The ultimate point of the Matrix Trilogy is the infinitely nested interdependence of all beings. Neo needs Trinity and Trinity needs Neo. As Neo says to Councillor Hamaan, the humans needs the machines and the machines need the humans. Men need women and women need men. Conservatives needs liberals and liberals needs conservatives. Management needs labor and labor needs management. Environmentalists need corporations and corporations need environmentalists.

A religion or philosophy or politics that promises freedom from this interdependence through the triumph of one side or the other---like Morpheus’ prophecy---reflects a false, shallow, infantile spirituality, and can only be another system of control by one side or the other. Instead, a true, profound, adult spirituality sees the intrinsic worth in all beings and trusts in that worth---as Niobe trusted in Neo. It sees all beings as light.

A true, deep realization of this interdependent nature of all of existence would bring about real peace. Not a post-apocalyptic peace in which one side will triumph over the other, as is prophesied in fundamentalist religion, but a dialectical peace in which apparent opposites continue to resolve their different perspectives with trust and good faith, rather than with suspicion and violence. What needs to be eradicated is not an entity, but instead each person's pathological approach to this dialectic. This pathology is represented by the Smith.

Then there is the theme of choice. The nihilistic Merovingian is correct that the phenomenal world is a grid of causality and that there is no such thing as metaphysically libertarian (uncaused) free will. However, we can guide ourselves toward subscribing to a one-sided, dualistic conception of existence that sees some (or all) beings as enemies, or towards seeing all beings as light, as reflectors of God’s image. So amidst causality, a higher autonomy is possible.

At the end of SES, Wilber says: "As Plotinus knew, let the world be quiet..."
I never understood that until now. It always struck me as a weird Schopenhauerian wish for the cessation of existence.

I finally realize that it is a wish to silence the world within your own consciousness; to silence or to rise above your own monkey mind, and in doing so to spread peace.

I wonder...could it be that if a boddhisattva truly achieved noetic peace, that there would be peace throughout the kosmos?

If so, what that would mean is that violence in the world is the product, or a reflection, of violence within ourselves.

In "Fascism Anyone?," Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism."

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

Wrote a wikipedia article on Noetic.

It warmed up to 45F here, and the ice and snow are melting, and everything is draining. Like the ground has a runny nose. Smoked a Robusto Oscuro El Rey del Mundo right down to the nub. Unsurprisingly, they could use some aging.

Also wrote wikipedia entries on Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Boomeritis, and Integral Psychology. I hope Wilber doesn't mind that my article on him is the third Google hit on "Ken Wilber"...but I'll bet he does.

From September 3, 1967:
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

...A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon
Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.

(From Harper's Weekly, via Kos

Succint Election Analysis

Bush is president today because he was able to keep his base scared enough that their short term economic interests were willingly sacrificed for the illusion of security. This may work once, or even twice, but you can't make a consistent platform out of it.

Posted by: Ed Tayter at February 2, 2005 10:09 AM