by Tom Bunzel
April 23, 2016

from Collective-Evolution Website

As I watch television and the mainstream media with the audio muted, it occurs to me that what is happening in society is the striation into classes by perceptions mainly disseminated by the media, especially entertainment and commercials.

It is not so much that wealth creates class, although that has quite a bit to do with it, but as I look at the way the Presidential race is presented to the public, I see something else…

The Establishment are essentially the cool people in society who have their act together in terms of consuming the right stuff and looking the right way.

And those people stick together. It's no accident that many went to Ivy League schools or had famous or celebrity parents - these are people who feel eminently entitled to their stature within society.

They are thoroughly conditioned to consume the external world to the maximum extent without regard to consequences for other sentient life forms. In their minds, humans, due to our intellect, are superior and have dominion.

But gaps in technology and education have exacerbated the reality that being cool is not really an option for a lot of people, and it's getting exponentially worse.

But of course it is the cool people who control the financial power and with it the technological and media power.

And with the media they are spreading the conditioned mindset that is driving uncool people berserk; namely that if you are not either cool, or actively committed to becoming cool, you are no one.

At the same time, the media is fostering a standard of human conduct that is almost beyond any human capacity to live up to. Everyone is allowed and even encouraged to be outraged and offended by any human failing, no matter how trivial.

And robotics and technology are ensuring that more and more people will be 'uncool,' and 'nobodies,' as there are fewer and fewer significant jobs available and only a few cool people (in proportion to the general population) own the right to derive the benefits from these advancements.

This is precisely the imbalance that Bernie Sanders is pointing out, and it will be interesting to see how well Hillary does against the one obvious fact about her - she likes hanging with the cool people...

It's a difficult situation because we seem to be at a tipping point where the anger within the seething majority will need to be addressed - either with accommodation or "pacification."

There may, however, be another way forward in addressing the issue as one of consciousness, and also conscience.

At the same time that the media has conditioned us to be cool, some people have discovered that being "no one" is actually the only viable means through which to survive this insane system.

By identifying the instances of conditioning both in the public and within themselves, some people are able to quiet the noise. The essence of cool is frenetic activity (always busy) and loudness.

Not just noise or loud music but a level of volume that makes reflection impossible and even suspect.

It's no accident that there is perpetual music in shopping malls and now even restaurants - anything that might break through the conditioning even for a moment is discouraged. It could lead to truth or at least perspective.

But those that discover silence can come to another way. To me that is the lesson of Eckhart Tolle and the only path that allows any sense of sanity.

By finding and perhaps creating space for silence and emptiness, an impersonal higher level of reflection and reason can enter both within us and without, hopefully pervading society before it is too late.