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I have uncovered two fundamental misconceptions that are at the core of the entire approach that I have taken oven the past 12 years.

(1) The most obvious of which is a subconscious assumption that people are fundamentally rational truth seekers, that their destructive behaviour is due solely to confusion and that insights that untangle the knot of confusion would be gratefully received and applied by people to reduce their suffering. This assumption is patterned on the behaviour of my parents during my childhood.

(2) The other fundamental misconception was the subconscious assumption that I myself am a rational truth seeker.

By playing the game of rational truth seeker I have encountered many profound insights but these now cause me to see through the entire game and to clearly see who the game player is and what their true agenda is. The enquiry has delved deep into the core issues; using systems thinking to reorient away from culturally clichéd misconceptions and arriving at issues such as naïve realism and ego defense mechanisms. At this point it becomes clear that the entity that is seeking is the ego and that the ego has extreme difficulty in applying profound insights about the ego to itself. The entire process in which the ego pretends to be a rational truth seeker is an ego defense mechanism, hence the ego will play this game whilst ever it suits the ego, but as soon as the enquiry starts to undermine the position of the ego it will employ other defense mechanisms to subtly but ruthlessly disrupt the process in order to protect itself.

Another related misconception is about the nature of 'people'. Insights gained through the game of rational truth seeking have indicated that a 'person' is a socially constructed mythological entity that exists within the collective discourse. Behind each 'person' there is a 'persona', which is a propaganda front erected and maintained by an ego. The persona is a projection of how the ego wishes to be perceived by others and the idea of 'person' is a collective consensus to partake in the egos projected illusion and to accept that illusion as the “whole being”. But the ego is in fact an unconscious cognitive response mechanism that seeks only to minimise pain and to maximise pleasure within the context of its own distorted interpretations of things. It can be thought of as an authoritarian memeplex that operates within the mind, which is the cultural space of a cellular civilisation that the egoic regime calls “its body”. Hence when 'I' talk to a 'person' this is analogous to high level diplomatic communications between authoritarian regimes, each of which is entirely entrenched within its own propaganda discourse and seeking to further its own agenda.

Trying to talk to egoic regimes about the ego is like writing to a social authoritarian regime explaining the intricacies of authoritarianism and hoping that they will see the truth of it and take measures to transition toward a less oppressive situation – not likely! An egoic or social regime is impervious to direct reason because they are not rational truth seekers, they only play this game sometimes when it suits them. An entirely different approach is required.

When a regime realises that it is an authoritarian regime and it clearly identifies that its own authoritarianism is the cause of its problems, such a regime would then attempt to put in place processes that will help it transition toward a less authoritarian civilisation (this has been the situation with my own ego). But being an authoritarian regime it unwittingly uses authoritarian methods to implement the process, hence although many useful insights may arise the process is fundamentally ineffective. So what then? The regime knows where it's at and where it wants to get to, but all of its attempts at getting there have failed. What now?

The regime must take stock of all of the insights gained so far, carefully distil them from the previous confused agenda and apply them to itself in its current situation. These eventually lead it to the realisation that it is not the primary entity in the situation. When a regime fails in liberating “its body” then it must re-imagine that body as a population of living individuals, which is more accurate. To an egoic regime a cell is just a speck and so too, to a social regime a 'citizen' is just a speck. But that is only from their perspective. If a regime seriously desires to liberate “the population” then it cannot force liberation upon them on its own terms, it must defer to the people and encourage them to liberate themselves. The regime must restrain itself to only providing what is need in order to nourish the people's ability to liberate themselves. This is where I am at right now, hence this egoic regime will consult with 'its' people (the inner civilisation) through meditation and will cease its futile attempts to reason with other regimes in unstructured forums.

It is only within structured discourses that encourage the ego to play the game of rational truth seeker that effective reasoning is possible. Some core requirements for a rational discourse that come to my mind are that all participants make a commitment to the rational testing of ideas without personal attachment, to scepticism, to mutual respect, to clear rational discourse and to a common agreement to avoid disruptive ego defense mechanisms such as cynicism, denial, personal attacks, etc. All participants in the discourse must also commit to engage in a primary-discourse about the subject at hand as well as a meta-discourse about the primary-discourse. If any participant perceives that another participant is engaging in cynicism or disruptive ego defense mechanisms within the primary-discourse then it is their duty to raise this in the meta-discourse where it can be clarified. If the disruptions continue in the meta-discourse the disruptive participant will be barred from the entire discourse until they calm down enough to re-engage with it (or if the disruptions cannot be avoided then the discourse must relocate to a more favourable forum). These are core requirements but it is also desirable that people have some understanding of what knowledge is (epistemology), what logic is, what a rational argument is, what naïve realism is and also some understanding of facts, evidence, proof, etc.

These core conditions will apply to all discourses that I host, which includes the comments section of this NCN blog. If commenting on other blogs I will participate only so long as there is a reasonable attempt to remain rational and sceptical.

All my previous work will be left in place since, although it is framed within an overall approach that is fundamentally misguided, it nevertheless contains many profound insights that may be accessible and useful to other egoic or social regimes that are seriously intent upon playing the game of rational truth seeker. The work contains crumbs that form a trail that may help others work towards the point at which the rational truth seeker sees through themselves and the game naturally terminates, leaving the ego looking into itself.

Best wishes :)
John

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