Part 3:11E Pseudo Idealistic Adolescentman

The Born-Again, Pseudo Idealistic Late Adulthood Stage of Adolescent Humanity

The Pseudo Idealistic Adolescentman stage encompasses the time of the ‘mid-life crisis’ and the adoption of Pseudo Idealism—the ‘born-again in support of cooperative idealism’ lifestyle.

The species: Homo sapiens sapiens—0.05 million (50,000) years ago to the present day

The individual: 40 to 50 years old

In this 40-year-old stage, upset was compounding at such a rapid rate that the graph charting its intensity did go into free fall, with social disintegration an imminent prospect. But with upset compounding throughout humanity’s adolescence, we always knew that if we didn’t find the relieving understanding of the human condition in time then eventually the human race would enter a final end play stage where the levels of upset anger, egocentricity and alienation would threaten to destroy humanity. And this fear did play out: the two million year race our species has been involved in between self-destruction and self-discovery did finally enter this crisis stage some 50,000 years ago and the variety of humans involved was H. sapiens sapiens—us, anatomically modern humans who emerged from H. sapiens at about that time. In the case of the individual growing up during humanity’s human-condition-afflicted, insecure adolescence, this was when, at about 40 years of age, we entered our so-called ‘mid-life crisis’.

At this point in our journey, our upset had become so great that, on one hand, we were hating the condemnation from the cooperative idealistic world of our soul with such fervour that we were beginning to become murderously behaved, while on the other we were despising ourselves for being so upset and destructive of the world. Although we had, through the measures taken through our 30s, developed a great deal of instinctive capacity to restrain and conceal—civilise—our upset, it was becoming so great that it all too readily broke out, revealing the extremely angry person we had become. So despite all our efforts to ‘conquer the world’ if we were resigned, or ‘fix the world’ if we were unresigned, all we had to now show for ourselves was an overly upset individual—in truth, a wreck of a person. In the words of The Man of La Mancha, we had finally ‘marched into hell…[and became] scorned and covered with scars’—that was the price we had to pay for pursuing the ‘heavenly cause’ of trying to prove that the human race is fundamentally good and not bad.

But what could we do? The so-called ‘mid-life crisis’ long associated with becoming 40 years old had arrived. The essential problem for us personally was that we were loathing and depressed about what we and our world had become—a crisis that has parallels with the situation that we faced in our early adolescence when we first started thinking philosophically about the corruption both in the world and in ourselves. The journalist Ali Gripper acknowledged this parallel in an article titled ‘Turning 40 and Frantic, Mid life crisis’, writing that ‘Mid life is undoubtedly a recycling of adolescent issues. It is as if the psyche goes back and picks up the threads of what we were dealing with as teenagers’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 29 Mar. 1996). As with the situation that occurred in early adolescence, when resigning individuals were faced with extreme states of despair and depression about their circumstances, or unresigned individuals were faced with the ever-increasing wrongness of the world around them, so 40-year-olds were faced with variously extreme states of desperation about their situation. And like the adolescent struggling with their extreme despair and depression, the 40-year-old’s mind similarly searched frantically for a way to solve the problem of their now untenable situation. And just as the unbearably upset and psychologically desperate adolescent came up with a desperate solution to put aside the reality of their circumstances completely by resigning themself to living in denial of cooperative ideality and thus the depressing issue of the human condition, so too did the, by now, extremely corrupted 40-year-old—BUT this time the evasion was achieved through focusing on the positive, guilt-relieving effect or feeling that came from being civilised. The angry 30-year-old had learnt to restrain/​civilise their upset, but what the desperate 40-year-old realised in their frantic search to find a solution to their problem was that being civilised or ‘well-behaved’ or ‘good’ produced a guilt-relieving positive feeling and that this was the one positive in their life that they could derive some reinforcement from.

