Changes ahead.........

You may find that from next Monday December 5^th the posting times for the blog will be later. This is because from this weekend I will be living in Ystradgynlais. You may also find that once we get a computer set up there posts may start appearing over the weekend and in the evening. We are off to Malta for a week at Christmas so look out for the album I will be calling the Maltese Falcons. The blog will be taking a break from December 19 to about the 29^th of December Anyway Friday is the day of the move wish us luck......

Give me back the Berlin Wall..the Left and Wales

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey 
I ache in the places where I used to play 

The hammer blows reign down, Brexit, Trump. Cohen and Castro. What do we do next? Farage has endorsed Lepen and the in Italy the ruling party teeters on the edge of defeat in a referendum on constitutional reform and the Five Star Movement waits in the wings. The old indicators of the polling approaches no longer measures what goes on. This is a crisis but the question is will the right wing populists or the de centralist Left of Lucas Corbyn, Saunders triumph?

Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song

I see you standing on the other side
I don't know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never have to lose it again

Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back
There moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone
I'll be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the Tower of Song

Here in Wales there is an urgent need for a clear Ecosocialism. Wales needs to be an independent Welsh republic. It needs to make real the aims of the old Welsh Republican movement. Its needs to be inclusive that all people who live in Wales are Welsh. That the issues of land and property must be dealt with, that there must be a fair and equal distribution of that land and property.

There must be a realisation that Welsh industrialists are the same as industrialists from anywhere else. The issue is class, poor housing the lack of well-paid jobs, and that the deskilling of workers is a product of capitalism. The problem is capitalism the word English is a descriptive noun and not the cause. The cause is the economic system and not the English.

Wales needs to be proud of its language and culture, there should be more education and awareness within our education system we need to know our folk tales , our history and our literature. My Great grand parents are Exiles from Ynys Mon and Beaumaris. I have a faint Midlands accent but my origins are Welsh and I returned here at 16 and have been here ever since. I am Welsh and proud of it but I want an Ecosocialist Wales, where we allow communities to own renewable sources of energy, a clear non-Nuclear Wales, a Wales outside of NATO and a classless multicultural Wales that knows both its past and its future and the direction it is going in. A Wales within a Europe of the regions and A Wales that follows the Scandinavian model, a Wales that rejects austerity and the doctrines of neo-liberalism.

The old Welsh Republican Socialists have become bitter and vanished in some cases out of politics and in other cases into Plaid Cymru where they rage and take their anger out against wind farms. Some of them now use offensive language that if you substituted Jew or Pakistani for English you would find yourself be guilty of racism. This is an example I saw recently..it shows the bitterness of age, of disillusionment and the rise of xenophobia

“too much of their funding on housing misfits, criminals and others from England with no local connections. I stand by that; and everyone who knows this field knows I'm right. They may deny it, they may call me names, but they know I'm right. 

As for "Scouse junkies", that was a specific reference to what happens in the decaying resorts along the north coast. I stand by it because, again, it's the truth.

Yes, earlier this year I put up a sidebar panel with a Confederate battle flag. I did it because that flag does not represent racism, it remembers brave men who fought 

for four years against overwhelming odds, and is part of the heritage of Southern whites. If black activists, white leftists and others are so intolerant that they wish to defame those brave men, and their descendants, then don’t expect a free-thinking man like me to fall into line with this hatred and censorship. One wonders if like his English nationalist counterpart Farage he will endorse Marine Lepen to be president of France? Is this the coming of the alt right to North Wales?

In fact, I stand by everything I write, because I have beliefs, and because I don’t care what creatures like you think. You, however have a couple of apologies to make. “

Plaid has within in it a group that is hopeful. I was cheered by the elction of Leanne Wood some years ago, there is Jill Evans as well and there are activists like Ian Titherington and others and yet I have seen sneering by Plaid spokespeople against the Labour DEFRA Shadow minister because she is an animal rights supporter and a vegan. Plaid Councillors have voted against renewable energy again and again and although there are honourable exceptions I sense a golden boy, Rhun ap Iorwerth waiting in the wings.

