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<p>Glen -</p>
<p>A fascinating question as usual and I appreciate the extra
background you offer below. I've contemplated your central
conundrum ("the apparent contradiction between fascism and
individuality") for most of my life, both from the inside and the
outside. <br>
</p>
<p>I was raised among the ?natural? individualism which comes from
rural/frontier culture where the value of autonomous agency and
independence had obvious value while at the same time, the ability
to engage in short and long-term cooperative/collective endeavors
could magnify and leverage those advantages. There was a dynamic
tension...<br>
</p>
<p>As I moved into more and more urbanized and collectivized
contexts (cities, regional industrial contexts, university,
professional organizations, scientific institutions, etc.) I felt
there was an illusion of advantage given to participation in the
shared identity/values implied but it was somewhat enforced by
in-group/out-group logic which (dis)advantaged (non)
participation. <br>
</p>
<p>With a little perspective of age/hindsight, I realize now that it
was not nearly so simple, and that there were in fact plenty of
*advantages* (carrots) to subsuming my identity, my will, my
agency, my ideations to "the collective", not just alienation and
punishment (sticks) for failing to participate or at least
"pass"...</p>
<p>I now live somewhat by the assumption/belief that my "self" is
something of a contrived illusion, but an autopoetic one.
Somehow, it seems that the emergence of self-awareness on top of
basic consciousness promotes a strong identity boundary with an
acute self-other response at many levels (from the immune system
to systemic racism to rabid nationalism). My main way of
resolving this is through the pop-Buddhist alone/all-one duality
reflection and a sense of soft, multi-scale scoping of "self". <br>
</p>
<p>I know you have expressed an allergy to poetry but for others (or
my own virtue-signal satisfaction) here is one I literally was
writing for entirely different purposes which I think is perhaps
relevant:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Autopoetic Self<br>
</p>
<blockquote><i>Crafting the self's essence,</i><i><br>
</i><i>a mental festival, an inner dance,</i><i><br>
</i><i>clouds of consciousness, <br>
fossilized memories</i><i> revisited and refreshed.<br>
</i><i><br>
The self, a story shaped, constantly askew.<br>
For the self to survive,<br>
it must paradoxically,<br>
dance the </i>danse macabre<i>' *<br>
<br>
*(pronounced Mac-Abrey for the purposes of this poem)<br>
</i></blockquote>
Steve Smith, October 2023<br>
</blockquote>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/1/23 7:36 AM, glen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:0eca903c-940b-4275-966d-81d9111110d0@gmail.com">It's
been awhile since I've run across a new-to-me cult. But 09A
certainly qualifies as a meaty one:
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/new-york-satanic-cult-764-fbi">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/new-york-satanic-cult-764-fbi</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Nine_Angles">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Nine_Angles</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2195065">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2195065</a>
<br>
<br>
I can't reconcile the apparent contradiction between fascism and
individuality. I guess the closest some analysts come is to
suggest that they're only aligning with the fascists, for now, to
bring about the end of the current aeon and the colonization of
the galaxy.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:0eca903c-940b-4275-966d-81d9111110d0@gmail.com">
<br>
I guess it reminds me of the "no enemies to the [right|left]"
rhetoric:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/30/conservative-christopher-rufo-florida-twitter-debate">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/30/conservative-christopher-rufo-florida-twitter-debate</a><br>
<br>
But otherwise, O9A's ... "beliefs and structure" seem incoherent
enough to write them off as just too stupid to care about. However
one author nailed it in saying that there are plenty of both
impressionable and antisocial people using the internet,
susceptible to the "sinister" allure, to cause real damage.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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