Until not so long ago, knowledge (and its bearer) was elevated in importance by being hidden. One can even say that the knowledge received its meaning only by hiding. The one book in which certain knowledge was written was made accessible only to a few. Who could not read at all first, he stood anyway in speechless awe before these signs called letters, which were never comprehensible to him. The man who gained his knowledge in distant lands (or in the hamlet next but one) possessed something that was only his own treasure. He guarded it jealously. And all the others in his village depended on him. The libraries with their writings in Latin and Greek. The universities. Accessible to only a few. The engineers, lawyers and doctors. In their secret language, understood only by the initiated…. Always the importance of knowledge was measured by its degree of inaccessibility, by the degree of ignorance of others. The importance lay in the separation into a few knowing and many unknowing. If something became common knowledge, so that everyone knew it, then one shrugged one’s shoulders in boredom if someone wanted to advertise it, then one laughed if someone tried to make himself important with this profanity. Strange, isn’t it? If the knowledge is a good pupil of the mind and separates it many from the few, then it is its good child. If the knowledge gives itself away and becomes one with everybody: Then the understanding laughs at it because of its banality. „My goodness! Everybody knows that!“
What everybody knows does not separate enough. So the separation must be maintained, to keep the knowledge (and its carrier!) its value. Now came the Internet, the soul prosthesis of the mind, and did with the knowledge what? It made it available to the masses. Who thinks to know something, must be careful now. His counterpart could pull out his Internet phone and convict the supposedly knowledgeable person of his „half-knowledge“ or state that his knowledge is not „up to date. Doctors, lawyers, engineers and also the party sleepyhead can painfully confirm how annoying it is to realize how all the beautiful knowledge, which yesterday still led to respectful, shy looks of the impressed ignorant, can now have become the subject of the critical discussion of the masses. Thus the knowledge of the mind is now unmasked. If it is not hidden, it is common property and loses all its luster.
But there is another kind of knowledge. Of completely different substance and quality. It cannot be hidden from anyone, nor can it be spread out in front of everyone. So it also cannot be taught and learned. It is the knowledge of our soul. The knowledge of unity and meaning. Someone can have studied all holy books of this world (whether in the original or in the Wikipedia plays no role there) and nevertheless he does not attain this knowledge. Someone can step in front of the door in the morning and suddenly grasped the meaning at the accidental look at the sidewalk of the sidewalk. A knowledge, completely incomprehensible for the mind. Therefore this denies its existence.
But we are not only in a knowledge society, but also in a materialistic consumer society. And if one considers the above remarks about knowledge from this point of view, one realizes that it is the same with the material goods. One would like to think that the esteem of scarce goods began even before the esteem of (artificially scarce) knowledge.
Of course, the mind loves materialism. Also with goods can be separated wonderfully. Into few possessors and many non-possessors. The rare good is increased in its importance, however useless and meaningless its possession (for life) may be. The beautiful principle of supply and demand. I do not explain it once. Everyone can read it by now and then understand what I mean. Everyone knows it actually already, because our life swings from morning to evening only in this rhythm.
The mind is so limited, but its will is limitless. It knows no restraint. Not on principle. Even if it would be necessary. Stop is for him weakness, „regression“. And he is short-sighted. He can only recognize what is happening right in front of his nose (also in terms of time). Everything else is already too far away and gets lost in the blur. Thus, in his attitude of exaggeration (because nothing else it means to know no stop in a development) he has transformed the harmonious and small, the meaningful and being in rhythm with the world into a monster:
1. the competition of the best for the leadership of the community became a murderous fight everyone against everyone with all means (perhaps except murder. In any case officially) on all levels of the existence. Knowledge is one of the most effective weapons.
It was not the principle of community that was developed, but the principle of separation and elevation of one over the other. It became everyone over everyone. The logical consequence of an exaggerated individualization. If we are all alone and no longer part of a harmonious organism, then of course everyone is forced to fight for himself alone, since there can be no one to whom he could trustfully leave the leadership.
Our society resembles the image of predators of different species on a carcass. The coyote may have to die if the wolf also wants to eat. Only we are not coyote and wolf, but man and man. The priests of the capitalism can call themselves there still so gladly lonely wolves. That is no distinction. It is doubly contrary to our nature and, on top of that, a vituperation for the animal that knows better with its natural instincts. Lonely people is a better description…
2. the esteem of the importance of the knowledge of an old man or a member of the community with special knowledge became an instrument of the exercise of power. A means of self-distinction of one from the others. A weapon against one’s own kind.
The action of the knowers in the sense of the community was replaced by a worship of the knowledge whether its power, which it receives if one keeps it only nicely separate from the others. It has become a part of self-identification. In the knowledge society, knowledge is… well, what is it? Power, of course!
3. the appreciation and the necessity of obtaining scarce vital resources such as water, food, warmth and… Love has been exaggerated immeasurably, so that almost all scarce things have a higher „value“ than things available in large quantities. Their importance or insignificance for human survival is independent of this. Also these things have become again an instrument of the power exercise of individuals.
The rest drive themselves to complete exhaustion to obtain these (artificially scarce) things as well, as if they were necessary for survival. The tendency is logically to make highly available goods, such as water, scarce in order to increase the „value“ and thus the power of the possessor. Or vice versa… This is how our society functions via the separation of people from things and from each other based on the things they own.
If I look at these three pillars of our society (competition, knowledge, which is power and „Haste was, biste was.“) in comparison with other beings living in groups, associations, packs – in communities – on this our earth, then I recognize with horror that the human being in this society lives in no community any more. The word „community“ is only a thin flimsy cloak, which is supposed to give him the illusion (depending on his personal imagination) of warmth and security. The concept of „community“ is a sleight of hand that is meant to distract us from the true nature of our world: From the realization of our complete loneliness. From the realization that we are only a cog in the great pitiless machine that has yet to engage in a murderous struggle with the other cogs for its place in the crushing gear. Born to wear for an inhuman system.
The justification that this is the natural course of the world – (economic) Darwinism – is an outright distortion of the facts. No species destroys itself from within by the struggle of its members against each other. The new term, which is becoming accepted in relation to the economy (coined by the economy itself, because it already sounds brutal), rather hits it: It is cannibalism... and to it the mind stands meanwhile. It has already gained so much power that it can already lift the cloak a little without worry (and without shame).
Someone may say, „But we can go on vacation once or even twice a year…. and we have been living in peace for decades… and we develop the poor nations, so that they have it better and they equalize with us and there is no discord because of the imbalance.“ We are not living in peace. We are waging wars internally and externally. In a rational way. Approved and legitimized. Completely within the framework of the three pillars: Destruction of competition. War for knowledge advantage paired with economic wars for the conquest of markets. Everyone against everyone. With temporary purely opportunistic alliances. They are wars against states, companies, the next. And we produce weapons, finance classic wars, participate in „missions“, but only called „wars“ by others. And further probably. To believe we live in peace: That’s the thin ceiling I was talking about… the sleight of hand – Where are we developing the „poor“ countries then? To communities of our caliber? To self-tearing monsters? To parts of the machine to globalize the struggle. And then what? What happens then? I told you: the mind is myopic. Everything before it is blurred. – The vacation thing, though, that’s true. That’s really, really nice.