Worlds Collide

Today as I glanced at my YouTube feed I noticed an odd video: Dave Rubin and Eckhart Tolle discussing mindfulness, consciousness, and spirituality as a means to bring balance to one’s life. Huh? I rub my eyes – this cannot be, guys like Dave Rubin focus on political and intellectual issues whereas Eckhart Tolle focuses on spirit and awakening.

Most of you have probably heard of Eckhart Tolle, the famous spiritual teacher and best selling author. However I bet that many of you have never heard of Dave Rubin or his show.

How did I get interested in a guy like Dave Rubin? Well, over the past few years  I found myself increasingly fed up by the polarization of left and right, not just politically and socially but also in the media. Many organizations consider themselves ‘non-biased’ but hold strong ideological leanings – Fox on the right, NY Times on the left, and the list goes on and on.

The icing on the cake last year was observing how so called journalism played a role in the collapse of my yoga school. A number of ideologically charged, biased and slanderous opinions were put forth from reputable news organizations as ‘journalism’. Attention was not paid to details or to facts. Today, simply observe headlines from different organizations referring to the same news events – the bias is already there in the title and headline.

Generally what I see are individuals and organizations lining up along ideological lines – and anything that doesn’t align with their message is considered wrong or even dangerous. The term used for this today is Identity Politics. For many years I considered myself a left-leaning liberal, but I started to notice that the left was taking positions on issues I simply did not agree with. I could no longer easily identify myself along traditional political lines.

The big thing missing in today’s conversation is CRITICAL THINKING. It’s so much easier to repeat talking points or take a pre-defined stance on the big issues. But have you ever actually sat and pondering any of them? Have you listened to alternative view points on big issues like race, feminism, immigration or economics?

I starting seeking alternate voices.  I found them in the so called intellectual dark web or IDW. Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Claire Lehmann are some of the leading voices in this movement. Quillete.com is a blog that publishes articles considered to ‘radical’ for the mainstream media. The traditional media establishment is trying to define this group into neat ideological corners – conservative, liberal, radical, this or that. However they do not form alliances based on their identities or tribal affiliation. They vary in gender, sexual orientation, race, and political affiliation. But they all share two distinct and (now) uncommon qualities. First, they are willing to disagree fiercely, but talk civilly, about nearly every meaningful subject worthy of public discourse: religion, abortion, gender identity, race, immigration, the nature of consciousness. Many of the opinions they hold on such topics can sometimes be in contrast with the orthodox opinion of their respective tribe. Second, they are intellectually honest and thus resist parroting what is politically convenient or politically correct.

In essence, they are critical thinkers, not aiming at political correctness. This gets them attacked in the public at large, even to the point of losing their jobs or speaking engagements. Yet, due to the rise of alternate media like YouTube, they have managed to find wide audiences and are being heard. For example, Jordan Peterson has over 2.1 million followers on his YouTube channel. A good introduction to this movement can be found in this video from the Rebel Wisdom YouTube channel.

I may write more on this in the future, but to be honest I hesitate and fear posting any political or ideological thoughts online in the current climate – it almost feels dangerous.

Coming back to the beginning – I always saw my spiritual pursuits and my intellectual/political interests as very distinct boxes or compartments in my life, with very little overlap. To see these two boxes come together, really brought a ton of joy to my heart – and I genuinely hope that as part of an overall healing and evolution of public discourse and human evolution we will see more and more of this integration.

Enjoy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHhEPUp5X_I]

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A Walk in the Sky

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Missionary Position