Perceiving complexity (part 14)
Part of the series Perceiving complexity
⟵ Perceiving complexity (part 13)
In the human past there were men who faced the complexity of the raw reality perspective with that masculine fluidity that suspends the belief in your own mental structures and they created social organizations taking in consideration that complexity, many times by killing “the beast” (i.e. by casting the organization as a stable plateau). In reality, “the beast” keeps staying dead only if you keep suspending the belief in your mental structures and think fluidly on the spot whenever issues arise from the underlying complexity and you have no idea how to deal with them from the point of view of the current structures. It depends on how you can manage to do that. People with less power are more exposed to being overwhelmed by “the beast”. But there are also situations with people in powerful positions who find themselves with such a poor quality of life from all the pressures of “the beast”, while some people on lower echelons, if they have their basic ends met and they are content with that, can actually be much more serene.
The Jewish state of mind inaugurated by Abraham leaving his father is about facing directly the raw reality complexity. The Jewish religion does not have the concept of killing a beast to create order, it is about God comfortable with that complexity and simply creating the world. Occasionally, you can find in the Psalms verses about God killing some Mesopotamian beast, but it is just about a bit of exalted sideline copying of Mesopotamian religious poetry with no further effects. The main story of the religion is about God just creating the world.
God creates a “meaningful world” without any fight or power struggle with anyone, it is not about building “meaning” on top of defeating another being. God himself is the complexity of everything and the tone in the initial creationist part of the Jewish Bible is not about classical masculine establishment of control by focusing on creating a static power structure. That would be such a low-vibe bad joke for God. The control or rather the self-confidence is already there by being himself consciously the complexity of everything.
The world and its meaning is created as a matter of personal will and there is a pretty straightforward view of the arbitrariness in how the meaning is assigned. God just tells the first man Adam to name the animals as he likes. Usually, in other religions or mythologies, people wold need some explanations and reasons for how things appeared with their characteristics and names, something to help them avoid anything beyond the impression that there is a plateau of meaning in everything. They want to keep this impression and then their minds slide easily to “the other side of the Moon” to fill their voids of meaning with all kinds of “explanations” (like today’s conspiracy theories). It is that originally masculine impression that everything revolves around him (which the women copy too when they enter mentally in the “meaningful world”), he understands everything as control of the situation and when he does not understand, he is quick to create a self-serving story to fill the void and show control of the situation.
In the Jewish creation story, it is about a masculinity thinking from the point of view of the raw reality, not interested in creating plateaus of stable meaning as a legitimization for self-confidence. It already has a deep self-confidence from the immersion in the raw reality and a more clear idea that the meaning is created as a matter of personal will based on psychological comfortability with the raw reality perspective. The focus is on the masculine suspension of belief in its own mental structures while immersing in the long-term feminine experience with the raw reality perspective. With this he creates meaning not by upholding static plateaus, but by using the fluid complexity of the raw reality. He is not looking for static plateau type of justifications for the signifiers, he knows that they are arbitrary and they depend on the deeper base for meaning, which is the mental strength comfortable with the complexity of the raw reality.
This is the kind of masculinity the Middle Eastern women like. In fact women worldwide seem to like this kind of masculinity, only that the Middle Eastern ones can be more clear about what they want and about how to get it. The problem is that the men turn into airhead “masculine blondes” when they immerse directly into this feminine view of masculinity without any psychological preparation. Officially they just keep thinking in classical masculine linear control of the situation, while in practice all their thinking is grafted on the women’s raw reality immersion.
It looks like the initial Jewish male ancestors found a way to become mentally independent from the women, only to face this tremendous masculinity in themselves. A masculinity that thinks from the point of view of the raw reality mental abyss, not from that of some lousy classical masculine plateaus of stable meaning. It creates meaning based on its own responsibility to face that complexity, not as a linear classical masculine thinking. It appears so obvious that the meaning in the human societies is not about plateaus of classical masculine control of the situation, but they are based on a unexpectedly abyssal and complex view.
