Identity politics versus shamanistic consciousness

Consider the Idealism that defines the contemporary bourgeois personality structure as kind of dissociation. In this sense, what it allows is a kind of shamanistic journeying. One can be whatever one dreams one is, simply by dreaming it. One is not limited by physical reality or necessity, in terms of this mode of consciousness. I can run with the swiftest athletes, or deal with information as perfectly as any of the most refined thinkers.

The issue, then, is not whether I actually have the skills or basic building material to do these sorts of things. Rather, the deciding factor is how much self esteem I have. So it is when bourgeois consciousness takes its shamanistic journey: If I believe I can do any of these things, I surely can! Physical factors shall not limit me! I am only limited by my ability to dream (which is, in turn, limited only by my levels of self esteem!) The sky -- the sky alone -- is the limit and outer parameter for bourgeois consciousness, simply because it is a consciousness separated from material reality and from one's body.

Physical reality and material limits can nonetheless obstruct one's real progress at times. One realizes one doesn't fly, after all and perhaps one understands implicitly if not altogether clearly in the mind that there are concrete limits to what one can do. Despite Oprah and The Secret, these limits have nothing to do with the level of one's self-esteem, but with concrete factors -- which an actual shaman makes it a life's work to understand more fully.

Bourgeois shamanism is different. This particular shamanistic dissociation enacted by those who want to be upwardly mobile will inevitably bring no knowledge and experience back to the individual at the level of material awareness. When this becomes apparent, it turns out to be not shamanism at all, but rather a pathological state of dissociation.

The mind that wishes to fly ever upwards, economically, might wish to accuse those who have effectively accepted their concrete limitations of having "bad self esteem" for not living beyond their means. But this is not the nature of shamanistic realism, which understands that accepting one's material limitations and working with them is the key to harmony.

The bourgeois "shaman" nonetheless expresses irritation at any manifestation of reality that doesn't directly meet his standards (whereby one simply becomes whatever one wants to become). When he blames those who fail his standards, he ultimately blames himself -- for he, himself, will also fail his standards to be whatever he imagines he can be.

"Heads will roll!" he says, over and over, and over, again. Without end. That is his final cry: the expressed outcome of his basic faith.