The last thing mankind will understand about their existence is the obvious, because even though the answers were available all along,
what actually needed to change was people's mindset.
- The Greek
Secrecy dominates this world, but foremost as a secret of the domination itself.
- Guy Debord
There exists a condition at the heart of human society which is often left unexamined,
if not altogether disregarded. Beneath the surface of our public affairs, religions and culture lies a fundamental commonality: an unnamed force that keeps us in the dark about the true nature of things. This force was described as far back as the days of Plato, where he writes about humans who live their lives chained in a cave. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall upon which shadows of the world are thrown. These shadows are their only reality, representing all they know of a world that is actually much bigger and more complex. Upon examining society's major institutions, one finds a similar process at work - there's an uncanny divergence away from their espoused orthodoxy towards a secondary set of values that regulate their affairs in secret. Because of this sleight-of-hand, the systems which people trust end up ultimately deceiving them, and enchained as they are by their traditions and conventions, they remain unable to detect their predicament. "Society" gradually shows itself to be a facade that masks what actually goes on in the world, and in the place of a populace that could at least begin to discuss the issue, the West is filled with people who are better consumers than thinkers. Content to float around in the void of their overvalued individuality, many remain incurious about the realities that lay beneath the surface of their eating, drinking, working, and being entertained. Having failed to properly scrutinize their own lives, such people act as if there's a law of nature governing their happy endings, rather than their own judgments and choices. Society not only makes room for this type of individual, but actively creates more of them by way of its institutions, from mass media and schools to government. Lost within this vast sea of unknowing, most people either live in a state of troubled doubt, resigned apathy, or obtuse self-absorption. Attempts to seek clarity on the issues of the world are either a dead-end endeavor that yield little insight, or aren't even worth pursuing for fear of being too complicated. Though the self-help industry has tried to fill the vacuum created by this condition, its New Age quotables and mantras of positivity can only pay lip-service to the idea of enlightenment. Heftily priced meditation seminars and yoga classes in the suburbs are ultimately a poor substitute for the actual teachings of the Buddha. But engrossed as they are in their consumer existence, group yoga is perhaps the closest some will ever get to seeking answers to life’s big questions.
Though areas like science, politics, and religion have historically been developed by their respective scholars, there is still missing a convergence of these fields to present a holistic narrative of the last 6000 years of civilization. Instead, entire worldviews have sprung up that are largely based on people's fancies, and despite their obvious contradictions, mankind continues to plod along in an almost dream-like state, unaware or indifferent to the defining events of their time. Whether it be the rise and fall of states in the Middle East, geopolitical movements in Eastern Europe, important archaeological discoveries in South America, or breakthrough scientific developments that are swept under the rug, there's no lack of noteworthy events that go unacknowledged by both mainstream media and their audience.
Ideally, human beings should be able to live their lives with a comprehension of their culture and history, but since this isn't the case, it becomes incumbent on each person to identify for himself the process that's divested him of this understanding. As it turns out, the most pertinent things about human existence are not to be found in New Age doctrines or esoteric mystery cults, but are actually hidden in plain sight, concealed by only the thinnest of veils. This veil presents itself as the vast, unquestionable reality which surrounds us, with its primary message being: "The things that seem to be good are most likely good, so don't question them ". Such a statement demands not only a passive acceptance of the status quo, but also imposes the sense of not allowing itself to be challenged. Though many discerning writers and wise-men have historically given different names to this veil, we can for the purposes of Greekspeek refer to it by the term "cosmic censorship".
It's not so much a lack of information that ensures the success of cosmic censorship.
If anything, the Internet has put information into overproduction, doing little to mitigate the dilemma, yet it hasn't occurred to the proponents of this "free information" that knowledge should serve as a means to achieve insight. Mere chunks of data or facts, isolated from a meaningful narrative, will hardly usher in the techno-humanist utopia that counter-culturalists have raved about for the past six decades. So the thrust of cosmic censorship lies not in enforcing ignorance, but in preventing comprehension.
It's a force that disassembles intelligible narratives and renders their conclusions unreachable. The relevant information may exist in plain sight, yet it's simply glossed over for reasons inexplicable. A mindset of laziness and apathy has pervaded the world, dimming people's perception of what should be clear for them to see. The situation can be likened to passengers lost at sea - trapped in a fog, their vessel could be mere meters from dry land, yet they sail right past it. But what happens when the state of fog is so long-lasting that no-one even remembers what sunny days look like? At present, mankind has become blinded by the fog that is their cultural, religious and ideological orthodoxies, which have invaded their minds and redirected their focus. This fog is even more dangerous than darkness, as it creates the illusion of seeing, whilst darkness would at least impose some caution about what might be hiding within it.
