Perceiving complexity (part 17)
Part of the series Perceiving complexity
⟵ Perceiving complexity (part 16)
In the previous part I wrote how the ethos of the Jewish religious establishment got professional about working directly with the raw reality fluidity, but it does nothing in facing the overall feminine view of masculinity, it just stays in a daze. The modernity that originated in the Western world and the difficult situation from the 19th century (when the same modernity was scapegoating the Jews even worse for its own structural deficiencies) gave the impetus to the secular Jews to use this Talmudic approach directly in real life, without staying stuck in the ideal feminine view of masculinity.
In Israel, it grew a Jewish secular masculinity that gives a new life to the Talmudic approach. It is not anymore about a masculinity that takes for granted the feminine placeholder view of “a man who knows what to do”, which in the past turned into a masculine self-image of being strong and right by default. The new state of Israel pays more attention to the overall international situation, the masculinity is much more streamlined and thus wiser and with much more real life strength.
The Jewish masculinity from the Hellenistic and Roman period looked like managing incredible feats of strength, but much of it was about the image it projected, they were missing too much the bigger picture to sense where the situation is heading into. Plus that the straightforward view of the man “who knows what to do” coupled with the fluid raw reality perspective (inevitably creating a plurality of unexpected threads) turned into a very damaging factionalism. The social life in the new Israel has a similar factionalism, but they manage to work much better with it. Not perfect, but much better.
Still, the secular Jews did not really face and solve the conundrum of the feminine view of masculinity, it is rather a sui generis situation. They do not have a relevant psychological take on it, they lean on the religious Jews for that. With the angle I notice in what is valuable in the Talmudic approach, my impression is that it matters if you assume responsibilities for the psychological possibilities opened in working with the raw reality perspective.
Some Jewish authors are like Bruce Willis’ character from the film The Sixth Sense. They delve into specific topics and they notice some of the real psychological fluidity and complexity in the human social structures those topics suppose. And they are like Bruce Willis’ character when he finally understands the nuance of what the boy means with “I see dead people”. They find their own perceptions as utterly damaging to their belief in the classical masculine sense of mental plateau. All that satisfying investigation turns into such dreadful realizations about the very basics of the initial premises.
They have reactions like Jared Diamond considering the Neolithic revolution the worst mistake in the history of the human race. It brought malnutrition, social and gender inequality etc. The previous hunter-gatherer organization was the life the humans were naturally adapted for hundreds of thousands of years. He does not seem to wonder about some basic questions. To what extent you still have a hunter-gatherer mindset? Do you really face the mindset changes of the Neolithic revolution? It is not about accepting them, just facing them to see what you should do about them.
His approach appears to be about facing the public imagery of the incredible evolution of the humanity the Neolithic revolution brought. There is this public image that it is so good to live in an complex civilization unleashed by the Neolithic agriculture. He realizes things are not so glittering as the people tend to think, when compared to the previous hunter-gatherer organization. Great insight, but he is stuck in just orientating his mind around the public image, these insights do not go into further investigation. The end of the article is defined by the public image: will we succumb to the problems noticed behind its glittering facade or will we manage to really achieve the seductive blessings that glittering facade makes us imagine?
In terms of Aldoqchi qiz of Botir Xon, his dive into the topics he studied made his mind end up in the back side. With that perspective, he realized things that show the inconsistency of the front side and what a huge psychological environment is beyond. Still, his mind keeps orientating around the front side as the normal plateau of meaning in his life, it does not occur to him that the back side of the mind can provide an environment for thinking in itself (and not even considering it as just a back side, but to explore how things are thought there). Thus he is just left in the situation to contemplate the loss of consistency of the front side.
What was felt as a straightforward psychological organization, as reality appears now (in the terms from The Sixth Sense) as “dead people see only what they want to see”. This can give a better idea what is with the mental breakdown of Gilgamesh after Enkidu’s death. Until that moment, in the Middle Eastern context, the man had the woman support to think fluidly. When she retreats her support, he realizes the huge psychology of the back side and his classical masculine organization feels like “dead people see only what they want to see”.
Aldoqchi qiz is the take of the Altaic men who understand that the back side of the mind can be an environment for thinking in itself. The women are supportive in this sense if they see the man getting the idea, like the girl at the end being open to signal who she is. In the Middle East, the women enframe the man in his classical mental plateau and thus they become free themselves to develop the expertise in working with the raw reality. The enframed man is like Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh. The woman sees the man for who he is, he by himself thinks he is civilized (Gilgamesh), but he is not really assuming the real responsibilities of a civilized life, he continues too much of a hunter-gatherer mindset (Enkidu).
The woman introduces Enkidu to the real psychological complexity of the civilization. Until that moment, Enkidu had his own immersion in the nature, “he was talking with the animals”. The woman’s introduction to the real complexity of the civilization determined the loss of this ability, he did not have much psychological preparation for that complexity and he lost his own fluid psychological abilities. Take “talking with the animals” as a figurative expression for a masculine direct psychological connection with the world.