The Jewish men cannot pretend they don’t sense how this is what fuels the masculine creation of meaning. It is a matter of assuming the responsibilities of that mental abyss and create meaning like branches that pop up from all kind of unexpected places. If they want to just use it at an intimate sub-cognitive level and then create a plateau as control of the situation (maybe also by killing “a beast”), as it is usual in human classical masculinity, they would turn back to that dreadful state of masculine blondes. Now it is even less appealing because, after facing directly that raw reality masculinity, they are much more aware of the overall situation. They clearly know for themselves that they would be just some ridiculous clowns.
This while they find themselves with no expertise in working directly with the raw reality perspective. It is something that works in them by itself and, depending on the context, it can be a personal deep perception of a fluid and very authentic paradigm that in fact fuels the human social structures, it can turn into an overwhelming masculine authority because of the way it assumes responsibilities from the point of view of that complexity (the surface personality of the man may not know how to assume well such responsibilities and this is what prompts the raw reality masculinity assume them). The assumption of responsibilities is based on the existing repertoire in the man’s mind and, lacking other role models, it appears as a father with its typical idiosyncrasies or as a king with its typical idiosyncrasies. Unlike the king, the father sometimes can also be personal and kind.
The Jewish man finds himself with this side of masculinity in him, not knowing very well how make sense of its psychological output with the mental tools he has available. His position is like Adam being told by God to give whatever names he likes to the animals. It is not about looking for linear threads of thought that would seek other-side-of-the-Moon “justifications” about how the names appeared. It is simply giving names because you have the power to do it, you are the master of the unknown with the responsibilities you assume in facing the raw reality complexity.
For example, why in English the word “tree” has this specific phonetic shape and not, let’s say, “badaboom”? When such doubts appear, the classical masculine tendency is to become apprehensive about all the mental abyss on which the human sense of meaning is built, to uphold the static control of the situation and mend the voids of meaning with all kind of filler stories. The masculinity comfortable with that raw reality complexity and mentally immersed in it has no such apprehensions, it derives its sense of control of the situation from the comfortability with that complexity. Even more, it can produce meaning at will based on this fluid mental paradigm. The Jewish man finds himself with such a masculinity inside him that creates a world of meaning with the fluid mental paradigm, the names are just necessary there for identification, give them whatever names you want (this is how it feels a retrospective view of how the human world of meaning appeared). There are occasionally some subsequent classical human type of filler stories, like the pillar of salt near the Dead Sea allotted in this tradition as being Lot’s wife punished for not respecting God’s command. However, they are few, still deriving from God’s abyssal thinking and with no overall important role.
Technically, the Jewish man is supposed to be a badass self-confident man thinking fluidly from the raw reality perspective, creating meaning by immersing in that perspective. But where are the masculine mental tools for something like this? This is the question that does not seem to occur to the women who find very natural such a masculinity (with their own natural feminine use of the raw reality perspective). The women are not themselves in the masculine position to notice the problem. The men don’t really understand the overall situation either.
In the specific Middle Eastern situation, the women would want the men to be badass self-confident with this raw reality perspective. The men may feel it as a destruction of the sense of a plateau of stability, hence “Enkidu’s death” apprehension, they have the tendency to whine about this and/or be harsh and controlling with the women in order to keep that plateau. This fuels a millennary arms race, the women find increasingly sophisticated ways to make the men slide mentally into the raw reality perspective, but this only turns the latter into masculine blondes.
The women also keep honing along millennia how that raw reality badass self-confident expressivity would look like. See this live interpretation of Ma Fi Noum at the 8th edition of Star Academy, by Najwa Karam with the Tunisian singer Oumayma Taleb and the Palestinian singer Lian Bazlamit. I find authentic and valuable such an expressivity, but how to organize a social life with it? Not that it is impossible (I find it inevitable once you are aware of it), but it needs some work.
The particular case of the Jewish men is about becoming mentally independent, only to unleash unexpectedly the plenary expressivity of the raw reality masculinity inside you. If the woman is no longer the only one responsible for the raw reality perspective as it is the case for a masculine blonde, then something inside you has to assume that responsibility if you don’t want to go nuts. This raw reality masculinity assumes responsibilities for that complexity, it is obviously very authentic and profound, but it lacks mental tools for social organization, it just has this plenary impression that it is in charge of everything, as it originated among the Middle Eastern women. The Jewish social sense of self that thinks from the point of view of the existing masculine mental tools has to deal with it somehow.
