Shmoos

Hi, Steve Barnes here with another edition of Life Writing Live. If you enjoy these messages, please share them. That's how we know which messages you like, don't like. And the last couple I've done have been kind of long. This one is going to be kind of long too. I'm compressing a tremendous number of thoughts together to try to create almost as clear a documentation of my thoughts on human existence as I'm capable of doing. Those who consider this to be of value hopefully will find something useful here. If not, I don't blame you. If I didn't know that I really think this way, I'd question. Me too. So you're not alone. Okay. It relates to an article that was published recently on the what seems to be an epidemic of shooting violence in America. And I wanted to address that and my thoughts on where it comes from. And I found that the guy who created Li' l Abner had a creature called a shmoo that was an asexual little ghost looking thing that would jump into your frying pan if you looked at it hungrily. And I just thought that using Schmooze might be useful to help work through some of the things I'm working with. Not the jump in the frying pan thing, but just the sort of undifferentiated lump aspect. Okay. Because of the thousands of hours of research and thought I put into racism, I've always been careful to relate everything to universal human traits, not try to cast blame. It feels as if to me, as if some of those conclusions can help peak beyond what I call the matrix of illusions driving human behavior. The emergent strategies, the simple suggestions and commands that lead to complex results. Now, warning, please. I could be twice as smart as I am and have spent five lifetimes with a team of a thousand people with a billion dollar budget and still not get to the end of this. I don't pretend that I have. I can't imagine a simple statement of such a complex subject that can't and shouldn't be argued with. It is knowing that I could write an entire library of footnoted textbooks and still not cover my butt on everything that allows me to say. I'm going to say I know ahead of time that I've got to be wrong about some of this. And so I apologize. Mea culpa. What I can say is that I'm sincere. I can go that far. I think it's worthwhile of me to try to make. To risk making a fool of myself and say what I see here. Because I think that the human race is just more important than my ego. So with that warning and with your kind indulgence, I'll continue. Now, a matrix notion, what I'm calling a matrix notion is a lie or fabrication that is so deeply ingrained into our consciousness that it seems to be self evident truth. Here are the core matrix ideas that seem relevant in this particular case. Men and women. You know, the ideas that are true, men and women are basically of equal worth and value. They are complementary based on different biological genetic functions and priorities. That anger is fear, that neither men nor women have ever been in control of the world. Our genes have been. The real emergent instruction has been get the maximum number of grandchildren to the next generation. These instructions prevented extermination for our species over the 250,000 years of our history. And they're deeply encoded in social principles, religions and more, and explain much of the rigidity of social mores and principles about sexism, racism, which is, you know, tribal warfare and survival, homophobia, stuff like that. There are two different basic human motivations to avoid pain and to gain pleasure. Most of our behavior for most of our history has been about avoid pain. And the last thing is we have new options now, but we have to forgive the past in order to embrace our future. Okay, so those are the basic principles. It seems to me that the best way to try to work through all this is to imagine a fantasy story. Imagine a world in which humans used to be a somewhat different being, call that being a shmoo. Undifferentiated into gender, race, stuff like that. Each of these shmus was capable of reproducing, fighting enemies or animals, or living anywhere on the planet, more or less. But just as a single shmoo who made all his own clothes would own a single suit and a single pair of shoes, assembly line specialization allows us to own a dozen complete outfits. Similarly, Schmooze discovered that specializing into baby makers and hunter fighters was more efficient, so that sexual dimorphism was relatively slight on a biological level. But social rules and fantasies reinforced and exaggerated the differences. Religions and laws evolved over time to separate them even further. These males and females were really pretty similar, except females could carry babies in their bodies and males were more disposable on an individual, not, not a reproductive level, which made it possible to kill off 90% of them without crashing the population. We could send them off to die fighting lions and mammoths or fighting fires, or march them into cannon fire, and it really didn't make that much difference over Time this dimorphism produced the maximum number of grandchildren, a situation that worked for everyone. As you can see this pattern all over the world. It seems to have outcompeted every other way of human organization you can imagine. There's a problem, however. Males and females selected each other for secondary sexual characteristics and willingness to play roles, nurturance, aggression, power, all sorts of things. As males grew larger due to breeding and more capable of aggression and repelling aggression, they would naturally begin to ask why the hell should we be the ones to go off and die? And here, allow me to step out of the storyteller mode. If you Google have men always had shorter lifespans than women? You'll get about 10 times more agreement than disagreement for this notion as this notion that due to both natural social and behavioral factors, male primates have large, shorter lifespans on average than female primates. And same thing with human beings. It makes sense to me on every level. You are of course, welcome to believe the opposite contingent. It's a minority position that women living longer is a relatively recent phenomena. I believe you have to employ more of what's called epicycles to explain that one. But if it makes sense to you, so be it. This speculation, my speculation won't make