Amerika

The defining symptom of the modern time is a fixation on surface traits, and a denial of the underlying structure that is less obvious.

In order to have equality all words, concepts and communications must be exoteric, or accessible to every person in the group with a single step.

This in turn means they will be one one-dimensional, or represent a look at reality where face value becomes a universal, absolute, true and permanent condition which is an attribute of the object itself.

The resulting denial of cause-effect relationships, the passage of time and the fact that most properties arise from interaction instead of belonging to objects themselves, as a modern symptom, creates a kind of blindness that can even infect science.

But it is popular because it extends to all and every one the approval they need to join in society; for this reason, the individual does not feel threatened or compelled, and likes this state.

Unfortunately for them, challenges from life are how we grow. Even more, connections to other people including obligations are how we find meaning. We work together toward goals and others appreciate what we do.

However in a modern time that knowledge is covert wisdom, meaning that it can only be transmitted between those who have accepted the risk of breaking the taboo line.

The contrary idea, which is that all truths are immediately apprehended as a single property, remains very popular and expresses itself through many attitudes.

The worst perhaps of these is book worship — a weird fetish that idolizes the instruments of learning in lieu of the learning itself — because it substitutes fake knowledge for real.

Pretending that going to college makes us smarter, or buying books makes us wiser, is a modern conceit. Anyone can do those things and thus, if we’ve done them we feel no guilt, and if we’re good at them feel justified in being proud of that.

The fetishism of books and education is like all modern things a surrogate for actual knowledge. The learning process is not knowledge, nor are the books, nor the attendance of schools itself. Knowledge and wisdom are internal traits created by a compulsion to learn, and not just learn anything, but learn abilities which requires a study of reality.

If that were a widely distributed trait, humanity would be in a much different place. Since it is not, we fetishize books and other accoutrements of the educated, and pretend it makes us all equally wise and powerful.