Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00334)

Hi Paul,

I knew I could rely on you for a succinct explanation, and I 
appreciate the trouble you took to provide it. And on St. Paddy's Day 
too...

> Thanks. I "went" to 18th century North Carolina, a nice place to
> visit but...

Really? I've been wandering around in 17th-18th Century Massachusetts 
and Europe, reading my latest fav author, Neal Stephenson, "The 
Baroque Cycle,"and find life there strangely familiar and amazingly 
less convenient. But ever stimulating. 

> Here's a link on memetics:
> http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/SciAm00.html
> 
> which provides some background for what I will suggest in response to
> your question. If we grant for the sake of argument the notion of
> memes, that is replicable ideas/behaviors/styles etc., then some memes
> are more powerful than others. That is, they propagate more readily
> because they "stick" in people's memories and get repeated. As to why
> the topic of CWL keeps coming around (not just any CWL topic, but the
> deception/molestation issues) when we might be discussing something
> more uplifting and immediately relevant, I suggest that it involves
> the most powerful memes. Which, according to articles I've read,
> include sex, danger, crisis, heresy, as well as security, belonging,
> tradition.

This does make a lot of sense. It relates to certain teachings about 
the student preferring the familiar darkness to the unfamiliar light. 
It also resonates with the strength of what theosophy calls the lower 
self, the feet of clay, so to speak. We all have them and certainly 
we have the responsibility to go through it all. As in, we can't get 
around it...I remember a sort of self-appointed guru in the 60's, 
proclaiming one day that there is something in human experience that 
is better than sex, that we would all understand some day. We didn't 
believe it, of course. We probably still don't. 
> 
> The CWL mess can be summarized in terms of powerful memes. DANGER!!
> CRISIS!! SEX HERESY!! will always get and keep people's attention,
> for evolutionary reasons according to the memetics authors. Bush used
> the gay marriage amendment in 2004 as a skillful way to push these
> very buttons because it's a surefire way to get and keep attention
> (and distract attention from other issues.) Nothing in the *tone* or
> *approach* of Dr. Tillett's treatment of CWL is sensationalistic or
> denunciatory in tone, but the *facts themselves* are both. What
> Tillett-bashers like Radha B. *really* hate are the *undisputed* facts
> about CWL, but they choose to blame the messenger instead of the
> perpetrator.

Perhaps it's a personality thing, but I find it very distasteful, 
dredging up unsavory facts or innuendoes about other people, dead or 
alive. It feels sticky and dark, like mean gossip. It seems somehow 
dangerous in itself, as though it could overwhelm one's better 
instincts, drag one down into the same dark world, make one lose 
one's sense of balance, of sanity. Maybe it's just me? And I wonder 
really what purpose is served, beyond the sort of dreadfully 
delicious sensation of wallowing in the worst we can imagine? You 
seem to be saying this is the way it is and I am asking but does it 
have to stay this way? 
> 
> The counter memes of Adyar loyalists are along the lines of "feel
> secure in belonging to an unbroken tradition" and those don't hold a
> candle to the danger-sex-heresy memes about CWL. Perhaps in unwitting
> acknowledgment that theirs is a losing hand, they turn to juicier fare
> along the lines of "vile lies and innuendo emanating from wicked
> persons out to undermine Theosophy." (There's a parallel here
> somewhere, hmmm.)

It's a pretty clear one.
> 
> I would dispute the implication that revisiting historical issues
> precludes pursuing practical work in the present. Multiple lines of
> discussion can occur simultaneously. 

Indeed they can, and do. Sometimes it is useful to focus attention on 
the process. We can ask ourselves, why do we find this essentially 
salacious material so very interesting? Is this really what we want 
to spend our time and energy on? What purpose does it serve? Some 
will find it important to them, and that's fine. But maybe there are 
some who just never thought about choosing what to think about, what 
to react to, how to evaluate what comes across the ether to lodge in 
their consciousness forever. 

Ann, Anand, Dallas and you
> deploring ongoing discussion of CWL only feeds the fire (because being
> told they shouldn't be interested in a subject is a guaranteed way to
> make folks more interested in it), whereas initiating a more positive
> discussion of another topic would perhaps dampen it somewhat.

It isn't so much a matter of telling others what to be interested in. 
Not on my part. Honest. I can't stand being told what to think, do, 
want, like or anything else. I'm more interested in bringing some 
light on our collective process. We may have an opportunity here, to 
focus a bit on self-control, on self-responsibility. We can look 
around and see everywhere in the word the results of some pretty 
immature bahavior on the part of humanity. Is that what we want to 
perpetuate? Or do we want to do it a bit better?

All the best,
Adelasie