When humans are psychologically cornered they typically ‘scan the horizon’ for any positive, no matter how small it is, and make a huge deal out of it, and this situation was no different. Frantically scanning for any positive that could be employed to escape condemnation and depression, it was the side effect of feeling good when we behaved in a civilised way that the 40-year-old latched onto to develop. Indeed, in the case of the more extremely upset 40-year-old, so desperate were they for relief from the horror and guilt of their situation that their mind decided to focus so completely on the positive that they were good when they behaved in a cooperative, civilised, ideal, loving way that they deluded themselves that they actually weren’t corrupted, that they weren’t massively upset human-condition-afflicted people. They convinced themselves that the mask or facade of civility was not actually a mask or facade at all, but the representation of their real self, their true state—‘I am behaving in a cooperative, loving way, therefore I am an upset-free, guilt-free, human-condition-eliminated, thoroughly good, cooperative, loving, sound human.’ It was an extraordinarily false/​dishonest/​deluded interpretation, but the depression from feeling guilty/​bad/​worthless about being so upset was so great that their mind was well and truly capable of making such a grand delusion. The situation was similar to the resigned person being so overwhelmed by the depression caused by their predicament that they were capable of making the extremely false interpretation that instead of having integrative, ‘Godly’, unconditionally selfless, moral instincts, we actually live in a non-integrative world of random, directionless change, and have selfish, competitive, survival-of-the-fittest animal instincts that make us competitive and aggressive, and therefore there is no psychological dilemma of the human condition to have to explain.

This 40-year-old ‘do good in order to delude yourself that you are actually good, that you are actually free of corruption and thus the dilemma of the human condition’, extremely deluded strategy of coping with the problem of the now massively corrupted human-condition-afflicted state has been so seductive that it developed into an industry so huge and so influential that the dishonesty involved threatened to destroy humanity.

To elaborate, while being civilised—that is, using self discipline to restrain and contain your upset so it didn’t show—did help contain destructive behaviour and provide relief from doing so, what happened during the 40-year-old stage, for both humanity and humans individually, was that this relieving, ‘feel good’, ‘warm inner glow’, ‘blissed out’ positive of having restrained your upset and behaved in a ‘good’/​ideal/​cooperative way became the entire focus of existence. In the end, as we will see, when humans became extremely upset—saturated with the problem of the corrupted state of the human condition—their whole mental preoccupation became one of searching for situations and opportunities where, through doing ‘good’, they could derive ‘the rush’ of relief from the condemning issue and truth of their corrupted state. So again, while the 30-year-old used civilising self discipline to restrain and conceal their upset, unlike the 40-year-old they weren’t using it to delude themselves that they were ideally behaved, upset-free, guilt-free, human-condition-eliminated, sound people.

The immense danger of this preoccupation with relief-hunting through ‘doing good’ was that it could become so consuming, so addictive and thus selfishly indulged that it could stop the all-important search for knowledge, because if there was too much preoccupation with ‘doing good’ it could result in insufficient tolerance of the corruption that unavoidably resulted from pursuing humanity’s heroic search for knowledge—ultimately self-knowledge, the liberating understanding of the human condition. If there was too much emphasis on cooperative idealism humanity would never find the liberating understanding of the human condition, and if it didn’t find that liberating understanding humanity would be condemned to the eventual emergence of terminal levels of upset—in particular, unbearable levels of the psychosis and neurosis of alienation from having to adopt excessive amounts of psychological denial and delusion. In short, the dogma of doing good could oppress and even stop the all-important search for knowledge by denying the freedom to be, to a degree, corrupted. As we will see, this extremely dangerous situation did arise; humanity did face a death by dogma, a fate that only the finding of the liberating understanding of the human condition—that science has made possible and which is being presented here—saves humanity from.

The danger of excessive oppression of freedom was particularly great because of the massively seductive effects of relief-hunting. If we return to the Adam Stork analogy for describing the human condition, at any time Adam could surrender to his criticising instinctive self and fly back on course, obey his instinctive orientation, and by so doing stop and thus relieve the criticism emanating from his instinctive self, but that meant abandoning the all-important search for knowledge. And in the case of humans, when we ‘flew off course’ and became angry, egocentric and alienated the sense of guilt from defying our cooperatively orientated, all-loving, ‘Godly’, moral instincts was immense, so for us ‘flying back on course’ was an extremely guilt-relieving, and thus an extremely tempting, option.