sense to you in that particular case. So what happened? What became convenient? It became convenient for males to consider themselves primary, to consider themselves more important. We're more important, so it's our obligation to, you know, march off and die is the really interesting contradictory set of instructions here. Literally we're more important, so we're less important is the functional result. I digress, but we'll come back to that. The rule that produced the maximum grandchildren is men's lives and women's dreams are disposable. Both men and women were kept in their boxes in a rather nasty game that really benefited neither. One of the results is that the measure of racism and tribal domination includes lifespan. The death dominated group lives a shorter life and dies more often due to violence. Guess what? That's men. On the other hand, the dominated group also has less access to power, earns less and so forth. Guess what? That's women. What are your priorities? I can't tell you what they are or what they should be. But if life is more important than money, I would suggest that the claim that men are in control of this game doesn't wash. It doesn't really match observations. But neither does the notion that women are in control. But it makes perfect sense if neither is in control because we're designed to See direct rather than indirect power. Karate makes more sense than aikido. Positive space in art is easier to perceive than negative space. Jazz is what happens between the notes. We can't see the yin aspect with our eyes and intellects. We have to feel the pauses in our bodies. Our hearts can feel both the yin and the yang. Back to the story of mankind. Mankind was created by shmus to make more shmoo grandchildren and damn the results to both men and women caught in that biological reproductive machine. For 10,000 generations, men and women, bifurcated version of shmus, built up civilization, living, dying, having children, loving, fighting, concentrating on the difference between them. Even though babies and old people are pretty much schmooze, you know, vive la difference, right? And we spread around the world, develop different phenotypes and different cultures, each of which developed mythologies that they were the best. Just as men think they're the best and women think that they're the best. It's a big joke. And it keeps us asleep and at odds with each other and serves our genes, but not us. But there are two basic drives. Remember, avoid pain and gain pleasure. Most of our history has been about avoiding pain, survival. Alcohol, for instance, was a great thing. It co evolved with us as a technology because it serves both the avoidance of pain and the gaining of pleasure. Jewish culture has a really, really great saying about this. Drink to be happier, not to be happy. That's the basic rule. In other words, it's healthy to drink when you're already happy to celebrate. But if you're in pain, you're supposed to work your way out of that pain. You don't drink your way out. Pain is important. It's a signal to do something different. If you take a drug to numb the pain, you won't take proper actions. And that will catch up with you one day. The above is germane. We have rules that say that work is sacred, necessary, vital, because it's related to survival. The tribe will starve if we stop hunting, freeze if we stop chopping wood. So we evolved rules that said idleness is evil. That's the avoiding pain stuff, right? But once we moved beyond hunter gatherers to agriculturalists, we had whole seasons where humanity could pause after the harvest and as a group ask an important question. What's it all about? We probably always ask that question, but about 30, 30,000 years ago, human beings started putting themselves into their cave paintings. And I kind of think that might represent a sea change in our thought patterns. It's like the I am woke up the who am I? What is true? As these bifurcated shmoos, programmed with useful lies, began to build sustained colonies and begin trade, those most directly on those trade routes began to exchange memes and genes most rapidly, developing the greatest complexity. And of course, because that's how humans roll, they also claimed that complexity is superiority. No, it's complexity, that's all. Cultural bigotry was born. But the questions about who am I? And what is true? Were codified, written down, debated across cultures. As some members of those cultures became more specialized, philosophers and artists became separate classes and could spend all their time asking these questions. The notions of freedom and democracy, the notion of human dignity and so forth, became very real things. Power had originated from the root humans selecting leaders. But in time, the leaders became their own class and like all other human beings, began to believe their own bullshit and claimed divine privilege. Why were so many of these leaders men? Perhaps because those who organized most efficiently for hunting and war survived better. And the traditional way men choose leaders is on the most basic level of who can kick my ass? I'll follow him. If you're more cynical, you could say, that is, I can kick your ass. Follow me or die. Because everyone has to sleep and throats are easily cut. I choose to believe that there has to be collusion between leaders and lead or it simply doesn't work. The wrestling circle is one of the most universal human institutions. And the village's best wrestler either became the leader or helped choose him or her. That's just basic stuff. But as the notion of human freedom began being debated, lurking off stage was the fact that much of this world spanning complex of human society was based on lies. Men and women are vastly different. Different tribes are vastly different. God loves my group best. It's useful for the grandchildren. Horrible for individuals. Once upon a time, there was a country called America. It represented one of the last major human migrations to one of the last major chunks of fertile land. With such a difference in technology between the new and old immigrants that the natives were crushed. Of course, the new immigrants ascribed this to genetic superiority and God loves us best and manifest destiny, rather than the fractal nature of progress and innovation. Humans are like that. And these new immigrants felt they needed