Why is there such difficulty in discerning this cloud of censorship? Why can so much be said about the trivialities of pop culture, yet truths about humanity's destiny are dismissed as speculation and philosophical blather? It is partly because the way people imagine the world, and themselves, determines what they value and how they act.
A person is ultimately most appreciative of things similar in nature to himself.
The simple-minded person likes what is simple, and the dull person what is dull;
a man whose thoughts are haphazard is attracted by ideas that are disjointed, and foolishness seems proper to him with no brains at all. But most revealing is that people always have a preference for what they say and create themselves, regardless of its imprecision, as these are products of a character at one with himself. Thus, the power to homogenize, to have people think, speak and act in a similar manner, is the heavy artillery of cosmic censorship. One could see it as a form of social control that imposes on the world a flavorless identity, decreeing that everyone eats the same processed food, watches the same Hollywood movies, laughs at the same type of humor, lobbies for the same range of values that are foisted upon them, and asks no intelligent questions about why things are the way they are. Through its pressure to conform, it produces a gross flattening of the world, bringing both public and private life under the jurisdiction of a widely accepted mainstream - that which is "known" by everyone and taken as the only credible categorization of reality, with all else being underground or weird.
This mass culture of folly creates an exodus away from real critical inquiry towards the kind of faux self-realization that leads nowhere, or at least not to any place of insight.
If such widespread ignorance isn't treated as seriously as other proclaimed crisises of our time, such as climate change or terrorism, it's because mankind cannot see, or refuses to acknowledge its presence.
Cosmic censorship is what maintains the dreamworld of humanity, ultimately expressing nothing more than mankind's desire to remain asleep. Censorship is the guardian of this sleep, and though the world continues to toss and turn in its enforced snooze, the nightmares of the current order are not yet sufficient to shake them awake. It maintains a firm grip over them, even worse than a Big Brother state; at least with a totalitarian government there could be some hope of eventually overthrowing the system.
But with cosmic censorship, only through an external intervention that redirects people’s perceptions can the current condition be addressed. Until such a time, the presence of censorship will remain not only invisible, but counter-intuitive to most.
greekspeek for thought
Do you ever feel like something is generally wrong with the state of the world? Most people do. So how can everyone feel that something is wrong with the general existence, yet live with the suspicion whilst it gnaws at them? And they even admit it when you ask them about it, yet they have nothing useful to say about it!
Our current state of apathy has adopted a "this-is-water" kind of status: Its demands are so thoroughly infused into our culture that to even talk about them can seem, if not hopelessly naive, thoroughly redundant. And even when we do talk about them, the conclusions arrived at tend to reflect an acquiescence to the state of affairs.
Cosmic censorship is the impairment of one's ability to get knowledge and understanding. It doesn't mean that the knowledge has disappeared. All the information you need is right in front of you. It's so close that if it was a snake, it would have bitten you already. But even if you managed to get the information, then what?
What good is it if you can't understand it?
So this is actually a two-fold problem.
One aspect of cosmic censorship is a lack of awareness of a qualitative order, from high to low. In other words, high-resolution knowledge about things like natural law, spiritual matters and the real rulers of the world has to be bestowed on you. You can't just find that information because you decided to go looking for it.
There's a level of censorship in everyone, but some are just less censored than others. Then you have those who are too censored to even know that they're censored. Those people don't even know how to ask the necessary questions because their mindset is shot.
Sure, I'm censored too, but I have less of it since I know that it's there in the first place. We're all subject to censorship, but if you can squeeze out enough clarity to realize that you're censored then it indicates a reduced censorship.
Yes, we have cosmic censorship, but it's not so deep and entrenched that no-one can see through it, otherwise you'll have people giving excuses later that they had no chance against it. Actually, it's just a thin layer of deception, but it's widespread, like an oasis hologram in the desert that affects everyone. It looks real until you reach it.
But no-one is even reaching it because they've been made lazy by the same censorship.
You're blind because you don't want to see, and if you do by some random chance come to see what the truth is, you don't acknowledge it, and even when someone tries to tell you about it, you don't listen. So basically, you're screwed.