In the past there were men who used that feminine raw reality expertise to create complex civilized societies, but as a mental plateau of control of the situation over social complexity, helped with frequent trips to “the other side of the Moon”. The Enkidu type of masculinity has a more direct connection with that paradigm. Gilgamesh likes this, but he falls in love with Enkidu rather than being interested in the woman, as the woman is not really supporting the man as in classical gender relations. It is the conundrum deriving from the lack of the usual female support for the man to make mental passages from his thinking based on mental plateaus to the one based on the raw reality. The woman is thus freed from dealing directly with masculine mental plateaus, but this also means that the Enkidu masculinity just leans on the feminine expertise without any valuable cognitive connections between his classical masculine plateaus (that are his psychological headquarters) and the raw reality perspective he is mentally bathing in.
If the woman withdraws her support “for keeping Enkidu alive”, the Gilgamesh side of the man realizes that it was leaning all this time on a different, yet more relevant paradigm. The woman was supporting the mental fluidity all the time, now he is left to deal himself with that fluidity whose paradigm is so antithetic to that of mental plateaus. He has to face so directly that the mental plateaus are such a psychological fiction. But yet they are the base of the classical masculine thinking and he sees no other psychological options.
The Jewish take on this situation is that the woman was wrong in opening the mind of the man to the raw reality paradigm, they lost the paradise they were living in until that moment (Adam and Eve’s temptation). I see it as wrong to the extent the woman is enframing the man to lean herself on the stability of his mental plateaus as a simplifying support for unfolding the diachronic fluidity or, even more, is actively doing this to keep the man controlled, mentally enslaved. But otherwise the raw reality paradigm is much more serious and valuable and it is stupid to not face it, plus that the classical masculine mental plateaus were too unjust for the woman in the Middle Eastern context. These plateaus are based on the use of the woman’s raw reality expertise and she has the right to bring to light what are they based on.
But for this you need to realize as a man the woman’s perspective. Inadvertently, the Jewish masculine quest for mental independence from women brought them into the feminine view of the masculinity and the lack of classical feminine social organization expertise made them end up in a feminine situation in relation to other people. No possibilities of social organization other that that tremendous masculinity based too much on the raw reality perspective and disconnected too much from the classical masculine mental tools. When it was obvious that it does not work, the other option was just the feminine expectation for the man to save the situation, there must appear a man to save them.
In time, both Jewish men and women began to think more directly from the raw reality perspective. This is the spirit of Talmud, only that it is not so conscious in the manner I present here, it keeps the feminine stance. The secular Jews made the mental leap into a direct social organization, but they did not face how does it relate to the Jewish ethos. Thus they could not bring a psychological explanation to surpass that of the traditional Jews and dry them up spiritually, the way it happened in the past with the Karaites who did not accept the Talmud. At this moment, it feels like the secular Jews are “the empty cart”, the religious Jews are “the full cart”.
Someone like Jared Diamond applies the Talmudic type of quest in the modern scientific context and finds out aspects about the real complexity of the human social life that destroy his belief in the consistency of the masculine mental plateaus. His reaction is to stick to the psychology of the mental plateaus, for him they are the only natural psychological environment for a human. The same for Yuval Noah Harari, investigations that end up in the back side of the mind that only make him rally around the classical masculine mental plateaus.
But there are also Jews who are comfortable with the Talmudic approach and with the assumption of psychological responsibilities like in the show of the twins form France. They realize what a humanly rewarding the raw reality perspective is in the modern scientific context and that they can have their own mental fluidity in such environment. They “can speak with the animals” even in such an environment. I am referring to Enkidu’s loss of direct connection with the world, such Jewish men realize they can have their own connection with the world even in the raw reality perspective, this can be a natural psychological environment for a human. In fact, it is much more natural, if you understand what it is about, it trumps the classical one.
Einstein assumed responsibilities about the fluidity of this environment like the twins from France and managed to discover the theory of relativity. Thomas Kuhn assumed too his own responsibilities as a man and, when he noticed the real fluidity of things (similar to what made weary authors like Jared Diamond or Yuval Noah Harari), he elaborated the concept of the paradigm shifts.
Jews like Mark Zuckerberg can enter in a new mental plateau, one that celebrates the fluidity in contrast to the static plateaus, without realizing that this celebration is in itself a new plateau, a bit in the Christian manner. To quote him: “Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.” The part with breaking things most likely refers to things belonging to mental plateaus, it is inevitable to break them. But, while it looks like a celebration of fluidity, it is too much focused on the contrast to the static plateaus, you are orientating your mind around those plateaus. It should not be so much about breaking mental plateaus, but about being fluid. He changed the motto some time ago to “move fast with stable infrastructure”. The fluidity appears too much as just “move fast”, again as just a contrast with the static plateaus, not a fluidity in itself.