There was, however, a further, very significant dimension to the problem of ‘flying back on course’—being, as we revealingly say, ‘born again’ to supporting instead of resisting the cooperative ideals our instinctive self dogmatically demanded—which was that since our instinctive self was orientated to behaving cooperatively, when we abandoned the search for knowledge by taking up support of cooperative idealism we were not only abandoning the battle to champion our ego or conscious thinking self over our idealistic instinctive self or soul, we were also siding against those fighting the battle. We weren’t just ‘taking a rest’ to recuperate, we had actually switched camps/​allegiances to side with the enemy. It was completely subversive, mad behaviour—in fact, an act of cowardice and treachery—because in switching sides the individual was basically saying, ‘I don’t care about humanity anymore, I only care about making myself feel good and relieving my own guilt.’ They were being totally selfish, the complete opposite of the selfless and ideal person they were deluding themselves they were. And since the lie they were maintaining was so great, in order to maintain it they had to work very hard at convincing both themselves and others of it, which meant they were typically a strident, extremely intolerant, even fanatical, advocate of their position.

Yes, in choosing to be ‘born again’ you had to work very hard at maintaining the conviction that what you were doing was right because, while we haven’t been able to explain, confront or talk about it, the truth is all humans who have lived during humanity’s adolescence have intuitively been aware of the battle of having to overthrow the ignorant idealism of our soul—when we shook our fist at the heavens we were saying, ‘One day, one day we are going to prove that we humans are good and not bad.’ We knew that to give up the battle against our idealistic soul, and not just give it up but side with the enemy and against those trying to win the battle, was a crime against all those still fighting for understanding, and against humanity as a whole. So despite how tempting an option it was, in reality the revulsion of siding against humanity and those fighting the battle meant that it took a great deal of despair and fear of depression about being overly corrupt to give up the battle and change sides.

We intuitively knew that changing sides and being born-again to living in support of the cooperative ideal world of our soul, while immensely relieving, was also immensely loathsome. The delusion, dishonesty and betrayal involved was immense, but for ever-increasing numbers of people the need for relief from feeling guilty/​bad about themselves became so great it could not be resisted.

Again, the great danger was that, since upset was the price of searching for knowledge, if everyone became addicted to selfishly indulging the relief of ‘doing good to feel good’ there would be no tolerance of non-ideal upset behaviour, and humanity’s all-important search for knowledge, ultimately liberating self-knowledge, would be shut down, condemning humanity to eventual terminal levels of alienation and thus extinction. So while Resignation to living in denial of the issue of the human condition and taking up a competitive, egocentric, selfish power-fame-fortune-and-glory-seeking lifestyle was, in itself, extremely desperate and mad behaviour, at least you were still participating in humanity’s great battle to overthrow ignorance. As irresistible as it became for ever-increasing numbers of people, the ‘do-good-to-feel-good-and-pretend-you’re-sound-and-pretend-there’s-no-need-for-any-freedom-from-idealism lifestyle’ was far more desperate and far madder and far more dangerous behaviour, because you were not just abandoning humanity’s great battle to liberate itself from ignorance, you were siding against it.

Certainly, the upset behaviour that resulted from participating in humanity’s heroic search for knowledge was increasingly causing immense human suffering and environmental devastation, but if we didn’t continue the search for knowledge then there was no hope. To put it in political terms, the harsh, brutal reality associated with what became known as ‘right-wing’ politics was bringing about immense human inequality, hardship and suffering, and it was destroying the planet, but it was the search-for-knowledge-oppressing so-called ‘left-wing’ politics that posed the real threat to the survival of the human race—because only the search for knowledge could lead to the finding of understanding of the human condition and the liberation of humans from that totally unbearable, crippling, soul-sickening, black-dog-depressing, real-person-extinguishing, deadening, human-life-denying condition! While, as the journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft recognised, ‘the great twin political problems of the age are the brutality of the right, and the dishonesty of the left’ (Australian Financial Review, 29 Jan. 1999), and, as the scientist philosopher Carl von Weizsäcker also recognised, ‘The sin of modern capitalism is cynicism (about human nature), and the sin of socialism is lying’ (mentioned in a speech by Prof. Charles Birch that was reproduced in the Geelong Grammar School mag. The Corian, Sept-Oct. 1980), it was NOT the ‘cynicism’ and ‘the brutality of the right’, BUT THE ‘lying’, ‘dishonesty of the left’ that stood like a colossal ogre over the human race, threatening to destroy it!

