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July 22, 2015
These archetypes are true of patriarchal
societies around the world, and has probably been the case since
Homo habilis was a boy.
Even after enormous upheavals and irrevocable changes, the same pattern has historically reasserted itself over time, just as gravity finds equilibrium.
Although their behaviors are dissimilar,
their differences fit together into one dysfunctional whole,
comprising a society's collective relationship to information, and
indeed, its own truth.
Despite dramatic alterations in the world's geopolitical landscape, and some fluctuation of individuals from one group/role to another over time, the dynamic between these groups has historically remained the same.
What has changed in the technological
age is simply that we have more ways and means to use, misuse,
refute and refuse information.
These archetypes may seem like generalizations; and they are.
They are also ancient and universal in structured societies. How people interact with new information is a result of both primal response and experiential programming, so understanding these archetypes can reveal a great deal about people and their character.
In my experience as a truth-seeker and an activist - a patriot - this is the only thought-model or assumption that can truly help us understand how people relate to information, and therefore how we can best relate information to them.
Commonly known as The Wise Monkeys or The Three Wise Monkeys they are typically depicted sitting next to each other in a row.
One covers its eyes, blinding itself. The second covers its ears, deafening itself. The third covers its mouth, gagging itself. Of these supposedly wise monkeys, none seem much the wiser for its ignorance. In fact, each character is hampering itself and its experience of its surroundings - of truth and information - in one way or another.
And yet this adage of 'wisdom' is still
widely accepted.
Representing the virtue 'fear no evil', the fourth monkey sits with its arms folded over its abdomen.
It is the patriot who, fearing no evil,
questions information to learn and share it with others, in order
that all may progress. It is indeed the only of the monkeys that
shows any wisdom at all!
Zealots fervently support the official narrative; they close their ears and do not hear what's really going on, but tend to keep speaking nonetheless. Elitists keep their mouths shut and do not disclose what is seen and heard, understanding what is happening but opting rather for silence.
Patriots, the least common of the
monkeys, use all their senses; they observe but do not react in
fear.
The Japanese word for monkey is saru
and the expression in Japanese uses verb forms that sound like the
word monkey; mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru and
shizaru. Outside Japan, the predominant presentation of the wise
monkeys around the world lacks the fourth monkey, fear no evil,
shizaru.
This traditional interpretation states that one should not see, hear or speak of inconsequence. It is true that avoiding irrelevance is wise, but this is only part of the truth. In Asia people conceptualized that all movement, physically and metaphysically, begins and is anchored in the abdominal region or dantien, an energy point just above the belly button.
The fourth monkey is unafraid and
unflinching, and watches and listens calmly, with hands resting on
the dantien. Like his companions in
varied measure, the fourth monkey looks, listens and communicates,
but does not react in fear of what is seen, heard and said.
It is an old example of a missing whole truth and a partial presentation.
The absence is normally unconsidered or trivial, but helps to point out the very lesson of the wise monkeys maxim.
The "Theory and Practice to Oligarchical Collectivism" is the book within the book, providing the guidelines for this distopian society, which posits that there are three types of people in the society:
Each conforms to the will of the
collectivist society.
Those of low status are forced to accept the false imagery and demands of their society as their reality, they have been prisoners their whole lives and do not notice the fact they are imprisoned. In the middle (the Outer party) are the unchained, remaining totally transfixed on the party line, as told by the Telescreen.
They are so loyal to the imagery and narrative created by their captors that they will believe whatever they are shown, rather than observe for themselves. They will believe two plus two is five, as the saying goes, as long as it is presented as such on the Telescreen.
Essentially, they are the frightened
monkeys.
The Brotherhood - the organization of patriots - are portrayed by the controlling 'Inner Party' as a rumored group, and the notion of their existence is belittled by the Inner Party, via the Telescreen, and they are 'disappeared' from the mainstream society altogether.
The story's protagonist, patriot Winston Smith, is made to believe he is the last person who questions, who looks, who listens and who speaks.
The rebellious Brotherhood is known only
as a rumor, a fourth vague possibility, and Smith believes himself
to be 'The Last Man in Europe' (the title originally intended by
George Orwell, instead of 1984.)
In reality, the fourth monkey, the
patriot, those who fear no evil and act accordingly, are deleted
from public consciousness in exactly the same way.
Institutional
Suppression of the Fourth Monkey
Institutions can easily influence the three monkeys to their advantage, through the manipulation of information, but they cannot use the fourth monkey in the same way. Institutions delete and distort any notion of such, as they view it as opposition to their agenda of information suppression - and because they themselves are afraid.
That is why they operate in the shadows, hide their true actions and attempt to delete the truth. The fact is, the mentality of the fourth monkey - fear no evil - frightens the crap out of institutions!
And fear is not just propagated by those
institutions but is also a driving motivator used within their own
ranks; patriotism is of course, not welcome there either.
Within and without their own ranks, institutions seek to isolate and disempower true patriotism by distorting and confusing its meaning, and eliminating the notion altogether by instilling nationalistic 'you're either for us or against us' thinking - which is simply elitism dressed up in patriots clothing.
Today, government and media institutions
have attempted to delete the notion of true patriots and transform
our understanding of 'patriotism' into flag-waving idiocy,
war-minded zealotry, and hyper-collectivist elitism.
Institutions prefer to keep true patriots mixed up with the others in the way the public perceives them, for when the voice of patriotic opposition is heard only among the voices of zealots and idiots, it is much easier for institutions to hide behind preconceptions and disinformation.
