- I was. Do you want to hear something spooky? Before riding my bike here last night I saw, for the second time, a group of children, faces obscured by hoods, sitting cross-legged before a camp fire in a Westwood store doorway, the flames shooting up more than a yard.
- Do you think they started the fires?
- Could be. Do you want to hear something else spooky? My usual viewing at this time of night is the wars, in Israel and Ukraine, and Donald Trump. Last night the three interests lined themselves up together at the 24 hour MacDonald's in Century City. Fascist Russia had just sent missiles to destroy the first MacDonald's restaurant in Ukraine, in Kiev, no one hurt, and I saw a young man, foreign accent, possibly French, reading a oversize book with a padded fake leather binding, dozens of pages marked with colored paper tabs, which turned out to be Adolph Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'.
- Interesting. Why was he reading Hitler at Macdonald's?
- He was living on the street and admired what he called genius level intelligence of Hitler that enabled him from going from also living on the street when he was an unappreciated painter to dictator of Germany and close to being of the entire world.
- And Trump? What is the connection?
- He is according to himself a genius too, and a very stable one.
- And a spiritual one: god saved him from assassination, as he claimed today, so he could go on to his destined presidential rule of the United States.
- I told the reader of deluxe-bound literature that destruction is easy and commonplace, that ability to destroy was not a sign of intelligence but lack of intelligence.
- How do you figure that?
- Wishing to destroy is a consequence of organizing in the wrong way the spiritual, the non-material, the infinite.
- What is the wrong way?
- Abraham is order to kill his son, Job has his life ruined himself being without guilt, Cain's sacrifice being rejected by god -- these stories are warnings against self-characterization, otherwise know as vanity. Following rules of action, for example growing grain, raising a family, not aware of self until a time of rest and completion, in which we see ourselves with powers to repeat the actions we have successfully accomplished. You'll remember in our combinatorials* the vain person in action is unaware of self but aware of the world as it changes, at rest the vain person sees reborn out of an uncertain world of change his own power, not the world. Now what is fascism?)
- Wait a second. The spiritual I take it is in the sense of lack of limit both in action, when the self is not seen, and rest, where the world is not seen, and it is possible to tell a story of movement between act and rest.
- Yes.
- And what is fascism?
- A tool used by the rich to convert democracy to dictatorship. Practiced at times even in the ancient Athenian democracy.
- The strength of the nation is reborn out of weakness of suffering attack by enemies within or without. Take a look at what Anthropic's AI produces when I ask it what it feels like to be a fascist:
1. The intoxicating sense of merger with a powerful collective whole - the experience of transcending individual limitations through fusion with a mythologized national/racial community and its destiny
2. A peculiar combination of victimhood and supremacy - the simultaneous conviction that "we" are both uniquely persecuted AND destined for dominance/greatness
3. The ecstatic destruction of complexity - the emotional relief and excitement of reducing a confusing world to simple friend/enemy distinctions and embracing violent "solutions"
4. The eroticization of dominance and submission - finding pleasure in both dominating perceived enemies and submitting to the Leader/movement
5. The "palingenetic" mindset - an obsession with national rebirth/renewal through apocalyptic violence and the destruction of perceived sources of decay
Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right — who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.
Trump's audience very apparently can understand him even in his linguistic decline. How? His isolated phrases find their continuance in the movement of his vanity or in the national vanity of fascism. The broken language has the advantage of giving his supporters, filling in the blanks, a sense of participating in the leadership of the national ritual.
- Ok. Mass killing, you said to Hitler's reader, is not a sign of intelligence. Why not?
- As we said a minute ago: Simplicity of vain sense of power in fact is an illusion that the security of one's own ceremonies is identical to the regular movements of the world entire. Vanity brings blindness to the world and consequent stumbling to a fall.
- Isn't blindness at the beginning as well, of both the individual's vanity and the nation's fascism? The Jews were not really in an international conspiracy to drink the blood of christian children; and in the bible stories you mentioned we are warned as individuals not be be sure what we are and what we are owed by the world.
- At the beginning of habit of vanity is a recognition that another type of behavior interferes with new vain ritual of recovery.
- And there is nation of people, a danger to the incipient fascist nation?)
- The Jews. Because while the fascist acts to remake the world according to rule while blind to self, while self is undefined, the Jew is waiting on the world to reveal itself in revised knowledge while one imitative, false, role playing, disguised self follows another self:
In the Bible: Jacob masquerading as his twin, Esau, in order to receive the blessing of his father, Isaac, Tamar disguising herself to entice her father-in-law, Judah; Joseph concealing himself from his brothers; David feigning insanity to gain entry to the Philistine camp.
- He was living on the street and admired what he called genius level intelligence of Hitler that enabled him from going from also living on the street when he was an unappreciated painter to dictator of Germany and close to being of the entire world.
- And Trump? What is the connection?
- He is according to himself a genius too, and a very stable one.
- And a spiritual one: god saved him from assassination, as he claimed today, so he could go on to his destined presidential rule of the United States.
- I told the reader of deluxe-bound literature that destruction is easy and commonplace, that ability to destroy was not a sign of intelligence but lack of intelligence.
- How do you figure that?
- Wishing to destroy is a consequence of organizing in the wrong way the spiritual, the non-material, the infinite.
- What is the wrong way?
