The Enlightenment Circuit - Rant Double-Q

[Zurtok Khan]

There is much to be said for being an egoist.  Most of it is said by the egoists themselves, of course, but that is a rant for another day.  What I am here to talk about today is the dangerous kind of egoist.  He is dangerous in the same way that Bush is dangerous.  First, he does not see the difference between the two kinds of knowledge, second, he does not believe in his own failability, third, he cannot admit his own behaviors, and fourth, he believes that token gestures of generosity make him a better* person.

We shall begin with the second point as it ultimately lays the groundwork for the other three.  Man as a being is failable, or at least believed to be generally so.  I accept it as a given, so we shall assume it as one of our premises here.  It is a simple thing to attribute failability to someone else in all measures; it is simple to blame fast food for the fact that someone is fat.  It is a difficult thing to allow one's self to take responsibility for one's own actions; it is difficult for many people to blame their obesity on their own choices in eatting.  The point here is that when examining a question of failability, the self is often the culprit, although the ego attempts to deflect the blame to someone else.  This is the first trick of the Enlightenment Circuit, it places the blame on others, assuming that the self is an ultimately infailable thing that is simply caught in a circumstance that may appear to be failable.  This is, of course, not the case, the self has nothing else it can blame because it is the culprit.

The inability to admit self-destructive behaviors, and in some cases constructive behaviors, is tied intimately with the Issue of Failability.  It ties in well with the blaming of circumstances, and is ultimately a lack of insight into the motivations behind the exibited behaviors.  While this may seem to be the same thing as the Issue of Failability, it is not the same.  One could admit failability to quite an extant without admiting it as a self destructive behavior.

I shall take a moment here to explain point one as it has not become expediant that I do so; the difference between knowing and knowing.  I veiw people as having two kinds of knowledge, the first is analytical facts refering to the fact that Joe has brown hair and that 2+2=4.  The second kind of knowledge is the knowing of the self that refers to the overcoming the Enlightenment Circuit, which is my ultimate goal within this writting (that is, the explination of what it is, thus helping to disolve it).

We are now left with point four, the Belief in Token Gestures.  This belief is perhaps the most absurd of the four points in that it takes the small, random, seldom acts and attempts to relate that to the overall betterness of the person.  This relates to such things as donating 50 cents to disaster relief - once, or thinking "if I had the money I'd sponser a child in country in Africa" and then feeling warm fuzzies because the want makes you better.  Helping people is a habit of action, not a habit of want.  You are no better for wanting (although wanting is the place to start).  

There is what I consider to be an obvious and overt interchange between these four issues.  First, if man does not believe he is failable he  does not see his destructive behaviors, nor does he realize that want is vastly inferior to action, and if does not know the difference between knowing and knowing he will not be able to work towards taking responsibility for his own actions.  Thus it becomes clear why I call it a circuit.  It is a circular process wherein all steps feed into the next.  I call it the Enlightenment Circuit because a person caught within it believes he is in a state of Enligthened Rightness at all times, while he is actually acting on the level of maturity of a 10 yearold.

Of course, what do I know?  My Enlightenment Circuit pushes just as much shit as the next person.

*Def: Better - A quantitative judgement inferring some kind of higher moral/mental status.