Rhun waits patiently in the wings. Brexit has made the Plaid project independence in Europe redundant and out of date. In Welsh Labour a decision will be made on how to elect the first Minister that involves one member one vote. Notice how the Kinnock centrists rail at this project of electing the first Minister this way. Perhaps the Corbynistas are coming to Wales?

There are still those in Wales who cling to the traditions of the old "Brit Left" and this is sad. The end of the British State and of the United Kingdom is the key to this new Wales, an independent Scotland and a united Ireland. I fear that within both Plaid and the SNP I see the ghost of de Valera where the old institutions and classes  that dominate are  defended by the acclaim “ But at least they are Welsh or Scottish and I can imagine the panoply of state and the first warship of a “Welsh navy” but then again I am rather cynical ........

The coming of Paul Nuttal and his call for a "patriotic working class" UKIP requires both Labour and Plaid to take on a party that espouses a white male dominance that has no understanding of disability, women`s rights or an appreciation of discrimination, or  of other ethnicities, sexualities or beliefs. There must not be a UKIP lite response. The role of the elft is to campaign, explain empower and educate it must not become the mean avearage of the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express.

The Welsh Green party has taken a massive step forward. The careerists may have left but those loyal to Eco-Socialism and the Welsh Identity remain. The Wales Green party will be a key player in the emergence of a Red Green Welsh Republican movement.

Its twelve years since I stood down as the first Leader of the Welsh green party. The party in that time has moved forward, it's become inclusive and more radical, it is attracting new converts, new activists and is gaining a clear identity. Alice Hooker-Stroud has added much to this over the last year and point the Wales Green party to a positive and relevant future

I am greatly relieved that because of my “past sins” that I cannot stand for elected office. It's a good thing it saves you from your own ego, your own ambitions and it ensures that your hopes and dreams and outlook exist outside of yourself. Speculation is intriguing and enjoyable. There is a mighty judgement coming but I may be wrong............

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Farage calls off his march...we did it

We did it. Nigel Farage has called off his 'march on the Supreme Court'.

It's a victory for all those who opposed this far right attempt to intimidate the legal system.

Apparently they were worried the BNP and EDL would turn up. Surely this is a predictable consequence of calling a far right demo to whip up hatred? 

We've called off our counter protest. Instead we're organising a major public meeting round the corner, with speakers including Paul Mason and Caroline Lucas MP - to discuss what kind of democracy, Europe and deal we need. 

The Richmond Park by-election...time to fight back ….....

This Thursday sees the Richmond Park by election and Zac Goldsmith will stand as an independent. Young Zac claims it will be about Heathrow but in a constituency where 72% per cent voted remain I suspect otherwise. This will be a by election about Brexit Britain. I can hear the Liberal Democrats scratching at the political casket that is their coffin. I heard it almost fall off during the Whitney by election. In this by election a political centrist reverent is rising from the tomb. In Richmond Parl during June referendum 72% voted to remain This will be the first test of public opinion since the legal ruling by the law lords and it is essential that the progressive side wins.

I hear that polls put the Liberal Democrats less than 4% behind Goldsmith. This is turning into a Brexit by election and while I hope for Liberal Democrat victory on Thursday and I support the withdraw of the Green candidate and the decision of Caroline Lucas to appear in the by election I still have very great concerns. The Liberal Democrats have been moving right since the publication of th Orange book in the 90s and have supported Nuclear P. There essence is s of the market mechanism and I can hear Jo Grimond spinning in his grave. Yet it is essential they win the by election.

We now hear that Farage virtually endorsed Marine Lepen and I wonder if he will appear like Trump's poodle next to Le Pem in the run up to May 2017 in France. As I write I hear that it may be necessary to trigger article 127 to leave the European Free Trade area and that this too will be subject to a judicial appeal. Oh dear all that sovereignty beloved of UKIP.........