labor and stole human beings from one of those technologically differential areas and hauled them in chains and misery to the new land and declared them sub human, setting up a basic conflict. Because this country called America was based on the mythology of human liberty, freedom and equality. Oops. And the gap between the illusion and the reality. Blossomed into an incredibly violent and bloody war. Because waking up is hard to do. The problem is that change effected through force doesn't change the heart. The losers were able to continue to project their mythologies on the racial level. Why couldn't these illusions be maintained for as long as the gender based illusions? Because gender lies benefit both males and females in their most basic programming of genetic and personal survival. Tribal or racial lies do not. Men and women cannot exterminate each other. It would kill you. Can't sink half a canoe. In fact, I would maintain that the actual drive between men and women is to connect, to once again become that undifferentiated shmue with both attributes. And that explains the energy of sex and the power of love. It's the energy released during fusion. But tribes. Can tribes actually exterminate each other? Let's see. Seen any Neanderthals lately? Yeah, I think they can. So racially there was fantastic motivation to destroy those lies. It was survival. And it has been horrifically difficult and fought against at every turn. But lies are interwoven. And once you start to ask what is true about one aspect of it, you either stimulate or join forces with other questions, questioners and questionings. The entire scheme begins to unravel. Questions like must women stay in their social boxes? Why or why not? Is homosexuality an evil? Or merely labeled that way because of reproductive and social psychological imperatives? Do we even need every female to make babies? If not, how does that change what we are and have been? Do we need every human being to work? What happens when our technology reaches the point where fewer people are needed to till the fields and work the factories? Does the notion of nations even make sense in a world with instant communication? Wasn't that notion just a geopolitical convenience? And if you start with a country that speaks of human equality and we start telling ourselves that limiting human options is evil. But people have associated their identity with particular roles. What happens when that starts falling apart? Who am I? What is true? Remember, the ego thinks it is us. If the ego is a construct, then when it begins to crack, it responds as if it is dying. That triggers fear. We fear fear. We are ashamed of fear. So we mobilize and disguise it as anger. Anger leads to violence. Even the notion that anger is fear causes fear and anger. The next time you're in a political discussion and some politicized person says those exes are full of anger, ask what are they afraid of? And watch. The most politicized among them refuse to accept the possibility that Anger is fear. They cannot. They will have an emotional reaction to the notion because the instant they admit that it could be true, they have to humanize their opponents and to acknowledge their own anger and that their own anger might be that four letter word that dare not speak its name. See where this is all going? I hope so. Male violence. Okay, that was the subject. I've gone all the way around Robin's Barn because a huge amount of context is needed to understand what it is I'm trying to say that was the subject. For tens of thousands of years, men have operated under the illusion that they were in control. It blinded them to the fact that they were programmed for self destruction and that women were complicit in that programming. Oh yes. Women aren't more peaceful. Look up the domestic violence statistics in lesbian relationships. Or when women are larger than their male partners. Nope. Schmoos are shmoos. Remember that pesky equality thing? That means you can't take yourselves off the hook, ladies. You can't say you weren't involved in the decisions and actions. White people couldn't keep black people in chains for more than 400 years before the lie broke down. Even though they held a tenfold power advantage. Do you really think males could keep females in chains for thousands of years with a mere 30% upper body strength advantage? Really? When men are just as afraid of death as you. Really Remember that thing about people having to sleep and throats being easy to cut? The real rule is that we've been playing a game. Women have pretended to be weaker than they really were. Males pretended to be stronger and braver than they really were. Were. It wasn't good for either men or women. Great for those grandkids though. In almost any boxing match, equally matched contestants will trade winning rounds. If you ignore all the other rounds, you can say we're the best because you're living in round eight. Ignoring that, you lost half the previous rounds and are likely to lose half the rounds to come. For hundreds of years, a blink in human history, Europeans are able to think themselves superior. Ding ding, here comes round nine. Yay team. Now the single largest motivation of the Civil War was the gap between dream and reality. A dream that had existed for only a few centuries. Really, that dream of racial superiority. Well, guess what, lads and lasses? We're dealing with a much, much larger illusion now. One that ties everything together in a big rotten bow. One that worked great until now, but it's coming to an end. It's that dream of male superiority, of that primacy of the working man as epitome of power, the exemplar of America as the ultimate nation, the richest, best, most beloved of God. Get that dollar. Attract that female with impressive secondary sexual characteristics. Remember that interview with Melania Trump when she was asked if she would be with Donald if he were not rich? She responded, would he be with me if I weren't beautiful? That's a little more honesty than most people can handle right there. I had to admire that if I was a white heterosexual male tied to what worked in the past. In other words, kind of conservative in that sense. I think the sky was falling. All the rules that kept my ancestors alive are being challenged. If women are my equal and can compete with me for jobs, if and get those