- although it may just as easily be a particular woman. Lizard brain, being amoral, is not too fussy, but will latch onto the scapegoat that is most convenient; somebody local and present in the victimiser's environment will do just fine.
Lizard brain will do almost anything at all to facilitate its feeling of survival, since survival is the name of its game. When one falls into reliance upon lizard brain and its powers, one is giving off the evolutionary signal that one is running out of resources in terms of making it in the world. Maslow's pyramid of needs is worth considering here, because safety/security issues are at a level of need almost as far as you can get from the heights of self-actualisation. In evolutionary terms, reliance upon lizard brain and its ways of 'thinking' means that you are down there, at the bottom of the human pile, having substantially regressed due to fear or pain or cowardice.
And women -- unless they are a little crazy, or like Ayn Rand -- do not find this condition to be at all attractive.
Woman want someone who is brave enought to be self-actualising. A different kind of "bad"-- for sure.
1 comment:
When I imagined the topic--My first thought was this. Criminal minds sometimes are of higher intelligence, but with a lower Emotional quotient. It is very much in keeping with the basic mechanics of your arguement.
I don't look down on the Lizard Brain, it does perform important functions. The issue is to be able to acknowledge it's functions in context.
I think that most people are totally ignorant of this part of their brain, and they are ignorant of the havoc it can impose by overpowering higher brain function with very primal needs.
That being said, it can be the path through the underworld to the higher self--but that is a whole other topic of discussion.
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