Will Paul Nuttal and Farage lead the march , against the High ciourt, accompanied by Britain First and the Fat Right ? will they support le Pen? The ghosts iof Vichy are polluting the shades of UKIP and the working class followers of that party are being lured into the company of neo-fascists and crypto nationalists. The Richmond Park by election allows us a chance to begin the long march against the rise of the Far Right and its UKIP allies...yet the antidote this time is a thin serum of Liberal Democracy.

Ystradgynlais area.... courses starting in Philosophy and self-awreness in January 2017

I am moving to  the Ystradgynlais  area very soon. From January we will be running introductory courses in Philosophy, Self awareness and other subjects These are for people who have no previous knowledge of the sunject. You need no clever words, qualifications or experience. These courses have run successfully in Swansea for some time now and our students are aged from 20 to 80 from all backgrounds and all areas.

To enjoy you just need an open mind that is inquisitive and flexible. Courses from January will include Assertion. Jungian Sand Play and other confidence boosting opics. Please ring me on 07592330467 0r v01792 480245 or e mail me on squabs@hotmail.co.uk. Additional information can be found on www.asclepius-therapy.co.uk

Watching the Narcissists both known and unknown

have been a Therapist for over 25 years. I have seen manipulation done on others, experienced attempts by others to manipulate me and have helped others who manipulate others to change and over come it. This has also helped me spot element within myself and within my every day life. Its helped me deveop sixth senses, intuitive leaps but now I must decide what to do. It would be easy to fade back into private life to get on with teaching and enjoy every day life. So I have to point out the following and leave the observations up to you

The abusive narcissist works in five key ways. In popular culture, the term “narcissistic” is thrown about quite loosely, usually referring to vanity and self-absorption. This reduces narcissism to a common quality that everyone possesses and downplays the symptoms demonstrated by people with the actual disorder. While narcissism does exist on a spectrum, narcissism as a full-fledged personality disorder is quite different.

It’s important in any kind of relationship or friendship that we learn to identify the red flags when interacting with people who display malignant narcissism and/or antisocial traits, so we can better protect ourselves from exploitation and abuse, set boundaries, and make informed decisions about who we keep in our lives. Understanding the nature of these toxic interactions and how they affect us has an enormous impact on our ability to engage in self-care.

1. The Idealization-Devaluation-Discard Phase
Narcissists and those with antisocial traits tend to subject colleagues through three phases within a relationship or friendship . The idealization phase (which often happens most strongly during the early stages of meeting consists of putting you on a pedestal, making you an important of his/her world, being in contact with you frequently, and showering you with flattery and praise. Be wary of: constant texting, shallow flattery and wanting to be around you at all times. This is a technique known as “love bombing” and it is how most victims get sucked in: they are tired of the “games” people play with each other in communication and are flattered by the constant attention they get from the narcissist. You may be fooled into thinking that this means a narcissist is truly interested in you, when in fact, he or she is interested in making you dependent on their constant praise and attention.

The devaluation phase is subsequent to this idealization phase, and this is when you’re left wondering why you were so abruptly thrust off the pedestal. The narcissist will suddenly start to blow hot and cold, criticizing you, covertly and overtly putting you down, comparing you to others, emotionally withdrawing from you and giving you the silent treatment when you’ve failed to meet their “standardsEven though the narcissist can be quite possessive and jealous over friend, their own worth , since he or she views you as an object and a source of narcissistic supply, the narcissist is prone to projecting this same behaviour onto you.

Unfortunately, it is during the devaluation phase that a narcissist’s true self shows itself. You have to understand that the man or woman in the beginning of the relationship never truly existed. The true colours are only now beginning to show, so it will be a struggle as you attempt to reconcile the image that the narcissist presented to you with his or her current behaviour.During the discard phase, the narcissist devalues his or her opponent in the most demeaning way possible to convince the opponent that he or she is worthless.