jobs, I just became less attractive, less able to convince an attractive female to mate with me or, you know, come home, have a few drinks and bump uglies. If blacks are my equal, then they're going to want payback. So I have desperate motivation to believe they're not equal and keep them in a position where they can never retaliate. If we no longer need all human beings to reproduce, then those pesky homosexual urges I've fought my entire life can come bobbing closer to the surface, triggering guilt and fear and questions about who and what I really am. If not every worker is needed due to globalization and automation, but we still guilt trip people for not having jobs when there are no jobs, it leads to people insisting like things like welfare and universal health care and a social safety net are actually bad. What happens when America is the last country to implement a medical safety net for its citizens? Could there, in other words, be a clue to the fact about violence in America as opposed to other countries? That that lack of safety net times income inequality, times social upheaval, times lots of guns might equal a problem? Maybe. I mean, not all people will become violent, but violence is caused by anger and anger is a mask over fear. What stuff connected to basic shifts in our world might cause America to have an epidemic of violence then? You know, in comparison to other countries, one, the belief on both gun and anti gun people's parts that their position makes them safer. You know, every shooting, second Amendment people scream, the victim should have been armed and the gun control people scream, there should be fewer guns. That's a core disconnect. And they end up screaming at each other. They're both afraid that fear masks as anger. It's tragic. The shifting role of women, destroying the balance of power and sex that existed since, you know, forever the Shifting role of minorities. Not the lip service about equality, but the implications of the reality. Whether you think the monkeys are taking over the zoo or payback's a bitch, if you have fear in your heart, it isn't a pretty picture. The shifting role of workers as there are literally fewer jobs while net wealth remains constant but more collected up at the top. The shifting role of reproduction in human survival. Rational arguments against homosexuality are just non existent. I can't think of one. Fear. Survival Fear. Genetic fear. Sexual pleasure. Fear. Power. Fear. Ego. Fear on every level. Plus the utter terror that all you believe may be a lie. You're surrounded by enemies who will take everything from you that you thought you were. Combine that with the availability of firearms and America is in a uniquely bad position. That's where we are. Is there an answer? Of course there is. Unless you're so egotistical that you think you're important enough that you happen to have a front row seat at the end of the world. Oh, please. For about a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the history of the universe has been one of connection and complexity, with bumps along the way. So it's easy for me to envision a world on the other side of all these current problems. One with gender and racial parity. One in which both men and women are functioning, not moving away from fear and pain, but moving toward love and pleasure. A world in which mankind, humankind, is moving out of its adolescence and toward an intellectual and spiritual maturity. All we have to do is love ourselves enough to admit to our flaws. Forgive ourselves for being driven by fear, however it masks itself. Forgive our ancestors who were doing the best they could with the resources they had for men and women, black and white, gan straight to love each other while remaining strong enough to resist the violence of frightened people. There's an amazing future out there waiting for us. If this generation of black folks is the hope and the dream of the slave in this generation of human beings is the hope and the dream of every ancient shmoo, terrified of the natural world, crouching in the dark, fearful of diseases and predators and weather, bifurcating into a separated being to fight back more efficiently, misunderstanding the gender opposite. Just as we rarely understand the yin and yang of our own personalities, driven to work from fear rather than drawn by joy. The war of art between management and artist. America is in the dark night of the soul. The way through is, as always, the leap of faith. Faith in ourselves, faith in our companions, and faith in whatever higher power or patterned universe you choose to hold sacred faith that if this is correct, freedom for women means freedom for men as well. There is nothing to fear once we throw off the chains that bind our thoughts. It is possible that everyone born before effective birth control will have to die before we're relatively free of sexism, that everyone born prior to 1970 in the Civil rights movement will have to die before racial equality is the real dominant principle. Everyone born before a wide acceptance that the planet has reached peak population. Die before homosexuality is no longer stigmatized. Everyone born before Buckminster Fuller proposed that we accept a new paradigm for work and life before a universal basic income becomes a human right. Racism, sexism, homophobia and a Protestant work ethic all make sense if they increase survival, but the instant they decrease it lead to more pain than pleasure. Our brains will flip the switch and the new possibility will seem less and less crazy. I submit to you that that switch has flipped, but if you were born before the flip, you may not be able to see it. But I trust those grandchildren. The Shmoos always knew it was about the grandchildren, remember? And I think they'll do just fine after more ugliness. Oh yes, there will be more violence because people are angry, because they are afraid. The world is changing and waking up is hard to do. I see it so clearly and hope that however flawed my musings today have been, they've served their purpose and that maybe you'll see what I see a little bit more clearly as well. Namaste. This is Steve signing out. If you like this message, please share it. If you like the way I think and would like to add the way I think to the way you write and communicate, Join us at LifeWriting premium. Com. Take care. Bye bye.