The story in the Jewish Bible is with Abraham having the “grasshopper hopping” moment with a more clear sense of going along with this raw reality masculinity, he abandons his family and the people stuck in a stale paradigm and goes into the world to permit unfolding the inscrutable, yet seemingly extraordinary prospects that this masculinity keeps giving the vibe is inherently set to bring upon (and it has to bring upon, it needs to manifest). Years are passing by and the descendants live with the promise, until Moses finds an opening in the father figure Pharao caught on the wrong foot. The same as in Abraham’s relation to his real life father Terah, there is no interest in assuming the leadership role, Moses just wants for the Jews to mind their own business and live by themselves (only that now the real life father figure, the Pharao, is in a position that casts him as the bad guy, which opens the way for a more clear Jewish self-organization).
There was no specific opening in his mind to organize plenarily a social life with this authentic paradigm. As deeply authentic this paradigm expresses in your mind, still how can you organize life with it? How can you really organize things with this inner abyssal perception like, for example, in this interpretation of Hineni by Yossele Rosenblatt? How could this manifest plenarily in the world? You see its paradigm underlying everything in the world, but your own expression of it just stays at a personal level because of the lack of appropriate mental tools to express it plenarily in the social life. The tendency was to see themselves as a holy people put aside for God’s inscrutable plans. This mental abyss is too much for my brain, only God knows his reasons about me, what I can do is to strive living my life as I understand it would be according to its authentic paradigm.
The thing with the Pharao was forced upon them, it was not their initiative to have an organizational plan of their own for that (which would likely have been too stale and inauthentic for the perspective of that raw reality masculinity). They were just reacting to Pharao’s decisions when it became too unbearable, and the reaction managed to bring in the social life the manifestation of the authentic paradigm. The manifestation was about expressing authentically that Pharao’s organization was wrong and that they should be free. If that is wrong, then how a good organization would look like? Once they are free in the desert to the east, the answer to this question is increasingly necessary.
Moses goes back to the vivid paradigm for inspiration and on the Mount Sinai the basics of such an organization are revealed in a manner reminding of the initial creationist part of the Jewish Bible. Not much need for filler stories to create appearances of plateaus of meaning, the laws appear as a meaning created from the fluid paradigm, with all the psychological value the focus on the core issues it supposes. Further on, lots of attention is given that this manifestation in the world of the fluid paradigm does not go to waste into a plateau of stable meaning. All kind of purity rules, levels of holiness etc.
However, the problem that this organization appeared as a reaction to a “bad guy” and not as a direct manifestation in itself did not disappear. The modus vivendi that ensued was about learning in practice how to not betray the fluid paradigm in such a context. If the situation was unbearable and the holy paradigm manifested itself in the human “meaningful world” to liberate us, then we need to bear the consequences. Further on, the “bad guy” situation did not follow its usual human course, there was no replacement of the “bad guy” with a “good guy” to enter in a new plateau of stable mental structures. The situation is kept at a present tense until nowadays, each year the Jewish holidays are about living the present tense of the liberation process to keep its vivacity alive and not let it enter in a plateau. If that Pharao knew what would happen to his memory among the Jews… Why will I need my body mummified after death if these Jews are stuck with me and keep grabbing me like a buoy in a Groundhog Day loop for thousands of years?
But what can you do if you don’t have an organization that can represent that fluid paradigm in the human social life? There is this feeling of a great potential in that paradigm, but no mental tools to work with it plenarily in the world. Yet if feels coherent, it feels like a deep mental clarity. The most it could give was the laws on the Mount Sinai. They are about core responsibilities in social life and… go and live with that.
