Social Identity

[Peter]: The expression I heard Richard use was to ‘keep your hands in your pockets’, meaning be wary of doing something you may regret while in the midst this period of psychological and psychic turmoil. The process can be very confusing and disorienting for one is demolishing one’s own spiritual/ social and one’s instinctual identity – something any good psychiatrist would warn you against and something your priests and Gurus will utterly condemn as being evil. It may be useful to ask questions such as – am I trying to change the other, am I blaming the other, is my reaction considered and considerate or is it thoughtless instinctual? One’s own interactions with others provide a literal goldmine of valuable information as to how the human psyche is socially and instinctually programmed.’ I spoke to No 7 just a while ago about a recent experience with fear. There is no need to really go into all of it right now, but in light of what you wrote, the advice to ‘keep your hands in your pockets’ is sensible. I do regret acting unwisely in the situation. I did become somewhat aggressive. I recall the supervisor saying that I was ‘defensive’. [endquote].

With no social identity to maintain and no social ladder to climb I am now free to set my own pace as to how I like to spend my time – except for the time that I sell for a living, in which case the pace is set by those who employ me.

VINEETO: The desire for sex is a complex issue in that it is both socially conditioned and instinctually ingrained. Instinctually the male seeks to spread his semen as far and wide as possible whereas the female looks for a strong, faithful and controllable partner to raise the offspring. Both on the social and on the instinctual level, this programming is responsible for the systemic misunderstanding, disappointment and dissatisfaction between the genders. Because the instinctual sexual drives are accompanied by powerful chemical processes in the brain, the battle between the sexes is so endemic.

• [Richard]: ‘ ( … ) around the time of puberty onwards, adolescents become increasingly serious and childhood fun gives way to societally-inculcated obligations and responsibility.

[..] To defend the belief that this life is forever fatally flawed – defend to the point of idiocy – is actually a cowardly attempt to stay hidden inside ‘humanity’. To skulk behind a sick social contract is a desperate ploy to remain ‘human’. If one takes one’s intellectual ability back from the decrees of the cultured sophisticates – to which one has surrendered – one has taken a courageous step. One has cast oneself out of the biggest group there is … humanity. If one stays within the group, for its perceived safety and security, one is selling out to the system because of a pusillanimous character.

[Richard]: ‘In 1980, ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the natural world and just knew that this enormous construct called the world – and the universe itself – was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the ‘wisdom’ of the world ‘I’ had inherited – the real world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free … ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so exquisite to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly … the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then!’

PETER: If ‘I’ seek meaning for ‘my’ life then narcissism can be the only result – and the long history of the famed spiritual search attests to this fact. If ‘I’ simply reject the traditional meanings of life then meaninglessness aka nihilism can be the only result and this seems to be where U.G. Krishnamurti has ended up.

The phrase ‘good of the whole’ seems to imply this, but closer examination reveals that ‘the whole’ exists only in bombast and blather … it is a concept, an ideology. Only an individual person – a flesh-and-blood body – actually exists. Where people have no integrity – which is the case in order for the ‘whole’ to exist – they have no genuine individuality. They are invisible … as if a non-person, a statistic, a number. They may complain about the ‘dehumanisation’ process, little realising that they are but a social identity … a fictitious entity having only psychological existence. This social identity has taken up residence in the body and rules the roost in an autocratic manner. Nevertheless, it is itself subject to the commands of the community, for it is a loyal member, having been created by the community – the ‘whole’ – in the first place. This loyalty thrives on the moral investment that the social identity has made in the community; one’s very ‘well-being’ depends upon receiving a continuous supply of moral dividends.

But then again that’s the challenge intrinsic to the process of actualism – to do something radically different to what everyone else has been biologically programmed to do and socially conditioned to think and feel, to be sensible in that one obeys the laws and conforms to societal protocols yet be a rebel in that one devotes one’s life to not only breaking free from the crowd but to become actually free of the human condition itself.

The two common human reactions can be crudely summarized as fight or flight – assertiveness, standing up for ‘my’ rights, making ‘my’ point, demanding justice, etc. are in the fight ⚔️ category and being humble, surrendering ‘my’ will, being grateful, turning the other cheek, being a pacifist, etc. are reactions in the flight 🏃 category. These typical reactions are prevalent both in the spiritual world and the real world and are socially instilled and/or instinctually programmed.

The way of becoming actually free is both simple and practical. One starts by dismantling the shadowy social identity which has been overlaid, from birth onward, on top of the innate self until one is virtually free from all the social mores and psittacisms (those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning). One can be virtually free from all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques which were used to produce what one feels and thus thinks oneself to be: a wayward identity careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity. However, it is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is.

Incidentally, Mr Rossum’s Twitter biography reads “fully vaccinated” with pronouns “He/him” (usually a form of status signalling of woke identity politics, if not a bizzare reinforcement of one’s illusory gender identity) plastared over it.

“I have instead come to believe that [crypto is] so harmful that I cannot ethically continue to ignore them, and must instead do my best to educate and advocate against their wider adoption. I am picking my battles, and this is one of them.” –Ms. Molly White (a self-identified “queer feminist” and anti-crypto grifter who is also described as “leading” a crowd in an attack).

RESPONDENT: Can someone please list the laws contained within the method that enable one to minimise the social identity and the instinctual passions?