You need to assume responsibilities for being yourself psychologically in the fluid perspective. Thus you can be yourself more responsible for the whole situation, plus that you can stay relevant for longer. You can sense much better the bigger picture as it unfolds each moment and not lose focus by thinking you are so great by going beyond a certain mental plateau (while keeping that plateau as a point of orientation).
There is a whiff of Nokia in Zuckerberg’s approach from the recent years (referring to Nokia’s failure to notice the next big thing in smartphones). He unleashed some novelty, but he is too focused on how it relates to the mental plateaus it broke, instead of being psychologically immersed in the novelty and pay attention to how it works in itself to assume some direct responsibilities and keep discovering how to keep things fluid.
There is the issue of irresponsibility that came to the fore in the recent years, but I see also the issue that he is limiting himself too much in working with the novelty he unleashed because of the way he considers novelties in contrast to static plateaus. There is much more potential if you assume responsibilities something like in the show of the twins from France. The responsibility permits not only to limit the social problems, but also endless discovering of new aspects as you keep diving in the fluid perspective.
Jews like Jared Diamond or Yuval Noah Harari see as very natural and legitimate the reaction to stick to the hunter-gatherer masculine mental plateaus because anything else is perceived as a loss of masculine naturalness, the loss of the possibility “to speak with the animals”. They are simply clueless about the naturalness of the raw reality perspective. The question that comes to my mind is to what extent you still have a hunter-gatherer mindset? It is as if you still feel you are so naturally a hunter-gatherer and it is such a huge burden in the Middle Eastern Eve’s temptation and in the subsequent revelation of what a civilized life supposes.
How do you relate as a man to this revelation? You were in fact using that complexity of civilized life before eating from the tree of the knowledge of the good and bad, only that it was something sub-cognitive and you were living in a paradise by continuing the hunter-gatherer masculine habits. Now you have to face the complexity you are already using. These Jewish authors face the complexity they are using, but they are under the impression that it is something unwarranted. If only they would be back to hunter-gatherer times to get some peace of mind as men.
For the non-Middle Eastern people who still live in such a psychological paradise, it is the same question, to what extent you still have a hunter-gatherer mindset? Only that it is with a different take, you are under the impression that the Neolithic revolution upgraded you to a whole new level of humanity. In reality you still have too much of a hunter-gatherer mindset and you do not pay proper attention to the underlying complexity of the post-Neolithic social life. To some extent, you are an Enkidu doing whatever he pleases in the wilderness, unaware of the sub-cognitive complexity you are using in the social life.
And also let’s spare a thought for the messed-up non-Jewish Middle Eastern people who have an underlying awareness of the complexity a post-Neolithic social life supposes, while they still largely think in hunter-gatherer terms. They had the Islamic Golden Age when they managed to limit the complexity with the help of the Islamic ideology (I will write in future articles how I see the Islam), but that had an inevitable expiry date. Real life keeps eroding such walled gardens and then you have to face again the underlying complexity. How are you going to organize things if you are aware as a man of the underlying social complexity like in Habeit Ya Leil of Nawal El Zoghbi? You need to assume responsibilities for that complexity. Who am I really in a post-Neolithic humanity? Not necessarily discarding the idea of returning to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (such a psychological quest needs to be open-minded, open-ended), but personally I did not find reasons to return. I am not bathing either in lousy consumerism, I just try to face the complexity of life.
Jared Diamond appears to unfold in fact a quest into facing the responsibilities of the complexity of the human social life, I don’t know to what extent he sees it in connection with his view of the good times from the distant human past. It looks largely based on the ethos that distilled the Jewish historical experiences. Guns, Germs and Steel (1997) feels like pondering about what determined such a disastrous and prolonged suffering for the Jews. In Collapse (2005), it is like the Jewish sages from the past who were facing the collapse of the Jewish community, while still feeling that there is something worth struggling for in the Jewish mindset. Why would you still be interested in struggling and how would you face a social collapse? He notices that the societies that survived paid attention to the long-term planning and had a willingness to reconsider the core values. In Upheaval (2019), he studies how human societies cope with situations of crisis, trying to identify what aspects to pay attention to in such contexts.
This is the psychological environment that determined some extent of reconsideration of core values in the Jewish past and the change of perspective in the Talmud (compared to the earlier religious ethos). This reconsideration tends to be on a practical level learned the hard way and it depends on the individuals if they sense how they can “speak with the animals” from the raw reality perspective in the modern non-religious world. People like Jared Diamond can have in parallel a nostalgia for the less complex times in the distant human past, while assuming the heaviness of the Jewish history and trying to make sense how to work with the complexity of the social life. Something like that show of the twins from France can give ideas about how to make the connection between these two sides.
