Culture

        I've been thinking about something we can all relate to, culture.  Culture is an essential part of our lives as it is the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.  Also, culture is the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.  Traditional western culture is under attack and most people are keeping quiet about it.  Common courtesy is being lost and care for others has been lost.  Loneliness and depression is becoming the norm amongst our youth. Femininity and masculinity is under attack. We have to own the culture in our daily lives as Dr. Farrell reiterates.  This means listening to classical music such as Bach, reading old literature such as Mark Twain, reading philosophy such as Jean Jacques Roseau, waving to neighbors, being courteous to others, and practicing the arts and humanities.  When the culture breaks down people communicate in the simplest form and everyone is communicating in sound bites.
          Typically when the culture breaks down its because the economy is collapsing and the middle class is disappearing.  Which seems to be the trend right now.  In order to restore traditional western culture we must revive the middle class.  How to do this is a topic for another blog.
            According to Dr. Farrell, there has not been a great book written in the twenty-first century yet.  My mother told me that such a book would have to utilize an ancient style of writing that incorporates symbolism, metaphors, allusions, and events happening on multiple levels.  Our musics needs to incorporate these elements.  I intend to write the first great book of the twenty-first century.  Currently, I am working on a science fiction book that involves alchemy, Jedi from star wars, and Earth.  I also write poetry about romance and nature.   
          In his book Microcosm and Medium Dr. Farrell discusses how mind control is done through the arts.  For example, he fiercely criticized cubism because it does not communicate a cosmology.  Art, music, and humanities is meant to communicate a cosmology.  The symbolism within these medium can communicate such things that most people are not aware of.
        Lately, people do not like to deal with nuances.  This is evident in the way people have been interpreting the bible.  Many people take the bible literally and refer to them as the word of God.  Dr. Farrell empathizes that the bible is not to be taken literally as most ancient writing utilized metaphors and symbolism. Also, he does not believe the bible is the word of God as it was written by people that may have had a close relationship with God, but we don't know if they actually received the word of God.  This is a topic for another blog. My mom has spent years doing research into theology and she wrote a book on problems with Mormonism.  She also does not take the bible literally.   
       Gnosticism is a technique in which people change the meaning of words.  This happened when Christianity was formed in the Roman Empire in the 2nd Century AD. Its happening right now.  Before the term gay was used to refer to a homosexual it was used to refer to someone that is happy. Secular Gnosticism is being used on the homosexual, transgender, and racism topics.  It could be as subtle as changing what topics the words are commonly used for without changing the meaning.  For example, the phrase, "Coming out of the closet" is commonly used to refer to someone revealing that they are gay or transgender.  This changes how the word "closet" is commonly associated.  Changing how words are used is playing with cultural fire.