Dwyer - The Art of Mind: Ideology and False Consciousness

Tableof Contents

There aredifferent ways to use English, as with any language. Much thoughId like to speak German and indeed more French than je ne sais pasmy study really lies in communication or connection. EU officialsspeak technically correct English, or thats my impression from theway they present themselves. Theres also legal English, theirprofession get quite into that and theres lots of other examples,scientific, computing and so forth, each a little world of theirown.

Mostly I wouldhave been instructed to write in a particularly formal andconstructed manner. In fact everyone is told they should write incertain way. Reflecting on it now it seems like something of abrain lock. Perhaps what is required is to not do the same aseveryone else. Specifically I mean in academic literature but alittle more imagination and inventiveness across the board wouldntgo amiss.

I mention thisas after writing a few books as the English that I use is notstandard, its not just related to a subject. When doing mywoodwork, that has a whole vocabulary and methodology tied in. Whendiscussing a project a type of language is used, preferably in feetand inches! Thanks to my Buddhist teachings, I may at other timesfall into another entirely separate vocabulary much of which isnteasily translatable such as Bodhichitta, Vajrayana orDharmakaya.

My style ofwriting, or method more accurately is Transmission English. Someonerigidly stuck in their ways could find this fairly frustrating,perhaps thats the devil me, deliberately throwing a curve. But howdoes one change people if not by changing their environment, theenvironment in which they think. I thought of an example for this,in the spy movies perhaps some characters would clandestinely meetup and exchange a secret code the roses will be red this summer.The meaning lies within the dialogue.

I Ching uses asimilar terminology such as the wily old fox will cross the thinice. This means someone with experience can achieve somethingdifficult. By implication the young fox will fail. However bycommunication I dont necessarily mean allegory. I mean a use oflanguage that triggers a response. I dont do many guidedvisualisations but I used to have a smoking a cigarettemeditation where I could have someone imagine they are sitting ina comfy chair really enjoying a cigarette. I do struggle with themorality of my guided meditations but it had a point in as much assmokers dont take the time to enjoy a cigarette. Anyway its nothalf as bad as my heroin visualisation, and moving swiftly on.

In my fourthyear of college the opportunity arose to study Marxism under thesenior tutor Madeleine Whalberg. The course was carefullyconstructed over four years to reach this point. Though anyonecould choose the object of their papers, the subject wasessentially theory of theory. On what ground would a belief systemlay. Overall the BA Honours covered the usual tracks of philosophy,sociology, economics etc.

Everyonestudied the same groundwork for the first year. Looking at theclassic western philosophers, post Copernicus dating generally fromwhen people noticed apples fall of trees and the universe isdifferent through a telescope. As with most revolutions thisprobably caused more damage than good. Science replacing religionor so it appeared. An alternate view could be science as nothingmore than the bastard son of Catholicism, creating an unnecessaryrift in the continuity of existence.

My view here isrefined down to strange people using the word we. Perhaps theterm is supposed to reinforce, legitimise or even imbibe authorityand so some scientist will say we dont yet fully understand theuniverse. I now take the we to mean the person is some sort ofcult member. From a perspective similar to Althussar I suspectscience just represents an ideological standpoint of a smallersection of society if looked at in terms of power. It lacks theweight of the Catholic Church and so tries to puff itself up toappear greater than it is.

The track Istudied was called Planning, generally looking at planning policyin terms of what it was supposed to be and then the reality of whathas actually taken place since the post 1945 legislation. Adepressing subject perhaps but we did get to go on lots of fieldtrips. In Holland the planning seemed to have some socialconscience and structure behind it. A sound belief that leads itsway into action. In the UK its more a case of two facedpoliticians greasing the way for themselves and their businessfriends.

On one fieldtrip we were taken to County Durham to look around the decimatedindustrial landscape. Particularly the closure of the coal minesand British Steel in and around Consett. We had a meeting with thelocal council and a guy there was just so pleased with what theyhad done with the place. So I asked dyou think grassing over slagheaps is an effective planning policy? Guess it was a conversationkiller. Three and a half thousand people made redundant from thesteel production alone, and they plant grass.

One may think,why write about it. Theres nothing new about corrupt politiciansand how their disease spreads. But this is the point, something newis required. Its important what a person does with their mind.Your mind is gods gift to you, what you do with it is your giftto yourself Maharaji. Do some people just wake up in the morningand think Im going to be weird with other people all day long,because at some point, that comes to an abrupt end.

In terms ofMarxism its not so easy to find authentic reading material.Marxism Today was a lively journal. Louis Althussar on reproductionof the conditions of production is interesting as class analysisand a favourite with cultural studies. Larrains Concept ofIdeology is quite an easy read as academic books go. Marxs ownbooks are hard to read but its not too difficult to grasp the ideaof historical materialism. What are the current circumstances andwhat were the circumstances prior. One needs a wider perspective tounderstand it as a method.

Historicalmaterialism isnt entirely unique in this. Its similar to karmajust coined in mechanical or industrialised language. Marx livedtrue to his beliefs, encompassed by a dark and inhumane world hefound himself in. He was thrown out of various parts of Europe toend his days in England, the home of Capitalism. The idea of theindustrial machine not missing one last scrap of whatever it canchew up or Capitalism bringing the disheartened child back to itsbreast?

There's a moralside to Marxist theory suggesting a far better world we could beliving in. It also suggests that there are consequences forpursuing a course that is directly the opposite of that. Oddly, andwith a humour not a mile from Candide, this is what makes Marxunpopular. Few people despise their own failure more than theperson pointing it out to them.

Despite amonumental show of disdain Marxism is employed globally as aneconomic model for large businesses and corporations. Who appliessurplus value more efficiently than mobile phone companiesoutsourcing to China and selling the final product to the West atten times its production cost. People just love it, they want a newone each year. All the way from production to consumption, everyoneengulfed in this mist.

There is ofcourse a hitch and consequences. The hitch being exploitation isimmoral. When people do bad things ultimately they feel bad. In thepast a blacksmith made a horseshoe, the price would be thematerials and the labour to the blacksmith. No one skimming theprofit. I dont much believe in the economies of scale, massproduction always seems to end up eating itself. Anyway, why doeseveryone have to have a car and not only that but why a car thatlooks exactly the same as everyone elses car.