And they do this by creating 'controlled' opposition, as researcher, author and activist Sonya van Gelder recently noted:
One of the main ways that opposition is controlled and absorbed into the background by those in power, is to create another system that appropriates it.
An example offered by George Orwell in 1984 was the adoption by the Inner Party of 'Big Brother' as the human image to represent them via the Telescreen.
Big Brother does not reflect the
patriotic spirit of brotherhood, or of The Brotherhood, rather it
provides an 'official' narrative while appropriating and
misrepresenting the notion of brotherhood into a 'brand name' of the
Telescreen - one that instills a psychology of collectivism, not
brotherhood, which is a big difference indeed.
The 'Patriot Act' is the perfect example of the modern era.
Quite simply, they take the meaning of words and archetypes, and flip them. Deleting patriots, and the notion of 'fear no evil', from the socio-political narrative is a tried and tested way of the controlling elite to subjugate the society it rules.
Idiots and zealots don't question it, and elitists help to propagate it.
In reality, to consider any information or situation comprehensively and in its entirety, questions must be posed in fourways, not just two.
The very inquiry into the origins of human thinking and being is typically posed through a limited, polarized mindset.
Yet the best answer supersedes the singular polarity.
Traditionally, it is philosophically viewed by the world's "thinkers" as a trinity of options, the third option being the synthesis of one and the other, of thesis and antithesis, nature and nurture.
But while the "both" option is often
considered in this philosophy, the important fourth part missing -
the nullesis, the opposition, the patriot that asks "Is there
a better way?"
They co-opt traits and present their own
qualifications of patriotic behavior, which are far more consistent
with the role of idiot, zealot or elitist than patriot.
The Matrix of Four
Four is symbolic for completion.
The pronunciation of the word "four" in Japanese and Mandarin is similar to the word for death. In Japan and most of China, death and four are near homonyms and the relation instigates fear and aversion of the number.
Four is a number that evokes fear in
parts of Asia and is superstitiously avoided as one would avoid word
of death.
In particular, the absence of the fourth wise monkey helps to point out the very lesson of the wise monkeys maxim itself:
When we stop and consider what is "already there" in our modern world, it becomes obvious how regularly institutions maintain lies by partial presentation of fact and proceed, as if the absent piece never existed and therefore does not matter.
For example, did Iraq actually have weapons of mass destruction? No, but the partial presentation of fact on the part of the U.S. government and their media (the Telescreen) meant that war was carried out in the name of protection, despite the omitted absence of any genuine threat.
The
occupation of Iraq continues long
after those facts were revealed.
There are some things that need no inquiry, and ignorance is most definitely not bliss. Ignorance is temporarily bliss, until the moment arrives when knowledge is needed, at which time one inevitably pays for their ignorance.
Ignorance is strength to institutions.
Institutions instill ignorance because ignorance results in fear and
fear results in dependence, and dependence creates profitable,
compliant societies. And if all else fails, they send in the
military.
The U.S. Government has spent decades concealing the truth, and now that it is losing what Hillary Clinton described as "the information war", it is,
And in each case, the vital voice of the patriot has been excluded from the public narrative, or deliberately confused on the Telescreen with the voices of idiot, zealots and elitists.
While
he was not without fault, he
functioned as a fourth monkey in every facet of his public life.
Unlike the idiot, zealot and elitist, Gandhi lived a lifestyle of
few attachments, and in his public life embodied the characteristics
of the fourth monkey; fear no evil.
Excluding the clothes on his back, his spectacles, sandals and comb, Gandhi's one material possession was a porcelain statue of Three Wise Monkeys, which he received as a gift from Chinese admirers.
Today there are statues of the Three
Wise Monkeys at Gandhi's one-time residence, where he began his
march to protest the taxation and monopolization of sea salt in
1930.
Like the fourth wise monkey,
People are not monkeys.
People are people; it is our reaction to information that defines us. We are all alike; we all want food, and clean water, and personal freedom for instance. The difference between people is in how they react to information.
Our reactions are often based on prior
information, experience and acquired tolerations or fears, and
people can transpose from one to the other depending on the
conditions and circumstances.
They are able to embrace change, including stopping, by openly questioning new information.
Most everyone is afraid of something; afraid of what evil they might see or hear, or have to speak out about.
Patriots may be afraid at times as well; everyone is afraid sometimes. But only true patriots are not afraid of obtaining or sharing information, and speaking out on their perspective of truth.
Patriots are unafraid of taking right action, or halting action on behalf of what is right. If patriots are wary of anything, it is the outcome of the fear and ignorance that continues without the freedom and availability of information.
Patriots look, listen, speak up so that other individuals may benefit.
The strength of the Patriot lies in the lessons of history.
Exploitative institutional mechanics can be dismantled and bettered, and individuals can ascend institutional walls. Just as people are capable of creating institutions, people are capable of halting or developing exploitive institutions as well. Institutions after all, are only a human structure - a social machinery.
When pushed too far, idiots and zealots
are capable of realizing they have blinded their eyes and plugged
their ears to the truth. And when they push a population too far,
controlling empires will inevitably fall.
When evil becomes institutionalized, by governments and corporations, it must be confronted by the people with foreknowledge of their surroundings and conditions.
Only by using the senses and
refusing to serve evil, can one make monkey-work out of
canceling the evil that lurks behind the shadows of our society.
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