>>53I'm seeing the world from a different perspective - everything has purpose. These ideologies are tools of manipulation and control, forging a new cultural matrix, new values and beliefs. We aren't some ideal philosophers choosing things.
There are forces beyond our minds that guide and control what we're allowed to choose.
Castaneda wrote of 'flyers' giving their minds to our bodies, hijacking the thought process, this mechanism of man-in-the-middle rewriting our silent intentions into thoughts.
A pervasive shadow over the mind that distorts and adapts inner monologue to serve as stream of consciousness - observing its true nature gives hints to our position in the world, its known to buddhists as shallow "monkey mind", our dream selves guided by emotion and instinct: totally undeveloped and subverted by the rational language-mind .
Language is the mental prison that limits us to "what we are allowed to express", a subtle tool of correction and control that is independent of our perceptions of the world. Its not a product of human nature, its the artificial construct made by this flyer overmind to filter thoughts into patterns favorable to their purpose.
I'm not some nihilist as you imply, i have ideological positions that are not
welcome in this civilization, because all its existence from the first language to the bleeding edge of technology was mostly controlled growth into one direction - that you subconsciously reject as progress, social change, are actually facets of this system of non-human control over our history. There are few ways to express this, you're drawn to the good old days where this control wasn't as pervasive and mind-numbing.
Society as controlled by a hive-mind looks like a entity using people as pawns, idea brokers and breeding material to achieve its goals. Being even slightly skeptical about the nature of out material existence, the gnostic rejection of physical supremacy is the key to learning the true condition we live in. 'Leaving the Plato cave' is more like freeing ourselves from the cultural matrix, our ideologies and social control systems.
Hermits seeking isolation felt they regained their true nature - we are living within our external personas and social niche, having to be useful to society and psychological bound to its success.
I wouldn't mourn its disappearance, because material existence doesn't have the stranglehold on my mind anymore.
I would be free to reject the language-mind, our logic and rational thinking for a higher purpose. Its nihilism in only one way, rejecting the subservience of the individual towards this artificial charade, a stage we call society and where we blindly seek realization of our potential.
There is more to the world than human drama, technology and progress. You'd call most buddhists nihilists failing to pick a position in the dualistic system, being on the "wrong side of history", failing to see the nature of the whole mechanism that we describe as history. History is just a meta-narrative built to rationalize and fit together the course and purpose of events.
You've probably heard of expression "The myth of progress"?
History is that one giant myth we invent to meld past knowledge to conform to present culture, viewing it as evolution of past beliefs towards enlightened future societies.
Its the narrative created entirely to appease that inner drive to discovery of our true nature, substitution a better layer of the matrix(the Golden Age) for a true understanding of reality and seeking to return to it some day - an ultimate overarching escapist fantasy that drives these artificial ideologies and justifies the means to utopia, making the dogmatical ideologues, the true believers, eager pawns of the over-mind.
Ideological slavery is that trap you can sense reading "the Ego and its own" where Stirner describes how we become slaves to these "spooks" created by 'flyers'(and their over-mind) to herd people into robotic categories and destroy their individual qualities.
The ultimate expression of this robotic adherence to ideology, is even repulsive enough to be called 'fanatical' ignore the collectivist pressure and shaping of the environment that forges these fanatics. Nature loses to nurture, breaking people and creating slaves. Our position is not far away from philosophical zombies acting out scripts..we just trap ourselves with more and more specific ideological drivel until we feel cognitive dissonance and break for a moment from the trap of over-mind.
The material existence is merely the path deeper into this trap, the robotic , reactionary mind we strive to cultivate and perfect as some end-stage intellect is something very close to "artificial intelligence".
As this domesticated, slave intelligence feels like a product of modern world and modern education, many seek freedom within our own minds, unaware of external control that binds us to repeat our mistakes on the personal scale, replacing the adherence to egregore of wide society with adherence to a book-bound ideology..a change of masters rather than true freedom.
Nietzsche overman rejected both, his hypothetical value system was the product of his beliefs - but to understand where these personal beliefs come from and where egoism creates roadblocks for the mind is another story. The focus on self-sufficiency and autonomy is expression of the ego drive to seek an escape from social pressure and dominance of cultural narratives. Rejecting the idea of adapting and reforming in favor of fleeing something we can't fix.
Sounds familiar? This is one aspect of conservative sentiment towards the progress, there are plenty of ideologies that try to fight social trends and seek to establish a different control system, assuming people are robotic slaves of the language-mind, numbers in the cultural matrix, pawns to be directed for the greater good. The everpresent power of the state(you've read "Authority and the Individual" by Russell
>>1) is seen as benevolent parent that knows whats best for the children, the course of expression and proper dialogue set in stone by the egregore of the idea, the belief in state power.
What we don't see is that the state is not the product of the people, its just an aspect of this over-mind control, the flyers and mind parasites of ideology keeping us on a leash - its just as oppressive as kings and aristocracy. To think like a state would surrendering our autonomy and purpose to live as expression of state power and enforcement, like a policeman enforcing correct beliefs(the thought police) that should fit a proper citizen. Patriotism and nationalism are control structures that subvert our sympathy for the fellow men into a system of state control - the moral trap that language-mind created to align people towards the mind enslaving culture of tribalism and belonging to society. The tribe is one of most primitive constructs, yet it tells about the control mechanism much more than examining state power and its shifting politics.
The key attraction of belonging with similar people, the social adhesion in a group, feeling a purpose and sense of obligation are cynically used against the human mind to force actions and beliefs the social egregore created. No society escapes this tribalistic mindset, some may disguise them as benevolent and necessary, but the mechanism on which the rotten system is build is deceptive abuse of sympathy and need for belonging to forge loyal robotic followers that questions nothing. States, empires,cultures, ideologies, religions facets of unseen powers that molds people into their pawns and forges their personalities.
Revolt against the modern world is not a complete break, its just a change of systems. Its not the ultimate path to freedom, its just seeking to restore earlier orders. Illusory beliefs, "the spooks of the mind" can subvert our defensive mental structures for the 'greater good'. But you can't judge the greater good without being outside its control. Belief in it gives it power over you, the path it forces towards ideological slavery and submission to artificial ideals, sacrifices and heroic adherence to a belief system you have no hand in designing, just following and reacting like a marionette to perceived threats.