The issues begin to appear more obvious when they start organizing their own lives in the land of Israel. Now the Jews need to tackle the unavoidable, they need to organize things by themselves. People begin to enter in mental plateaus of stable “meaningful world”. Some of the Jews who are mentally invested in the fluid paradigm are utterly displeased to share the same ethnicity with such people and they are increasingly vocal about it. Those jeremiads gave also a simple idea about how to not enter in those dreadful mental plateaus. Find something faulty in yourself or, even easier, in the other Jews, show it publicly and you will see how the plateau crumbles down. I would summarize the texts of those angry prophets something like “I BADLY need a fault! Don’t you understand? I need my fault fix right now! I HATE turning into a masculine blonde!”
My take on this mental habit is something like in Mashiach (“Messiah”) of the Israeli band Shabak Samech. The religious man at the beginning has a direct immersion in that fluid paradigm, followed by smiling with those bad teeth at the camera in way that does not uphold a respectable public image that might create a stable, yet static and stale plateau (and helps a lot to stay with the mind in the fluid diachronic flow). Then the singers unfold their complaints about the imperfections in the Israeli life for the case Messiah might arrive and see the situation. The vibe from this video is about thousands of years of living with a never-ending self-blaming to the point you are tired of it, but you have no other ideas and you keep doing it, while at least you are open to its humorous side.
I have also another take, something like in HaYareach VeAni of the Israeli band Boom Pam. The vibe is about taking a step back after all the Jewish experience accumulated with “the situation” in general and thinking about it in a detached manner. Here, not much need to do something to destroy your public image (you are not a boisterous man like in the previous video that may predispose you to enter in a mental plateau). If you can take a step back as a man, you notice that there are serious structural problems, the masculinity appears as those old, decrepit men. And this is not so much as a blame (where is the blame in being old?), but as something structural. Blame means that there is a good way that is not followed by the blamed person. Noticing a structural problem means that the structure is problematic and you need from now on to find the good way.
This, of course, is not about abdicating the current social responsibilities, but noticing that simply there is no current good way, it has to be found out. And my take on this is optimistic. This is something like how the people wonder whether Ecclesiastes is a pessimistic or an optimistic book. I see the situation in an optimistic light and, as you will keep reading, you may notice reasons.
Besides the dreadful prospect of turning into a masculine blonde, another reason to avoid mental plateaus became more obvious in time. The social organization after Moses made possible increased psychological explorations of the fluid paradigm in contact with real life. There is already valuable masculine experience accumulated in this sense and you feel like losing it if you enter in a mental plateau. It is not only about the clownish situation you are about to enter in, but also about satisfying psychological depth you are set to lose.
The elaboration of the Talmud marks the increased focus on this wisdom. Its tone is markedly different from that of those angry prophets. It is about “wait a minute, an entirely unexpected world is opening if I see the situation this way”. “This way” refers to something similar to the discovery of the back side of the mind by the actor in Aldoqchi qiz of Botir Xon, only that in the Jewish case it is with personal responsibility in facing the mental abyss, there is not much feminine supportive environment. It is a quest to understand rationally that complexity (at that pre-modern general level of the humanity of those times). Suddenly, the word of God from the Torah has “seventy faces”, there is psychological maneuver space and things to ponder about, unlike those angry prophets riled up by everything.
The intellectual atmosphere that created the Talmud still did not produce a more approachable masculine relation to that mental abyss, it still remains an abrupt abyss. This means that the problem of the Jewish people with its public image keeps continuing. The Jewish men have serious problems in producing classical masculine self-confident projection of power and control of the situation. All this self-blaming and quest for personal faults or for faults in fellow Jews in order to not enter in mental plateaus is a magnet for any idiot around the world who believes he is perfect, but knows he is not and wants to project his faults on the Jews. Christianity and Islam never weaned off Judaism and had such an evil role in the suffering of the Jews.
It is incredible what happened with this population for thousands of years, how much it suffered for other populations’ projected faults and how resilient and strong it had to be in surviving the barbarism. How much blame was thrown upon it for the shortcomings in the social structures of the other people, while in practice it had such a positive role in the intellectual uplift of the humanity. Lots of Jewish men are like the duality Clark Kent / Superman, very unassuming in real life, but in reality with a power that can make such a difference. In a sense, they really are like that deeply strong raw reality abyssal masculinity developed by the Middle Eastern women, only that they still did not manage to have proper masculine mental tools to work with it properly.