2. Gas lighting.
Most abusive relationships contain a certain amount of gaslighting, a technique narcissists use to convince you that your perception of the abuse is inaccurate. During the devaluation and discard phases, the narcissist will often remark upon your emotional instability, your “issues,” and displace blame of his/her abuse as your fault. Frequent use of phrases such as “You provoked me,” “You’re too sensitive,” “I never said that,” or “You’re taking things too seriously” after the narcissists’ abusive outbursts are common and are used to gaslight you into thinking that the abuse is indeed your fault or that it never even took place.
Narcissists are masters of making you doubt yourself and the abuse. This is why victims so often suffer from ruminations , because the emotional invalidation they received from the narcissist made them feel powerless in their agency and perceptions. This self-doubt enables them to stay within abusive relationships even when it’s clear that the relationship is a toxic one, because they are led to mistrust their own instincts and interpretations of events.

3. Smear campaigns.
Narcissists keep followers because they love to have their egos stroked and they need constant validation from the outside world to feed their need for excessive admiration and confirm their grandiose sense of self-importance. They are clever chameleons who are also people-pleaser, morphing into whatever personality suits them in situations with different types of people. It is no surprise, then, that the narcissist begins a smear campaign against you not too long after the discard phase, in order to paint you as the unstable one, and that this is usually successful with the narcissist’s support network which also tends to consist of other narcissists, people-pleaser, empaths, as well as people who are easily charmed.
This smear campaign accomplishes three things: 1) it depicts you as the abuser or unstable person and deflects your accusations of abuse, 2) it provokes you, thus proving your instability to others when trying to argue his or her depiction of you, and 3) serves as a hoovering technique in which the narcissist seeks to pull you back into the trauma of the relationship as you struggle to reconcile the rumours about you with who you actually are by speaking out against the accusations. The only way to not get pulled into this tactic is by going full No Contact with both the narcissist and his or her followers

4. Triangulation.
Healthy relationships thrive on security; unhealthy ones are filled with provocation, uncertainty and misrepresentation Narcissists like to manufacture triangles and bring in the opinions of others to validate their point of view. They do this to an excessive extent in order to play puppeteer to your emotions. I. Triangulation consists of bringing the presence of another person into the dynamic of the relationship, whether it be an ex-lover, a current mistress, a relative, or a complete stranger.This triangulation can take place over social media, in person, or even through the narcissist’s own verbal accounts of the other person. Unlike healthy relationships where feelings are communicated and dealt with in a productive manner, the narcissist will belittle your feelings and continue inappropriate accusations of bullying without a second thought. Triangulation is the way the narcissist maintains control and keeps you in check

5. The false self and the true self.
The narcissist hides behind the armour of a “false self,” a construct of qualities and traits that he or she usually presents to the outside world. Due to this armour, you are unlikely to comprehend the full extent of a narcissist’s inhumanity and lack of empathy until you are in the discard phase. This can make it difficult to pinpoint who the narcissistic abuser truly is – the sweet, charming and seemingly remorseful person that appears shortly after the abuse, or the abusive partner who ridicules, invalidates and belittles you to others on a daily basis? You suffer a great deal of cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile the illusion the narcissist first presented to you with the tormenting behaviours he or she subjects you to. In order to cope with this cognitive dissonance, you might blame yourself or others for his or her abusive behaviour and attempt to “improve” yourself when you have done nothing wrong, just to uphold your belief in the narcissist’s false self during the devaluation phase.

During the discard phase, the narcissist reveals the true self – the genuinely abusive and abrasive personality beneath the shallow veneer rears its ugly head and you get a glimpse of the cruelty that was lurking within all along. You bear witness to his or her cold, callous indifference as you are discarded. You might think this is only a momentary lapse into inhumanity, but actually, it is as close you will ever get to seeing the narcissist’s true self.
The manipulative, conniving charm that existed in the beginning is no more – instead, it is replaced by the genuine contempt that the narcissist felt for you all along. See, narcissists don’t truly feel empathy or love for others – so during the discard phase, they feel absolutely nothing for you except the excitement of having exhausted another source of supply. You were just another source of supply, so do not fool yourself into thinking that the magical connection that existed in the beginning was in any way real. It was an illusion, much like the identity of the narcissist was an illusion.