- Abraham is order to kill his son, Job has his life ruined himself being without guilt, Cain's sacrifice being rejected by god -- these stories are warnings against self-characterization, otherwise know as vanity. Following rules of action, for example growing grain, raising a family, not aware of self until a time of rest and completion, in which we see ourselves with powers to repeat the actions we have successfully accomplished. You'll remember in our combinatorials* the vain person in action is unaware of self but aware of the world as it changes, at rest the vain person sees reborn out of an uncertain world of change his own power, not the world. Now what is fascism?)
- Wait a second. The spiritual I take it is in the sense of lack of limit both in action, when the self is not seen, and rest, where the world is not seen, and it is possible to tell a story of movement between act and rest.
- Yes.
- And what is fascism?
- A tool used by the rich to convert democracy to dictatorship. Practiced at times even in the ancient Athenian democracy.
- The strength of the nation is reborn out of weakness of suffering attack by enemies within or without. Take a look at what Anthropic's AI produces when I ask it what it feels like to be a fascist:
1. The intoxicating sense of merger with a powerful collective whole - the experience of transcending individual limitations through fusion with a mythologized national/racial community and its destiny
2. A peculiar combination of victimhood and supremacy - the simultaneous conviction that "we" are both uniquely persecuted AND destined for dominance/greatness
3. The ecstatic destruction of complexity - the emotional relief and excitement of reducing a confusing world to simple friend/enemy distinctions and embracing violent "solutions"
4. The eroticization of dominance and submission - finding pleasure in both dominating perceived enemies and submitting to the Leader/movement
5. The "palingenetic" mindset - an obsession with national rebirth/renewal through apocalyptic violence and the destruction of perceived sources of decay
6. The "achievement of degradation" - taking pride in embracing what others would consider shameful or transgressive, making brutality a mark of superior strength
Do you see how all the phases of rebirth are expressed in fascism?
1. Merger with the whole? A resting phase: Completion of ritual of regained strength.
2. The two resting phases described, on at the beginning, the other at the end of the ritual.
3. Simplicity of vain sense of power that in fact is an illusion that the security of one's own ceremonies is identical to the movements of the world entire.
4. Movement phase, entering ritual submitting but ending movement dominant
5. Movement phase, violence allowing forgetting of self weakness and therefore leading to rebirth.
6. Resting phase, readiness to at any time do what it takes to rebuild the nation.
You get the idea.
- Yes.
- In a speech Trump gave during the campaign, he said:
Do you see how all the phases of rebirth are expressed in fascism?
1. Merger with the whole? A resting phase: Completion of ritual of regained strength.
2. The two resting phases described, on at the beginning, the other at the end of the ritual.
3. Simplicity of vain sense of power that in fact is an illusion that the security of one's own ceremonies is identical to the movements of the world entire.
4. Movement phase, entering ritual submitting but ending movement dominant
5. Movement phase, violence allowing forgetting of self weakness and therefore leading to rebirth.
6. Resting phase, readiness to at any time do what it takes to rebuild the nation.
You get the idea.
- Yes.
- In a speech Trump gave during the campaign, he said:
Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right — who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.
Trump's audience very apparently can understand him even in his linguistic decline. How? His isolated phrases find their continuance in the movement of his vanity or in the national vanity of fascism. The broken language has the advantage of giving his supporters, filling in the blanks, a sense of participating in the leadership of the national ritual.
- Ok. Mass killing, you said to Hitler's reader, is not a sign of intelligence. Why not?
- As we said a minute ago: Simplicity of vain sense of power in fact is an illusion that the security of one's own ceremonies is identical to the regular movements of the world entire. Vanity brings blindness to the world and consequent stumbling to a fall.
- Isn't blindness at the beginning as well, of both the individual's vanity and the nation's fascism? The Jews were not really in an international conspiracy to drink the blood of christian children; and in the bible stories you mentioned we are warned as individuals not be be sure what we are and what we are owed by the world.
- At the beginning of habit of vanity is a recognition that another type of behavior interferes with new vain ritual of recovery.
- And there is nation of people, a danger to the incipient fascist nation?)
- The Jews. Because while the fascist acts to remake the world according to rule while blind to self, while self is undefined, the Jew is waiting on the world to reveal itself in revised knowledge while one imitative, false, role playing, disguised self follows another self:
In the Bible: Jacob masquerading as his twin, Esau, in order to receive the blessing of his father, Isaac, Tamar disguising herself to entice her father-in-law, Judah; Joseph concealing himself from his brothers; David feigning insanity to gain entry to the Philistine camp.
And historically: there were the Marranos, Jews of the Iberian Peninsula who outwardly converted to Christianity, but who maintained their Judaism in secret.
To the vain and the incipient fascist the Jew is the enemy at the same time most apparent and most difficult to oppose: they aren't what they seem to be in action, and in rest, they see the world, claim to arrive at knowledge while themselves maintaining invisibility. Do you see here how Jews inevitably become linked with conspiracy?
- Now that you mention it. The fascists stumble, their ignorance of the world forcing a return to selfless violence, where instead the Jew learns, reinterprets, rests nowhere in particular in the beauty of knowledge.
To the vain and the incipient fascist the Jew is the enemy at the same time most apparent and most difficult to oppose: they aren't what they seem to be in action, and in rest, they see the world, claim to arrive at knowledge while themselves maintaining invisibility. Do you see here how Jews inevitably become linked with conspiracy?
- Now that you mention it. The fascists stumble, their ignorance of the world forcing a return to selfless violence, where instead the Jew learns, reinterprets, rests nowhere in particular in the beauty of knowledge.
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