To return to the Adam Stork analogy once more, Adam knew from the outset that he had to continue with the upsetting search for knowledge, that he could never afford to stop until the liberating understanding of his corrupted condition was found. That was his fundamental reality, and it has remained our fundamental reality. The Statue of Liberty is as good a symbol as any of the fundamental responsibility we humans have had to maintain freedom, which we can now understand means freedom from the cooperative ideals in order to continue the upsetting search for the knowledge that would allow humanity’s ultimate freedom. Paradoxically, real idealism, the real path to an ideal world, depended on continuing the corrupting search for knowledge until we found the human-race-liberating understanding of the human condition. The strategy of hunting for guilt-relieving, feel-good causes was in truth pseudo or false idealism, because it meant abandoning, and, worse still, oppressing, and—even worse still—actively opposing, that all-important search for knowledge.

In summary, with so much upset in human life and in the world, humans have had to counter its effects with a degree of idealistic, concern-for-others-and-concern-for-the-world behaviour, and in truth becoming civilised did involve a degree of abandonment of the upsetting battle in favour of being idealistic and showing concern for others and the world, but, as has been explained, what happened is the feel good aspect of behaving ‘ideally’ evolved into an extremely dangerous industry. Again, if there was too much pseudo idealistic obedience to the ‘good’, cooperative ideals through too many people becoming seduced by this ‘do good to feel good’ preoccupation there would not be sufficient freedom from those condemning ideals to carry on the all-important corrupting search for knowledge. At any time Adam Stork could fly back on course and feel immensely relieved of the criticism emanating from his instinctive self, but he would be abandoning the heroic search for knowledge. Siding with the cooperative ideals was always going to become all but irresistible as upset from searching for knowledge became overwhelming, but we had to resist, not lose our nerve. Given it has been so hard to explain and argue why not being ideally behaved is good, and so easy to argue that being ideally behaved can’t be anything but good, ‘the left’ has had a field day mocking ‘the right’ as selfish, immoral and evil, so this quote by the great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) stands out as a brave and rare pronouncement on the need to hold our nerve and continue our great heroic battle to champion the ego over the ignorance of our instincts: ‘There have always been many sickly people among those who invent fables and long for God [ideality]: they have a raging hate for the enlightened man and for that youngest of virtues which is called honesty…Purer and more honest of speech is the healthy body, perfect and square-built: and it speaks of the meaning of the earth [to face truth and one day find understanding of the human condition]…You are not yet free, you still search for freedom. Your search has fatigued you…But, by my love and hope I entreat you: do not reject the hero in your soul! Keep holy your highest hope!…War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your pity but your bravery has saved the unfortunate up to now…What warrior wants to be spared? I do not spare you, I love you from the very heart, my brothers in war!’ (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, 1892; tr. R.J. Hollingdale, 1961, pp.61-75 of 343). The English author and journalist George Orwell (1903-1950) was another who bravely recognised the very real danger of humanity losing its nerve when he famously predicted that ‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face [freedom] forever’ (Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949). In fact, as mentioned and as will soon be documented, this end play, death-by-dogma fate for the human race had all but descended upon us and is only being avoided by the eleventh-hour arrival of this understanding of the human condition.

As pointed out, all humans have been intuitively aware that when they took up the born-again, pseudo idealistic way of coping with the human condition they were siding against humanity, siding with the enemy, and that doing so was a loathsome act of cowardice and treachery. So while the desperately upset, mid-life crisis of the 40-year-old stage made taking up the born-again, pseudo idealistic way of coping a tempting option that was worth trying, the revulsion of living so treacherously caused many to change sides yet again and return to the upsetting battle of searching for knowledge. However, when they returned to the upsetting battle they could only expect to become even more upset, angry, egocentric and alienated, which introduces the final stage that living under the duress of the human condition could result in—the extremely tragic Hollow Adolescentman stage.