And I saw Donald Trump on a pale horse........

Revelation 6:8King James Version (KJV)

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was President Elect Donald j trump , and Sarah Palin followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the USA to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of Racism and homophobia

All right wing governments drift to war when their economic policy is in tatters. The Generals rubbish the peacemakers, the military industrial complex sharpens up its maw to gobble more and more young people, it promises employment and skills and instead it excretes weapons, it promotes the boogie man and keeps us all afraid. It does not tell you that our allies in the shape of Saudi Arabia, execute with public beheadings over 600 individuals a year. Isis is an apocalyptic organisation it believes in a last day of judgement when in a great battle the infidel will perish. What a gift it presents for the arms industry, what a gift for the failing cult of austerity, what a gift for the Far Right and Marine Lepen

No one taks about the arms trade, the fact that the invasion of Iraq laid the ground conditions that enabled Isis to appear. They dont tell you that after the second Gulf War the provinces of Iraq experienced centralisation, devolved powers were removed and concentrated on Bagdad, that the Sunni were given no representation.

No one tells you that during the Reformation and Counter Reformation in Europe religious toleration we saw similar events that are now happening in Iraq and Syria and on the streets of Paris and Brussels. As long as yo think there is only one true faith, that there is only one right answer then ultimately this leads to the slaughter of Islamic peoples by the medieval Crusader and to the adherents of Isis in Paris and in Brussels. To the true believer the person who thinks differently is essentially a spiritual serial killers murdering the truth. If you are Queen Mary in the 16th century burning the early Protestants, or Calvin in Geneva acting the other way round you create Theocratic Societies where your truth is the only truth. European tolerance did not come from negotiation..it came because nether side could win. Islam and the Arab Spring have begun an Islamic Reformation. Corbyn, the Green party, Russel Brand have begun a challenge to the Neo-liberalism religion of bame and projection . We are at a major turning point in perceptions both across Europe and across the Middle East

Monsters of the Political Abyss

Here we go again, a fatal flaw, a another Brexit like event in Trumps victory , hurt pride, external enemies and there is a collective up-rush of the shadow. What is the problem that the left faces? The problem is an inability to understand how individual psychology can distort the collective lens through which we see the world. The problem for the right is the sheer inability to think collectively, the inability to understand that when we know an individual we should see how that individual fits into the collective. Every critic of my outlook that I have ever met has softened in their criticism. The danger is from those who do not meet their perceived enemies and opponents and I have come across plenty of those. There is now a list of over twenty people who are blocked by myself on Facebook. When we find that the monsters out there are not monsters we still the hidden monsters within.

Three quotes from Jung say it all.

‘”Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world. There, in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, Socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real knowledge of the human soul”

“The change of character brought about by the uprush of collective forces is amazing. A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a savage beast. One is always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances, but nothing could explode in us if it had not been there. As a matter of fact, we are constantly living on the edge of a volcano, and there is, so far as we know, no way of protecting ourselves from a possible outburst that will destroy everybody within reach. It is certainly a good thing to preach reason and common sense, but what if you have a lunatic asylum for an audience or a crowd in a collective frenzy? There is not much difference between them because the madman and the mob are both moved by impersonal, overwhelming forces”

“If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day. “

On a whiter shade of terrorism and emotional fascism.................

What does it take....what must I do to convince you.....? Last year I told you that Anders Brevik was a terrorist.....and I was abused by the right.....denying it.I told you that there would be others and there are Thomas Mair knew all about Anders Brevik, he had books on Nazi Racial theory and the holacaust. He was linked in to the far right, he had trawled the BNP web site, he had researched William Hague, followed Jo Cox on twitter , researched her, stalked her.....and he was not a terrorist was he? But hey what do I know?.Terrorists are only those who have darker skin, you read about them every day in the Daily Mail and the Express.....you let them separate you out from others who are oppressed like you are.....you dont realise that the shortage of houses is a choice of economic theory, as are poor services......but what do I know? I am called a "libtard" by the right...we live under a growing emotional fascism sweeping across the world. What will it take for the unskilled, low waged who were seduced by Trump and Farage into voting for an ersatz Eden....

