'The Greatest Party on Earth'

Type in Rio Carnival in google and you'll see how difficult it was to choose this picture. No-wonder the Tableeghis (missionaries) are not allowed to go to Brazil or Argentina unless they're married. 

"[The disappearance of the carnival] testifies to the fact that disorder has irrupted into the entire course of existence and to its having become generalized to such a point that, in reality, we could said to live in a 'sinister, perpetual carnival'."
--Rene Guenon. 

[The point about order and disorder is taken up in more detail by Eliade in The Myth of Eternal Return]

We're so used to thinking-because of our historical experiences- that the main form of domination is exercised in a totalitarian, oppressive and controlling way. Think of the state, religious authority, the family, tradition and one immediately thinks of stable institutions trying to kill off spontaneity, smothering the individual in a desperate attempt to establish or maintain order, continuity, conformity, passivity. 

But what if all that's changed under liquid modernity or late capitalism? What if it's not property but property rights (alienability) that is the thing to concentrate on? (Arendt saw this way back in 1957).

What if power is now exercised in more subtle ways? Sowing confusion and producing spectacles, persuasion and manipulation, rather than brute force, may be more effective ways of exercising control. Unbounded desires, a superficial notion of individuality, the negation of any image of Man, or any possibility that we have a specific telos results in the view-confirmed by science and re-inforced by the silence of religion-that we are nothing but selfish genes, clever animals with infinite desires, hurtling along without any notable direction in a world of contingency and purposelessness. 

A mere speck of life thrown into an unforgiving vast and grey universe. That we are thrown here suggests it is all just a roll of the dice, a game of chance or a blind turn of mechanical forces (Hans Jonas's point).

Techniques of letting go. Civilisation and culture are repression. The wild man, the nomad, the person who has no orientation (Ostad Elahi), no name and no country (the American woodsman)..that is the ideal. This 'constantly moving happiness machine' is there for the taking by the corporations and the dream merchants.

Go with the flow, just do it. Liberation...mindfulness for CEOs, Buddhism in five easy steps, Islam for Dummies, how to discover your true self (in Oakland) for $ 3.99 or your money back, GUARANTEED. Repeat after me: I am an individual, I am an..Je suis..