[P2P-F] Reflections on Trump, and the role of the commons as an alternative (Holy Mountain)

[Denis Postle]

On 11/02/2017 17:48, Holy Mountain wrote:
> The public debate is being shifted to the right in Europe and the US. 
> The debate is no longer between conservative and liberal. The terms of 
> debate are being framed by the anti-democratic ideas of the extreme 
> right against democratic conservative/liberals.
> Few are equipped to recognise that there are fundamental philosophical 
> issues at the heart of all this.
Hi Kevin, it was good to meet again recently at the ECA. I have found 
this conversation very valuable and I'd like to contribute something 
from a more psychological perspective that constantly seems to go 
missing (though Lakoff's scientific perspective has been hugely 
valuable). This below is from the treatment for a movie I am developing.

*Trance-induction*

Trance induction, aka hypnosis, is well-understood psychological 
intervention in which we are invited to give intense attention to a 
single sensory input, so that the context of where we are is suppressed. 
While entranced we may be highly suggestible.

This innate human capacity through words and gesture and presence, to 
entrance others and be ourselves entranced by a desire, a belief, of 
what counts as desirable or a necessity, has recently become weaponized 
by political interests.

*Benefits of trance-induction*

Humankind is primarily a wilderness of bodyminds in relationship, 
bodyminds that are made up of an internal wilderness of bone, muscle, 
nerves, neurons and grey matter. Trance induction helps us cohere 
psychically, interpersonally and socially..

**

*Disadvantages of trance-induction*

Our bodymind wildernesses have been vastly extended by the rapidly 
accelerating growth of technologies in recent decades. The scale of both 
our ability to communicate with others and the scale of how much we do 
communicate has been astonishing, the global village throbs with a 24/7 
plethora of files, messages, images and video.

This TV, phone, text and image-based chat is great and it acts to create 
and sustain new forms of relationship between humankind wildernesses 
across frontiers and different languages.

However, the benefit we get from them is always accompanied by 
amputation, especially the loss of context. We see and hear a video or 
read a message but we don’t engage with the sender’s presence. The clues 
from feeling and intuition we would pick up if we met in person are 
missing. These clues are an essential element of trust.

To repeat: focusing narrowly, so as to concentrate on a sound or an 
image or a thought, while its context is side-lined or absent, is the 
basis of hypnotic trance-induction.

Being entranced is commonplace, it's a basic human capacity that, we can 
navigate through life reasonably well if it is coupled with frequent 
reality-testing.

A huge part of what minds do in our daily life is the generation and 
interplay of trance-inductions, opinions about people and products, for 
example where we work and where we play, and the trance-inductions of 
music. Alongside this, a key feature of getting on with other people, is 
fielding trance-inductions, checking out how far we can trust somebody 
and checking out what they are offering or what they are demanding.

*Abundant messaging but missing context*

In the global village all of us now inhabit, while messages are more 
than abundant, context in our communications tends to more and more 
scarce. This means that we can be way more susceptible to predatory 
trance-inductions, lies,

manipulation, coercion, 'alternative facts', spin, marketing strategies 
and 'brands'.

*Trance-induction assertions*

Examples would include claims that something is ‘inevitable’, ‘natural’, 
‘evil’, ‘the truth’, and ‘essential’.

Along with the local subtleties of our daily relationships, 
trance-induction has become a core part of political ‘spin’, and 
business, advertising and marketing and how they work. The Trump 
presidential and Brexit campaigns have been signal examples, 'lock her 
up', 'fake news', 'take back control', 'enemies of the people'.

*Fielding trance-inductions*

The elimination or suppression of context from the signals, images and 
messages we receive mean that we become very susceptible to 
trance-inductions that intend to manipulate us, or to coerce, control or 
persuade us. When context is absent, messages in the form of appetising 
lies can be difficult to refute. What goes missing is trust.

*Capital trance-inductions*

Interrupting the trance-inductions of capital and its families and 
friends is very tricky. It means interrupting its ethosthat wealth does 
not equal righteousnessthat capital accumulation is not just and 
essentialthat they are not right about the need for unlimited growth 
and unlimited debtthat the planetary damage and dissolution of trust 
this entails does matter.

*Recognizing trance-inductions *

Becoming trance-savvy seems to mean becoming alert, even to begin with, 
hyper-alert, about recognising trance-inductions when they are pointed 
at us, so as to have more choice in whether we follow what they are 
suggesting, plus diligently reality-testing those trance-inductions 
(such as this movie) that we generate.

Perhaps most important, when someone insists that something is ‘natural’ 
or ‘inevitable’, this is likely to be a trance-induction, if so, look 
for the missing context.

Greetings
Denis
new site text

I have a new web-site: denis.postle.net <http://denis.postle.net> - 
street poetry, free ebooks, writing, photos, videos, music and therapy 
all in one place.



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