.I tell you know that when cheap labour is cheapened further....will you wake up.....but what do I know? What will it take to wake you up? When yet another UKIP MEP leaves the party......when having destroyed they disintegrate......but what do I know.? I am just a Libtard who told you so......we are going to need a new way of supporting people....we are going to need a citizens income.....you belong to a society because you live there not because of what you do.....you spend your income in your community...even the guru of the right wing economist Milton Friedman saw this one ..those on low income spend their money in their community ......unlike the wealthy who plug their wealth into the world economy......but what do I know? I wont blame others, I wont project....but what do I know?....like the man who liked the fact that Marine Lepen was in the lead after a posting on my timeline......what I know is that I will block idiots and dupes like you......thats what I know.......And though I am not far off sixty I will stand with the diverse, the different and the other I will support them and the multitcultural, mulitivariable people that they are...and if you post nonsence and blame others......if you claim that Hitler was a socialist I will challenge you to debate publically and expose your ignorance ....thats what I know.....do you?.   

Bugger off Blair you begat Farage

So Tony Blair wants to return to politics does he.? Every prime -Minister since Lloyd George has fantasied about being called back to power. Each dreams of recall king, Arthur like to power. I am sorry Tony for me the word is bugger off Blair. It was you who begot Farage and UKIP bugger off and don't return..you have done enough

I

t was Tony Blair all along. He began it all. He sought to make Labour electable by making it all things to all people. He went along with George Bush as part of this quest. I remember Margaret Thatcher saying that Blair was her true heir. We have had Chilcott and it is quite clear that he did not listen to experts, those who knew what an invasion of Iraq would bring. Tony Blair destroyed the value and respect of experts and it has continued on.

Tony Blair lit the fuse that destroyed the value of the person who thinks, reads and analyses. No expert was believed, the big lie becomes the truth. Goebbels was right. Now we have had the legacy of June 23, no expert was believed, racism walks our streets and we inherit the consequences. Teflon Tony Blair begot a true heir and that was Teflon Nigel Farage. And so we move from Augustus to Caligula, Tony Blair midwife of Nigel Farage and UKIP.

In destroying knowledge, turning our education system into a server of the employer you began in Tony. We teach bland things but fail to help people think critically. The big lie is believed and we haunted by denial of the truth. 

Coming in this morning I remembered the words of TS Eliot s poem the Hollow men 

A penny for the Old Guy


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

In his magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche comments upon the insidious nature of modern political communities, “The State is where slow universal suicide is called Life.” In this video, we will explore Nietzsche’s criticism of the modern State and of the State’s ultimate goal – the creation of the Last Man.

The Social Contract theory is a highly accepted explanation of the origin of societies. Many of the most respected political philosophers – such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Immanuel Kant – agree with the theory. It states that groups of people form societies by surrendering certain freedoms to the authority of a common government in exchange for protection of their remaining freedoms. In the words of Thomas Hobbes, “Desire of ease, sensual delight, and fear of death and wounds dispose men to obey a common power.”

It is important to note the motivations enumerated by Hobbes. Nietzsche believes that these motivations – the desire for pleasure, comfort, and security; and the fear of injury and death – are the characteristics of the Last Man. According to Nietzsche, the goal of the modern State is to change the whole of mankind into this Last Man. “It is the purpose of all culture simply to breed a tame and civilized animal, a domestic pet.”

The Last Man is the antithesis of the Ubermensch. The Last Man has no great aspiration. He merely seeks to earn a living, to be comfortable, and to be content. “We see nothing today which wants to be greater. We suspect that things are constantly still going down, down into something more comfortable, more mediocre, more apathetic. One no longer becomes poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both are too burdensome. No shepherd and one herd! Every one wants the same; everyone is equal.”

The modern man of the West is frighteningly similar to Nietzsche’s Last Man. In the movie Fight Club, Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, describes the mediocrity that Western cultures have imposed on their citizens. “I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering – an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy [things] we don’t need.”

