21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

final stage — symbol — is where we turn images into communication, as conversation, literature, art and so on. What I’ve been saying here in our discussions of ascendancy and descendancy is that the aspirational aspects of ascendancy make use of image rather than symbol. They therefore seek to connect with us at a more basic level than our normal modes of ‘symbolic’ communication. The progression is reciprocal to an extent — meaning that later modes of interacting can influence earlier modes. Image, in particular, has the tendency to generate new sensation, and by-passes the more mental and cerebral processes of perception and symbol. How is spirituality made manifest in the particulars of real life? How can science be applied with compassion? How can political ideals manifest as genuine social justice? How can body image enhance personhood rather than be at odds with it? To find answers to these questions is to firstly recognise the ascendancy-descendancy split I’ve been speaking of and then to see what they mean for embodied persons, in families, neighbourhoods and communities and immersed in nature as our first and true home.

Before moving on to explore the economy of descendancy, some last words from Thomas Moore:

‘If we continue to transform all nations of the world into homogenised, high-tech….. all-function cultures of disenchantment, we will have few unique spirits left to nourish our souls. We will be a people without ghosts and without things to house those ghosts, a people so bereft of spirituality in everyday things that we will turn, as many already have, to

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