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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson Fairy tales: The dreams of the oppressed by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News      January 30, 2008   "Row, row, row your boat Merrily down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream. Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream If you see a waterfall Don't forget to scream" The wisdom of nursery rhymes is a deep well. For instance, most of politics is reflected in "The Emperor's New Clothes." But this rhyme offers the deepest wisdom offered by this genre. This is because the first verse cuts through to the deepest level of reality, one that we almost universally ignore. To a first approximation, the world that we experience turns out to be an aggregate of the dreams of all of us. The dominant themes of our reality are those that the greatest number of us dream of. This is important to consider because we can control our dreams and thereby change our reality in radical ways. In fact, this is the only way of introducing real change. The earliest dreams to have gone wrong conjured up civilization, by emphasizing a desire for security that was realized through destructive farming and animal husbandry practices (the nine-year-old in me always smiles at the image of a farmer being "husband" to an animal). Still dreaming and not yet satisfied with the security and comfort provided by these anti-ecological activities, we   used these illicit (as in, against the laws of nature) surpluses to go on to invent war and slavery. Grown fat on the proceeds of these crimes, dreams of being amongst the winners, of becoming one of the slave drivers and thugs, turned us to ever greater visions of security bought at the expense of other's losses and thus we saw the invention of mass production, a cornucopia of delights for the lucky few, dreams fashioned from ever more powerful weapons and more efficient kinds of slavery. All of that is prologue to the real message of the rhyme. This panorama of destruction has been generated primarily by the dreams of vast numbers of the dominated, the domesticated humans that inhabit the lowest levels of the pyramid of exploitation that crushes them. If we are all dreaming of being rich, then the vast majority of us condemn ourselves to being poor. This insight allows us to solve the paradox of "democratic" empires. How is it that a population will consistently vote against its own interests? What can account for the popularity of politicians that preach such dedication to self destruction? The rhyme says it is because the force of the dream, the influence of myth, is far more powerful in peoples lives than the concrete reality that they experience. The dream of a chance of being rich, the remote opportunity, no matter how improbable, of being able to live better than those around us, to live off the labor and treasure of others, is an irresistible force. Hence the oppressors -- the George Bushes of the world -- are actually conjured up by the dreams of the oppressed. A more concrete example for, as Robin Williams was wont to say, "those of you on Quaaludes" (a once popular soporific prescription drug of abuse) consider the paradox of gambling. Countless poor people pour money into a system that efficiently fleeces them and then uses that purloined wealth to support a political, educational and media structure that works to keep them ignorant and readily fleeced! All these deep realities, like classic literature, are founded on universal principles of human biology. Who among us has not been tempted to gamble and entertain fantasies of great winnings? Who among us would not sell out if the price were really right? Granted there may be a few such refusenik oddballs, but such vulnerabilities are as much a part of our natures as are love, compassion and aesthetic sensibility. The problem is just that the dream of inviolable individual security is such a convenient handle with which to grab us and use us against our own best interests. So we are what we dream of. But why is it so hard to eschew such self destructive dreaming? Basic biology is my guess. As an evolving social creature, dominance ranking in the small, self-sufficient group was a necessary evolutionary invention. Parallel with the evolution of a drive to dominate, and avoid domination, there evolved mitigating negative feedback loops that kept this drive from becoming destructive. An appetite for love, mutual concern, for the good opinion of others in the group, and many other influences, served to balance the social life of the species and make survival possible. The advent of civilization, the growing prominence of ever larger groups of people dreaming together as an influence on the history of our species, changed the equation from a positive to a negative value. A sustainable species transformed into a self destructive one that, like some primitive colony of yeast cells injected into a concentrated solution of sugar, has led to overpopulation and eventual death from the polluting effects of its own growth. So am I being a nihilist? No. Stating the fact that the odds are against us because of deep-seated flaws in our nature is not the same thing as saying we are totally condemned to destruction. A Buddhist story will, I hope, help illuminate the path to salvation. The Buddha was confronted one day by a group of angry Bahamans (the priestly cast of India) who demanded to know if he was God. The Buddha responded that he was not. Then they demanded to know if he spoke for God. Again he said no. Then they demanded to know what, in fact, he was. He responded, "Awake." The lessons from the Buddha and from the nursery rhyme are similar. To the extent that we remain asleep and dreaming, disconnected from the reality of consequences of our dreaming, then we are indeed lost. To the extent that we are willing to wake up and look upon our dreams with compassion and a degree of self-deprecating humor, we can choose those to dream those dreams that actually serve the interests of ourselves in the broader context of the rest of humanity, and the rest of life on earth, and achieve a sustainable life that is full of the vividness of both joy and sorrow. The second verse of the nursery rhyme I quoted speaks of the alarm clock that is ringing furiously to wake us from our self destructive dream of dominance and wealth at the expense of others. If we wake in time we may actually be able to row to shore before going over the fall of extinction. © by the author.   We're usually unable to forward readers' emails, but both readers and authors are invited to visit our 'dialogue' page for two-way communication: unknownnews.org/dialogue.html   This is an archived Unknown News page. For newest material, visit our main page.   YOU CAN HELP We try not to whine too much or too loudly, but we are poor and this site eats a lot of time and especially money. Just a buck or two can make all the difference and help keep Unknown News alive.   Donations        Sponsorships Stickers and stuff for sale Subscriptions        Wish list        Thank you       < Please buy a sticker so the site won't flicker.

Unknown News This is who we are, what we do, and why we do it   To the extent that we remain asleep and dreaming, disconnected from the reality of consequences of our dreaming, then we are indeed lost. To the extent that we are willing to wake up and look upon our dreams with compassion and a degree of self-deprecating humor, we can choose those to dream those dreams that actually serve the interests of ourselves in the broader context of the rest of humanity, and the rest of life on earth, and achieve a sustainable life that is full of the vividness of both joy and sorrow.