Fortunately, Nietzsche believes that humanity has not yet devolved entirely into the Last Man.

“One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.” In order to conquer the seductive charms of pleasure, comfort, and security, man must embrace the chaos within himself. Naturally, many people of the West will offer resistance against this advice. They will not quit their job because they fear becoming homeless. They fear the pain of hunger; they fear sleeping in the cold; they fear injury and death at the hands of others. They desire the comfort and ease that a paycheck provides, despite the mediocrity and lack of fulfilment that their job provides. They believe that conformity is the only option. They lack the imagination, courage, and ambition to think of new, more exalted forms of life. These are the Hollow Men, the Stuffed Men about whom T.S. Eliot wrote. These are the Last Men.

To conclude, Nietzsche accuses modern societies of promoting the development of the Last Man. The struggle of Modern Man is to overcome all those seductive instincts of the Last Man – the instincts for pleasure, comfort, security, and mediocrity. It is a difficult struggle, but one that is worthwhile. I will leave you with the words of the English Poet John Milton: “Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”

Thirteen quotes on the Shadow by Carl Jung

The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.

Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14

---

---

---

Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

“The Philosophical Tree” (1945). In CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P.335

---

---

---

The change of character brought about by the uprush of collective forces is amazing. A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a savage beast. One is always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances, but nothing could explode in us if it had not been there. As a matter of fact, we are constantly living on the edge of a volcano, and there is, so far as we know, no way of protecting ourselves from a possible outburst that will destroy everybody within reach. It is certainly a good thing to preach reason and common sense, but what if you have a lunatic asylum for an audience or a crowd in a collective frenzy? There is not much difference between them because the madman and the mob are both moved by impersonal, overwhelming forces.

Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.25

---

---

---

Whenever contents of the collective unconscious become activated, they have a disturbing effect on the conscious mind, and contusion ensues. If the activation is due to the collapse of the individual’s hopes and expectations, there is a danger that the collective unconscious may take the place of reality. This state would be pathological. If, on the other hand, the activation is the result of psychological processes in the unconscious of the people, the individual may feel threatened or at any rate disoriented, but the resultant state is not pathological, at least so far as the individual is concerned. Nevertheless, the mental state of the people as a whole might well be compared to a psychosis.

“The Psychological Foundation for the Belief in Spirits (1920). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.595

---

---

---

Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.

“Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.131

---

---

---

We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within them except possibly by a nervous breakdown. What is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in most cases the patients themselves have no suspicion whatever of the internecine war raging in their unconscious. If we remember that there are many people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less surprised at the realization that there are also people who are utterly unaware of their actual conflicts.

“New Paths in Psychology” (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.425

---

---

---

It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster’s body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. Blindly he strives against the salutary dogma of original sin, which is yet so prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is so painfully aware.

“On the Psychology of the Unconscious” (1912). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.35

---

---

---

If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.

“Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140

---

---

---

Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries. Only monkeys parade with it.

The Integration of the Personality. (1939).

---

---

---

We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow. And if such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together.

“Answer to Job” (1952). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.1

---

---

---

The world is as it ever has been, but our consciousness undergoes peculiar changes. First, in remote times (which can still be observed among primitives living today), the main body of psychic life was apparently in human and in nonhuman Objects: it was projected, as we should say now. Consciousness can hardly exist in a state of complete projection. At most it would be a heap of emotions. Through the withdrawal of projections, conscious knowledge slowly developed. Science, curiously enough, began with the discovery of astronomical laws, and hence with the withdrawal, so to speak, of the most distant projections. This was the first stage in the despiritualization of the world. One step followed another: already in antiquity the gods were withdrawn from mountains and rivers, from trees and animals. Modern science has subtilized its projections to an almost unrecognizable degree, but our ordinary life still swarms with them. You can find them spread out in the newspapers, in books, rumours, and ordinary social gossip. All gaps in our actual knowledge are still filled out with projections. We are still so sure we know what other people think or what their true character is.

