Personal Transformations: Moving from Violence to Peace

[marct]

Hi WM,

I submit that claims to "special" esoteric knowledge beyond the reach of the hoi polloi are not limited to magical and mystical traditions. For example, this sounds a lot like the reasoning of the RC church until the Vatican put the Mass into the vernacular instead of Latin. Or do you consider the RC church in the mystic tradition?

Oh I totally agree. Almost all human institutions are based around a differential control over knowledge. Actually, I would consider the RC church to be based on a mystical tradition, but not in its exoteric form. For example, the Vatican II shift into the vernacular actually destroyed a lot of the symbolic linkages that had been established in the minds of many practitioners. You can see this in the fairly large amount of people leaving the church including large numbers of the priesthood and monastic orders.

I think that any organized group, religious or secular, has a body of knowledge that it considers esoteric. I further submit that ithis knowledge is graduated into various levels or degrees (apprentice, journeyman, master, e.g.) The knowledge of these various "secret handshakes" is passed on to those worthy enough to receive it in a series of initiation rituals of various kinds. With US Army officers, for example, it is partially codified in the various levels of military schooling one must complete to be eligible for promotion.

Sounds right to me with the one caveate that the Guild organization you are referring to is a Western European model, and doesn't apply all that well in some cultures. There are usually recognizable similarities, though: student, someone trying to gain mastery, someone who has achieved mastery. Where the structures tend to differ is in things such as creating a "level" which has the social right to "speak" for the "guild" (aka Guild Master), or where someone has the "right" to modify "guild" knowledge.

There are some other similarities that operate as well. One thing that you find is that the right to practice any esoteric knowledge system, including military operations , is conditional upon passing fairly strict tests. Sometimes these "tests", actually they are rites of passage, are run by the "guild" or profession, and sometimes they are judged by the general members of the culture.

Marc

Marc

[zenpundit]

"

That's a good point, Mark - although it's more likely that it's self medicating via dopamine and nor-epinephrine . My own fieldwork tended to show three major personality types: the Seeker (someone searching for transcendental "meaning"), the "natural born follower" someone searching for a cause), and the type you mention. Add to that the usual mix of cynical opportunists, badly psychologically damaged people and the occasional person who has there feces coagulated, and you have the typical New Religious Movement. On the whole, unless an ecstatic religion is a fairly strong part of the cultural matrix, it does tend to be used as a "drug". "

To religion I would add powerful secular ideologies - nationalism, national socialism, communism and so on. Perhaps there's a basis for a journal article entitled " The neurochemistry of Eric Hoffer's True Believer"

[wm]

Oh I totally agree. Almost all human institutions are based around a differential control over knowledge.

There are some other similarities that operate as well. One thing that you find is that the right to practice any esoteric knowledge system, including military operations , is conditional upon passing fairly strict tests. Sometimes these "tests", actually they are rites of passage, are run by the "guild" or profession, and sometimes they are judged by the general members of the culture.

If we agree that the various forms of institutional control amount to leveraging knowledge, how does one apply this to the current Small Wars environment?
Seems to me that this is the kind of tactic that would be useful in pulling potential recruits away from the terrorists and into the camp of the "defenders of truth, justice and the civilized way" (to parapahrase slightly). I am proposing an alternative spin to the traditionally WHAM approach to COIN. I submit that a part of the terrorists' appeal is a sense of belonging and growth. What alternative organizations could be supported to fill the void in a socially constructive way for the seekers who now gravitate to "Future Bombers 'R' Us"?