“Psychology and Religion” (1938) In CW II: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P. 140

---

---

---

No, the demons are not banished; that is a difficult task that still lies ahead. Now that the angel of history has abandoned the Germans, the demons will seek a new victim. And that won’t be difficult. Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into self-righteousness, is their prey…. We should not forget that exactly the same fatal tendency to collectivization is present in the victorious nations as in the Germans, that they can just as suddenly become a victim of the demonic powers.

“The Postwar Psychic Problems of the Germans” (1945)

---

---

---

To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.

“Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” (1959). In CW 10. Civilization in Transition. P.872

---

---

---

A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour.

“The Philosophical Tree” (1945). In CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P.335

Some Camus for a Monday Morning

“Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep”
― Albert Camus

“I would like to be able to breathe— to be able to love her by memory or fidelity. But my heart aches. I love you continuously, intensely.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“The only serious question in life is whether to kill yourself or not.”
― Albert Camus

“It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.”
― Albert Camus

“I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen even loveless slavery, even war or death.”

“It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning”

“We don't have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.”

“To create is to live twice.”

“The loves we share with a city are often secret loves.”
― Albert Camus, Summer in Algiers

“How unbearable, for women, is the tenderness which a man can give them without love. For men, how bittersweet this is.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942

“I've been thinking it over for years. While we
loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. But people don't love forever. A time came when I should have found the words to keep her with me, only
I couldn't." - Grant”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“It is a matter of living in that state of the absurd I know on what it is founded, this mind and this world straining against each other without being able to embrace each other. I ask for the rule— of life of that state, and what I am offered neglects its basis,
negates one of the terms of the painful opposition, demands of me a resignation. I ask what is involved in the condition I recognize as mine; I know it implies obscurity and ignorance; and I am assured that this ignorance explains everything and that this darkness is my
light.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.”
― Albert Camus

“It is not humiliating to be unhappy. Physical suffering is sometimes humiliating, but the suffering of being cannot be, it is life.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935-1951

“For years I’ve wanted to live according to everyone else’s morals. I’ve forced myself to live like everyone else, to look like everyone else. I said what was necessary to join together, even when I felt separate. And after all of this, catastrophe came. Now I wander amid the debris, I am lawless, torn to pieces, alone and accepting to be so, resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities. And I must rebuild a truth–after having lived all my life in a sort of lie.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“In the age of ideologies, we must make up our minds about murder. If murder has rational foundations, then our period and we ourselves have significance. If it has no such foundations, then we are plunged into madness there is no way out except to find some significance or to desist.”
― Albert Camus, The Fastidious Assassins

“You are only excused for happiness and success if you generously agree to share them. But if one is to be happy, one should not worry too much about other people - which means there is no way out.
Happy and judged or absolved and miserable.”
― Albert Camus

“C'est cela l'amour, tout donner, tout sacrifier sans espoir de retour.”
― Albert Camus, Les Justes
―
“In the early days, when they thought this epidemic was much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all the hideous fears that stamp their faces in the daytime are transformed in the fiery, dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering in their blood.”
― Albert Camus

“I noticed that he laid stress on my “intelligence.” It puzzled me rather why what would count as a good point in an ordinary person should be used against an accused man as an overwhelming proof of his guilt.”
― Albert Camus

“The misery and greatness of this world: it offers no truths, but only objects for love. Absurdity is king, but love saves us from it.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942

“I was at ease in everything, to be sure, but at the same time satisfied with nothing. Each joy made me desire another. I went from festivity to festivity. On occasion I danced for nights on end, ever madder about people and life. At times, late on those nights when the dancing, the slight intoxication, my wild enthusiasm, everyone’s violent unrestraint would fill me with a tired and overwhelmed rapture, it would seem to me—at the breaking point of fatigue and for a second’s flash—that at last I understood the secret; I would rush forth anew. I ran on like that, always heaped with favors, never satiated, without knowing where to stop, until the day -- until the evening rather when the music stopped and the lights went out.”
― The Fall